Restaurant Feasibility Study in Mississippi

Restaurants lead Mississippi's class list

Mississippi lends to sit-down restaurants more than to any other SBA class in the state: full-service dining is 1 of 39 on Mississippi's own list, while the state itself places only 39 of 54 for the class. Between FY2017 and FY2026 Mississippi approved 159 restaurant loans carrying $63.6 million. Weighed against the nation, the class is close to par, with a 0.93x location quotient, and its $202,800 median comes in at 0.74x the national restaurant figure. None of these, nor either outcome rate, moves far enough from both the Mississippi all-class record and the national class to trip our distinctness screen.

Banks with deep Mississippi restaurant books

Community Bank of Mississippi heads the holder list with 28 loans for $6.3 million. Trustmark Bank has 24 worth $3.2 million, BankFirst Financial Services 20 worth $10.2 million, The Huntington National Bank 14 worth $6.6 million and Peoples Bank 12 worth $2.3 million. Restaurant borrowers here mostly take SBA 7(a), 150 approvals against 9 under SBA 504, with a middle half of $75,000 to $462,700; franchise units make up 18.9%. Madison County records 19 approvals and Harrison 18, ahead of DeSoto and Rankin on 12 apiece and Hinds on 11.

A light outcome record

Few Mississippi restaurant loans have gone bad so far. Of the 81 funded in FY2017 to FY2021, 1.2% are charged off as a floor, and that same 1.2% failed inside year five, so no later losses have yet appeared. Cancellations take a 6.8% minimum share of the state's FY2017 to FY2024 restaurant approvals, and 8.3% at most. The strongest dollar year was FY2024, with 20 approvals worth $10.5 million; FY2025 fell back to 13 worth $3.5 million.

A clean statewide record lowers no bar for the next deal, because a lender still underwrites the specific room. A Mississippi restaurant study should spell out who will eat there, how often and at what check, against the competing dining rooms along the same corridor and in the same county. Kitchen build-out, hood and suppression, dining fit-out and any building purchase must come from contractor bids, since a restaurant that runs over budget opens short of working capital. Coverage belongs on realistic covers and average check after food, labour and occupancy costs, with a soft-sales case for the first full year. For an existing restaurant, the appraisal will separate the going business from the real estate, and the purchase price should be tested against the seller's tax returns.

As everywhere on this site, Mississippi's numbers are SBA-guaranteed loans only, sorted by the borrower's industry code, and its outcome rates are floors.