Restaurant Feasibility Study in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA Metro Area

Full-service dining in the Atlanta record

SBA's loan files list 836 full-service restaurant loans approved in metropolitan Atlanta from FY2017 to FY2026, adding up to $613.3 million in gross dollars. In the local mix the class is first of the 39 classes SBA records, and among 821 metro and micro areas it holds sixth place for full-service restaurant loans. At 1.24x on the location quotient, these restaurants account for a heavier share of local SBA lending than the country sees. The class carries heavy weight in the local book, and the median loan is large beside the national class median.

What the loan sizes and program mix say

The median loan is $487,750, equal to 1.77x what the class borrows at the national midpoint. Half of all loans sit between $256,750 and $932,500, a range that sits well above the national class median. Of the 836 loans, 776 are SBA 7(a) and 60 are SBA 504, so almost every loan is under 7(a) and 504 is a small share. Only 17.8% of the loans went to franchised concepts, leaving most loans without a franchise flag, and a franchisor's system data will not help a study of them.

Lenders, counties and the years

Fulton County leads with 253 loans, followed by Gwinnett with 149, Cobb with 107 and DeKalb with 97. Under 7(a), SBA reports Metro City Bank holding 50 loans worth $44.7 million, The Huntington National Bank 46 loans worth $16.5 million, Renasant Bank 37, SouthState Bank, National Association 34 and Newtek Bank, National Association 32. Under 504, Florida Business Development Corporation holds 17 loans worth $11.8 million and Small Business Access Partners, Inc. 15 worth $12.8 million. Read those names as SBA's own bookkeeping on who carries the paper, which says nothing about what a given lender would ask of you. Yearly approvals fell to 50 loans and $28.3 million in FY2020, then climbed to 106 loans and $74.4 million in FY2024.

Outcomes, limits and what a study must test

On the outcome side, cancellations hit 10.4% or more among FY2017 to FY2024 approvals, while write-offs reached 5.6% or more among FY2017 to FY2021 disbursements; later events can only push either number up, so each is a floor. Inside five years of approval, 3.4% of the 355 loans in that cohort were charged off. A ceiling for cancellations is withheld here, resting on too few loans, and it should never be read as zero. Atlanta membership comes from where each project county falls under the 2023 metro map, a match made on county name, with unplaceable counties omitted. A feasibility study for a restaurant here has to test demand at the trade-area level, build costs against a ticket this large, debt service coverage under the stated loan range, and the appraisal.