One county, one restaurant market

Boulder is a single-county area: all 66 restaurant loans carry Boulder County as the project county, so the metro and Boulder County are one and the same. From FY2017 to FY2026 these loans totaled $36.9 million. Full-service restaurants are the leading class locally, 1 of 39, and the metro as a whole stands 81 of 821 for such loans. A location quotient of 1.20x shows restaurants weigh more here than nationally, and the median loan of $399,000 is 1.45x the national median for the class.

Amounts, programs and lenders

Amounts in the central half of the distribution begin at $150,000 and end at $755,000. Counting by program gives 54 for 7(a) and 12 for 504, a visible real estate presence. The franchise share is withheld in this cell, so no figure is printed and none should be inferred. KeyBank National Association holds 7 loans worth $3.7 million on the 7(a) list, and JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association holds 6 worth $1.1 million. Both lines are SBA's record of current holders and say nothing about how either bank decides loans.

Annual counts that can be shown: 9 loans in FY2017 ($2.7 million), a high of 12 in FY2018 ($8.3 million), 7 in FY2019 ($3.5 million), 5 in FY2022 ($5.2 million), 7 in FY2023 ($3.7 million), 6 in FY2024 ($1.7 million), 8 in FY2025 ($6.5 million) and 5 in FY2026 ($2.1 million). FY2020 and FY2021 are held back, along with cancellation and charge-off percentages, because too few loans stand behind them; held back is not zero. SBA assigns each loan to a county, and we map that county to the July 2023 metro list, dropping any county it cannot place.

Testing a Boulder restaurant project

A study for a restaurant in Boulder has to defend a ticket that is large against the national median. That calls for evidence of the trade area's real spending, since local customers and visitors may spend differently from those in a suburban market, and comparison with nearby restaurants of similar format. The study must price the build-out and the lease honestly and show debt service coverage when sales dip. If the project buys the building, property value and business value should be separated, given the visible 504 share. Lenders will compare the forecast with an appraisal. Nothing printed here promises a result, and the study, not this page, is where a given project makes its own case.

SBA full-service restaurant loans in the Boulder, CO Metro Area

Loans approved, FY2017 to FY2026	66
Gross dollars approved	$36.9 million
Median loan	$399,000
Middle half of loans, from	$150,000
Middle half of loans, to	$755,000
SBA 7(a) loans	54
SBA 504 loans	12
Franchise share of loans	withheld
Rank among metro and micro areas for full-service restaurant loans	81 of 821
Rank of full-service restaurant among the classes in this area	1 of 39
Location quotient (share of loans against the national share)	1.20x
Median loan against the national median for the class	1.45x

Cancellation and charge-off

Cancelled after approval, FY2017 to FY2024 approvals (a floor)	withheld
Charged off to date, FY2017 to FY2021 disbursed loans (a floor)	withheld

Both rates are floors. SBA withholds the status of open loans, so a loan counts as charged off only once SBA reports it; a rate needs at least 30 loans in its cohort and is otherwise not reported.

SBA full-service restaurant loans approved in the Boulder, CO Metro Area, by fiscal year

Fiscal year	Loans	Dollars
FY2017	9	$2.7 million
FY2018	12	$8.3 million
FY2019	7	$3.5 million
FY2020	withheld	withheld
FY2021	withheld	withheld
FY2022	5	$5.2 million
FY2023	7	$3.7 million
FY2024	6	$1.7 million
FY2025	8	$6.5 million
FY2026	5	$2.1 million

Most active SBA lenders

SBA 7(a): lenders by loans approved (the current holder of each loan, as SBA reports it)
Lender	Loans	Dollars
KeyBank National Association	7	$3.7 million
JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association	6	$1.1 million

Lenders with 5 or more loans here; a lender with fewer is not listed, and loans SBA or a receiver holds are counted but never listed as a lender.

Where the loans are, by county

County	Loans
Boulder County, CO	66

Counties with 5 or more loans; smaller ones are not listed.

Metro is the CBSA (metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area) of the loan's project county, July 2023 delineation (OMB Bulletin 23-01). The county is matched by name (manifests/ld2/county-cbsa-map.csv); a loan whose county cannot be placed in a 2023 CBSA is left out of every metro.

A value marked withheld rests on fewer than 5 loans, or is withheld so that such a figure cannot be derived from other published figures.

Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, 7(a) and 504 loan-level FOIA files (data.sba.gov), as of 2026-09-30; areas from the U.S. Census Bureau CBSA delineation, July 2023 (OMB Bulletin 23-01); Loan Analytics metro cell MA-14500-C34.

Related feasibility study pages

Loan Analytics prepares the feasibility study a lender reads before it commits: for a full-service restaurant project in the Boulder, CO Metro Area, financed under SBA 7(a), SBA 504, USDA Business and Industry or a conventional bank loan. Tell us the project and the lender's deadline, and we reply with scope, timeline and fee.

Daniel Smith, MAI

Restaurant Feasibility Study in the Boulder, CO Metro Area