Industries
Banks fear restaurants. We fund them.
Restaurant lending has a bad reputation among banks and a thriving one among lenders who actually understand food service. We work with the second group.
What we fund
| Need | Structure we usually use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen equipment (ovens, lines, refrigeration) | Equipment financing, 3–5 yr | Asset-secured; soft costs like install can ride along |
| Build-out or renovation | Term loan or SBA 7(a) | Landlord timelines rarely wait for bank committees |
| Second location | SBA 7(a) | First location's P&L underwrites the second |
| Seasonal float | Short term loan | Sized to carry payroll through the slow season |
| Getting out of an MCA | Term consolidation | The most common restaurant file we see |
The MCA trap, specifically
More than any other industry, restaurants end up in merchant cash advances, because card receivables make them easy to sell to. A 1.4 factor advance repaid over eight months is roughly 80% APR, and the daily debit hits hardest exactly when covers are down. Consolidating one or two advances into a monthly term loan is frequently worth more to a restaurant's cash flow than a 10% revenue increase. Bring us the payoff letters; the comparison is free.
What underwriters want to see from a restaurant
- Card settlement consistency. Daily batches tell the real revenue story.
- A full year of statements if you're seasonal. Three summer months from a beach town tell a lender nothing they can use.
- Rent under control. Occupancy north of 10–12% of revenue gets questions; have the answer ready.
Second locations
The strongest second-location files we see wait until the first store shows twelve clean months of profitability, then borrow against that record rather than projections. SBA 7(a) is usually the structure, and the guarantee is what lets a lender fund a concept that is, on paper, doubling its risk.