SBA 504 Restaurant Feasibility Study in New Hampshire

One development company writes most of the book

Full-service restaurants financed under SBA 504 in New Hampshire are a small, local business. Across the ten fiscal years the record holds 59 approvals worth $29.9 million, and the franchise share is 0.00%, so none of these loans went to a flagged brand. Restaurants rank first among the 39 classes in the state for 504 activity, which is the headline for this cell, though the state sits 21 among states for the program by count. The median loan of $335,000 is only 0.55x the nationwide 504 figure for restaurants, and the central half spans $208,000 to $599,000. A New Hampshire restaurant owner buying a building under this program is therefore borrowing well below the national pattern.

Granite State and its neighbour

Granite State Economic Development Corporation shows 46 loans and $23.0 million in the lender table, the overwhelming share of the class, while Bay Colony Development Corporation shows 7 loans and $4.4 million. These are SBA's records of the development companies that hold or held the loans. Rockingham County has 20 loans, Hillsborough 12, Grafton 7, Strafford 6 and Merrimack 5, with Carroll at 4. Approvals ran from 10 loans and $6.4 million in FY2017 to a low of 3 loans and $1.2 million in FY2025, with 9 loans and $3.9 million in FY2022 and 4 loans and $2.9 million in FY2026.

For approvals from FY2017 to FY2024, cancellations after approval run at a floor of 11.5%, and the ceiling is the same figure. No charge-off rate appears for this cell: too few restaurants in the early funded group exist to support one; this page offers no number and does not describe the rate as zero.

What a New Hampshire restaurant study must test

Because the program finances fixed assets, the study should begin with the property: whether the building is owned or acquired, what it costs to buy and equip, and what a restaurant there can earn per seat. Seasonality matters in a state where tourist traffic and winter weather change covers across the year, so monthly income should be modelled rather than annualised from a single good quarter. Coverage should be tested after rent or ownership cost, payroll and food cost, with a case in which sales open below plan. An appraiser separates real estate from going concern, and a restaurant building can be hard to reuse, so a study should address what value remains if the operator leaves. The cell has no recorded distinctness basis, and a modest loan size limits how much outside cost a project can carry.