Cash flow you can prove beats sales you can't
A buyer and their lender price your owner's earnings — not your gross sales. Two restaurants with identical sales sell for wildly different numbers when one has clean books and the other has a shoebox.
El Paso Owner's Guide · Restaurants, Bars & Food Service
How to Sell a Restaurant in El Paso, Texas
Most El Paso restaurants that go up for sale never sell — not because the food was wrong, but because the books, the lease, and the buyer were never lined up. This is the guide we wish every owner read two years before they called us.
- 1.5×–3×
- Typical multiple of owner earnings for a profitable restaurant
- $5M
- SBA 7(a) financing available to qualified buyers
- 100%
- Confidential — staff and customers never know
The Local Market
What the El Paso restaurant market actually rewards
El Paso is a border market with a food culture that outperforms its population — and a buyer pool that is far deeper than most owners assume. Fort Bliss, UTEP, a growing medical district, and the Juárez trade corridor keep steady traffic in this city. Buyers know it. What they will not pay for is a guess.
The lease is often worth more than the equipment
A long, assignable lease at a below-market rate in a strong El Paso corridor is real value. A lease with two years left and a landlord who won't commit will shrink your price or kill the deal in diligence.
Concept-independence raises your multiple
If the recipes, the vendor relationships, and the systems live only in your head, you are selling a job. If they live in documented systems and a trained team, you are selling a business.
Financeable beats highest offer
An SBA-backed buyer with a bank behind them closes. A cash buyer with a napkin offer usually doesn't. Being SBA-ready — with clean financials and a defensible valuation — is how you get to the table with the buyers who actually fund.
Free Estimator · No Email Required
What is my El Paso restaurant worth?
Move the sliders. This uses owner's discretionary earnings (SDE) — your net profit plus your salary, personal expenses run through the business, interest, depreciation, and one-time costs — the number buyers and SBA lenders actually price.
$180,000 / year
$40K$1.2M
Which of these are true today?
Illustrative Range
Estimated enterprise value
$333,000 – $585,000
That’s roughly 1.8× to 3.3× your owner’s earnings, before any real estate you own.
Every box you check is a lever you can still pull before you list. Owners who fix the books and the lease first routinely land at the top of their range instead of the bottom.
Illustration only — not an appraisal or an offer.
Step by Step
The six steps that get a restaurant sold — in that order.
- 01
Get your earnings straight before anything else
Three years of P&Ls and tax returns, reconciled. Every personal expense identified so it can be legitimately added back. This single step moves more money than any negotiation tactic.
- 02
Commission an independent, certified valuation
Not a broker's opinion. We commission a certified valuation from an independent NACVA-credentialed appraiser — the caliber of report banks, buyers, the IRS, and courts rely on. It sets a defensible price and it survives diligence.
- 03
Fix what diligence will find
Lease term and assignment language, health and city permits, equipment ownership versus lease, vendor contracts, unrecorded cash, unpaid sales tax. We find these first, on your terms, instead of letting a buyer find them at the worst possible moment.
- 04
Package it so a lender can say yes
A confidential business review that documents earnings, staffing, systems, and the local market — prepared so an SBA 7(a) lender can underwrite it and a qualified buyer can compete for it.
- 05
Market it confidentially — never with a sign
No 'for sale' on the door. No word to your staff or your regulars. We market blind to vetted, financially qualified buyers under NDA. Your kitchen keeps running like nothing is happening, because nothing visible is.
- 06
Negotiate, survive diligence, and close
Offers, escrow, lease assignment, permitting, inventory count, and closing. We stay on it through funding — and through the transition week that decides whether your staff and your name land softly.
Costly Mistakes
Six mistakes that cost restaurant owners real money.
Pricing off gross sales
"We do $1.2 million a year" tells a buyer nothing. Restaurants sell on owner's earnings. Anchoring to sales gets you a listing that sits for a year and then sells for less than it should have.
Telling the staff
The fastest way to lose your best line cook, your GM, and then your numbers. Confidentiality isn't paranoia — it protects the very cash flow the buyer is paying for.
