Restaurant Feasibility Study in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Metro Area

Where Seattle stands for this class

From FY2017 to FY2026, borrowers opening or buying sit-down restaurants in Seattle received 694 approvals and $380.2 million in gross dollars. The central half of borrowers received amounts between $150,000 and $671,750. For full-service restaurant loans Seattle is 7th among 821 metro and micro areas, while full-service restaurants lead all 39 lending classes inside Seattle. A ratio of 1.45x on the location quotient puts table-service restaurants at a larger portion in Seattle than the nation as a whole. Local sizing centers on $347,500; compared with the class's national median, that is a ratio of 1.26x, so loans run larger here.

Who holds restaurant loans around Seattle

Franchise-affiliated borrowers make up 6.1% of full-service restaurant approvals here. For 504 financing, Evergreen Business Capital (13 loans, $10.4 million), then Ameritrust CDC (9 loans) with Northwest Business Development Association (6). Of the 694 loans, 666 fall under 7(a) and 28 under 504; this split shows a borrower which route sit-down restaurants projects have used in Seattle. Under 7(a) lending, the largest holder is KeyBank National Association, with 87 loans and $50.4 million; U.S. Bank, National Association comes next at 54, and GBC International Bank is third at 48. Every name stands as the loan's holder in SBA's files at present, and that is a fact about where these approvals are held and nothing on how a lender decides.

Counties and years in Seattle

By project county, King County, WA leads with 440 loans, then Pierce County, WA with 158 and Snohomish County, WA with 96. The yearly file peaks in FY2018 at 89 loans and $46.5 million, and bottoms out in FY2021 at 38 approvals and $19.9 million.

What the cancellation and loss rates allow a reader to say

The charge-off figure is 4.1% to date across 291 disbursed Seattle loans from FY2017 to FY2021, a floor that can rise, and no five-year rate printed, as that cohort has under 30 loans. Seattle full-service restaurant approvals from FY2017 to FY2024 reflect a cancellation floor of 16.4%; the ceiling is withheld for lack of loans. In this table, Seattle is the metro or micro area built from each loan's recorded county under the July 2023 boundaries; a loan for sit-down restaurants whose county has no match is in no area.

What a study of full-service restaurants in Seattle has to test

For a proposed table-service restaurants project in Seattle, the work must test demand first, meaning covers per day by daypart together with neighborhood, visitor and worker guests. The 694 approvals show institutions have funded sit-down restaurants there, which does not carry over to one site. The build-out budget should itemize food and labor against sales and equipment and smallwares, and then be laid beside what Seattle institutions approved: $347,500 at the midpoint. On value, a Seattle lender will weigh equipment with little collateral value and improvements a buyer may skip. Coverage testing should assume a delayed first period, since Seattle reports full-service restaurant loans that did not go as approved.