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Great Steak franchise — is it worth it?

High risk Shrinking network Item 19 disclosed

Great Steak is a food and beverage franchise with an initial investment ranging from $257,900 to $678,850.

Everything below is free, read straight off Great Steak's registered filing, with where the numbers land against food & beverage peers. Weighing Great Steak against other options? Get a free shortlist of franchises that fit your budget.

Figures above are as disclosed in Great Steak's most recent FDD (registered 2026). Source: Wisconsin Dept. of Financial Institutions — Franchise Registration · filing 640463 — check it yourself. See every other Wisconsin-registered franchise.

How much does a Great Steak franchise make?

Great Steak is one of the franchisors that answers this on the record: its most recent FDD makes an Item 19 financial performance representation — actual unit earnings figures, disclosed by the franchisor itself. The headline figure is $533,269 in average unit revenue — read it alongside what Item 19 says about which units it covers (often only mature or top-performing locations). See every food & beverage brand that discloses earnings in the Food & beverage franchises with disclosed Item 19 earnings ranking.

Great Steak franchise profit vs. revenue

Revenue is not profit. An Item 19 almost always reports sales — what a location takes in — not what an owner keeps. Out of that number come Great Steak's 4% royalty, the ad fund, rent, payroll, supplies and debt service. No FDD tells you a Great Steak franchise's profit, because profit depends on your site, your rent and how you run it — so treat any "Great Steak franchise profit" figure quoted elsewhere as someone's estimate, not a disclosure. On $533,269 of revenue, a 4% royalty alone is about $21,331 a year before any other cost.

Great Steak lawsuits & legal history (FDD Item 3)

Great Steak's most recently filed Franchise Disclosure Document (2026) does disclose 5 legal proceedings in Item 3 . Item 3 is the item where a franchisor must put its material legal history on the record. Two things it is not: it covers the franchisor and its predecessors, parents and affiliates, so a disclosed case is not necessarily a suit against Great Steak itself; and a disclosure is a fact, not a finding of wrongdoing — most entries are contract disputes with former franchisees, which every large system accumulates. 5 of those proceedings were brought by franchisees against the franchisor — the split that actually matters, because franchisees suing their franchisor is the signal a buyer is looking for. Item 3 of the source FDD describes each case.

Great Steak closures & failure rate

Before you sign, Great Steak will hand you a list of current owners to call as references — and they choose who's on that list. It won't include the owners who quit, got bought out, or were forced out last year. The FDD does report that number, even though the reference list leaves those people off. Below is what Great Steak's most recent filing shows, and whether it's normal for a food & beverage of this kind.

The closest thing an FDD has to a failure rate is Item 20 — outlet openings, closures, terminations and non-renewals, reported by the franchisor. Great Steak's latest tables show a shrinking franchised network — more units left than opened. Its franchised-outlet closure rate — closures, terminations and non-renewals against outlets — is 0%, against a food & beverage median of 3.3% — at or better than the category. Net franchised outlets moved -1 to 23 in the latest reported year.

Who owns Great Steak?

Great Steak's franchise is offered by Kahala Franchising, L.L.C. — the franchisor named on the cover of its most recently filed Franchise Disclosure Document (2026), and the entity a franchisee actually signs with. That name comes straight off the filing at WI DFI; it identifies the franchisor, not necessarily the ultimate parent company behind it. The same franchisor files separate FDDs for other brands, which is worth knowing — sibling brands share a franchise-support organization but disclose their own numbers:

Food & beverage franchises at a similar investment level

Anyone weighing Great Steak is really weighing it against the other brands their money could go into. These are the closest by total initial investment (FDD Item 7), each with its own FDD-based page.

Great Steak franchise — frequently asked