A micro area where restaurants lead

In Seaford, full-service restaurant loans land at 1 of 39 among Seaford's classes, and Seaford is 164 of 821 on the national list for them. Every one of the 27 approvals, worth $7.7 million, is in Sussex County, dated FY2017 to FY2026. At 1.10x, Seaford puts a larger slice of SBA lending into full-service restaurant loans than the national mix does.

The program mix is all 7(a): 27 loans, with 504 at 0. A typical loan runs to $100,000, 0.36x the national median over full-service restaurants, and $25,000 marks the lower quartile and $365,000 the upper. The franchise share is not shown. For Seaford, the figures cover SBA-recorded full-service restaurant loans, and a project in Seaford should lean on its own evidence before any ratio here.

Holder and years

Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company appears with $2.2 million spread over 14 of the 7(a) loans. That is a big share of the Seaford loans, yet the dollars are moderate, which fits the small median. Ownership of the paper is the just fact shown; no lending method is stated. Rows appear for four years: FY2018 brings 7 loans and $1.4 million, 7 loans worth $1.0 million in FY2019, FY2021 with no loans and $0 and no loans worth $0 in FY2026. We leave out Seaford's two loss-side rates since the Seaford FY2017-to-FY2021 set of loans counts below 30 loans, a count our cut-off will not rate for Seaford. A missing rate in Seaford is never a zero.

Seaford is a micropolitan area, a smaller unit than a metropolitan area, built from a single county. For a lender, that means a thin record dominated by small loans and one holder. Applicants should take from this that it means comparables are few and a proposal well above the upper edge of the Seaford band will stand out. The page does not say why the full-service restaurant class leads in Seaford.

What a study in Seaford must prove

A full-service restaurant in the Seaford area should test the covers a room can serve relative to its seats, set average ticket beside food and labour cost, and show the loan payment on a proposal near the small $100,000 median. A sluggish opening and the appraisal of any building belong in the Seaford study. With one county in the Seaford record, supply local evidence of demand. Federal county lines define Seaford; so loans from counties Seaford cannot match are dropped from its totals.

SBA full-service restaurant loans in the Seaford, DE Micro Area

Loans approved, FY2017 to FY2026	27
Gross dollars approved	$7.7 million
Median loan	$100,000
Middle half of loans, from	$25,000
Middle half of loans, to	$365,000
SBA 7(a) loans	27
SBA 504 loans	0
Franchise share of loans	withheld
Rank among metro and micro areas for full-service restaurant loans	164 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)	1.10x
Median loan against the national median for the class	0.36x

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 Seaford, DE Micro Area, by fiscal year

Fiscal year	Loans	Dollars
FY2017	withheld	withheld
FY2018	7	$1.4 million
FY2019	7	$1.0 million
FY2020	withheld	withheld
FY2021	0	$0
FY2022	withheld	withheld
FY2023	withheld	withheld
FY2024	withheld	withheld
FY2025	withheld	withheld
FY2026	0	$0

Most active SBA lenders

SBA 7(a): lenders by loans approved (the current holder of each loan, as SBA reports it)
Lender	Loans	Dollars
Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company	14	$2.2 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
Sussex County, DE	27

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-42580-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 Seaford, DE Micro 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 Seaford, DE Micro Area