Restaurant Feasibility Study in the Barnstable Town, MA Metro Area

Cape Cod: restaurants with a big 504 share

Barnstable Town is one county, Barnstable County, and its restaurant file is unusual for a close split between programs: 59 loans are SBA 7(a) and 45 are SBA 504, so nearly as many borrowers are financing property as are financing operations. The location quotient of 1.84x makes restaurants a far bigger part of Cape lending than of lending nationwide. SBA approved 104 loans worth $50.2 million between FY2017 and FY2026.

Among 821 areas Barnstable Town stands 51st for full-service restaurant lending, and the class leads the area's own 39. Median size, $250,400, equals 0.91x the national level, and half the loans lie from $75,000 to $613,500. Loan Analytics withholds the franchise share for the Cape; it is not printed, and not zero either.

Savings bank and development companies

The Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank is shown with 17 of the 7(a) loans, only $1.8 million in all, a book of very small loans. Eastern Bank holds 9 worth $1.8 million, and TD Bank, National Association 9 worth $960,000. Three 504 holders appear. Bay Colony Development Corporation has 11 loans ($5.4 million); Granite State Economic Development Corporation has 10 ($8.8 million); South Eastern Economic Development Corporation has 5 ($2.0 million). Holdings are what SBA records today, and they say nothing about any holder's intentions.

Cape restaurants saw at least 17.7% of FY2017 to FY2024 approvals cancelled, the loss figure to weigh most. The cancellation ceiling is missing too, and so is the charge-off rate to date, as Loan Analytics withholds them; they are blank, not zero. By year, approvals ran 13 in FY2017, 7 in FY2022, 17 in FY2025, worth $5.0 million, and 8 in FY2026, also worth $5.0 million.

What a Cape Cod restaurant study must test

Seasonality is the first thing to test. A study should model monthly revenue across a summer peak and a thin winter, with a cash reserve that carries payroll and the loan payment through the off-season, and it should test how many covers the building can serve in July against how few it will serve in January. The labor supply, including seasonal housing for staff, is another constraint. Where the borrower buys the building under the 504 program, the appraisal has to weigh a seasonal use and local zoning, septic and permitting limits. The lone county in the file means a study can use county-level evidence, but it should still test the specific village, parking and walk-in trade. Counts for Barnstable County omit a loan if the July 2023 list does not match its county.