Restaurant Feasibility Study in the Durham-Chapel Hill, NC Metro Area

Durham restaurants borrow large and independent

Durham-Chapel Hill puts full-service restaurants in first place, 1 of 39, and the area scores 1.40x on the location quotient. Counted nationally the metro is 96 of 821 for the class, so the local lead says more about this metro's lending mix than about its size. The 54 loans and $42.8 million booked across FY2017 to FY2026 come in large: $472,750 at the median, 1.72x the national figure, and a central band that starts at $273,500 and reaches $1.1 million.

Just 9.3% of loans carry a franchise flag, so most loans go to independent operators. No program breakdown prints for Durham, because Loan Analytics withholds it when a cohort is too thin. TowneBank is the lone holder named, at 7 loans and $9.1 million; the entry mirrors SBA's current-holder field and contains no opinion about the bank. Geography: Durham County, NC 28 loans, Orange County, NC 14, Person County, NC 7, Chatham County, NC 5.

Loss floors and the yearly series

Durham's cancellation floor is 12.2% for approvals made from FY2017 to FY2024, and counting undisbursed loans gives a ceiling that also reads 12.2%. A charge-off rate does not appear; Loan Analytics suppresses it on small cohorts, and the blank is not zero. The years with enough loans to print are FY2017 (5 loans, $2.8 million), FY2018 (8, $7.5 million), FY2021 (5, $2.4 million), FY2022 (7, $6.7 million), FY2023 (5, $2.0 million) and FY2024 (5, $4.3 million). The others stay hidden. Dollars per year move more than counts do: 5 loans brought $2.8 million in FY2017, while 7 loans brought $6.7 million in FY2022. Durham County holds the largest share of the 54 loans at 28, with Orange County next at 14.

Project counties are matched by name to the 2023 delineation; any SBA cannot match fall outside every metro, including this one.

Durham dining: the work a study has to do

Concept comes first. A chef-led full-service room depends on a dining population and the competing rooms in both Durham and Chapel Hill. Build-out and kitchen equipment must be costed against that $472,750 median, and the model has to show covers, check average and prime cost sustaining debt service coverage. Appraisers separate the operating business from the building. No lending record guarantees a yes.