Letting the lease run down
Buyers finance a location, not just a kitchen. Selling with a short or non-assignable lease hands your landlord veto power over your exit.
Selling to the first person who says yes
Unqualified buyers tie a restaurant up for months, learn your recipes and your numbers, and vanish. Every buyer we bring is vetted and financially verified before they see a single figure.
Waiting for a bad year to end
Value follows trend. Owners who wait through a declining year sell into a lower multiple. The right time to prepare is while the numbers are still climbing.
Doing it alone to save the fee
An unrepresented sale usually means a lower price, a broken confidentiality, or a deal that dies in diligence. The fee is rarely what costs you money — the terms are.
Sold in This Industry
We don’t learn your industry on your deal.
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SoldQuestions Owners Ask
Restaurant owners ask us these first.
Straight answers, no hedging. If yours isn’t here, call us and ask it directly.
Most profitable independent restaurants trade between roughly 1.5 and 3 times owner's discretionary earnings (SDE) — your profit plus owner salary, personal expenses, interest, and depreciation. Where you land inside that range depends on your lease, how clean your books are, whether the place runs without you, and your sales trend. Real estate, if you own it, is valued separately. The only number that survives a lender's underwriting is a certified independent valuation.
A well-prepared, profitable restaurant with clean books typically takes several months from listing to funded closing — and preparation before listing matters as much as marketing after. Restaurants with unclear earnings, a short lease, or a declining trend take considerably longer, and many never sell at all.
Yes, and you should. We never put a sign on the door or the address in an ad. Your business is marketed blind — industry, market, and financial profile only — to vetted buyers who sign a non-disclosure agreement before they learn who you are. Tours happen after hours.
Qualified buyers can access SBA 7(a) financing up to $5 million, which is why being SBA-ready matters so much: it multiplies the number of buyers who can actually fund your price. That requires clean, reconciled financials and a defensible independent valuation. SBA pre-qualification is a preliminary, non-binding lender assessment, not a loan commitment.
Your lease has to be assigned to the buyer or renegotiated with your landlord's consent, and the landlord will want to see that the buyer is qualified. Started early, it's routine paperwork. Left to the last two weeks, it's the single most common reason a restaurant deal falls apart. Any permits and licenses the buyer needs are applied for in their own name on their own timeline, which we build into the closing schedule.
If you own the building, you have two assets and three good options: sell both together, sell the business and lease the building to the buyer for ongoing income, or sell the business now and the real estate later. We model all three so you choose with numbers in front of you.
Sometimes — as an asset sale, where the buyer is paying for the equipment, the build-out, the lease, and the location rather than the earnings. It's a different buyer and a different price. We'll tell you honestly which sale you're actually in.
Nothing. The first conversation is confidential, free, and carries no obligation. If selling isn't right for you yet, we'll tell you that and tell you what to fix in the meantime.
Where we work
Restaurant owners we represent across El Paso, West Texas, and southern New Mexico
Whether your restaurant sits on the east side, downtown, out in the valley, or across the state line in Doña Ana County, the sale process is the same: verified financials, an independent certified valuation, and a confidential, competitive market of qualified buyers. We meet owners at a time and place of their choosing.
- El Paso
- West El Paso & Upper Valley
- East El Paso
- Northeast El Paso
- Central & Downtown
- Horizon City
- Socorro
- San Elizario
- Clint & Fabens
- Canutillo
- Anthony, TX & NM
- Fort Bliss corridor
- Las Cruces, NM
- Sunland Park, NM
- Doña Ana County
- Alamogordo & Deming, NM
- Van Horn & Fort Hancock
- Midland & Odessa
Restaurant Owners · Confidential
Find out what your restaurant is actually worth.
One confidential conversation with a partner — not a coordinator. We'll tell you where your numbers put you today, what would move the multiple, and whether now is your moment.
- Confidential — nothing is shared or listed without your written consent.
- A reply within one business day, usually the same afternoon.
- No fee, no obligation, and no pressure for the first conversation.