Great American Cookies

The vendor opportunity at Great American Cookies

Great American Cookies operates 395 franchised retail food locations, all under franchise agreements with no company-owned units reported. The system generated an average unit volume of $539,902, with a 6.0% royalty on gross sales and an initial franchise term of 15 years. Year-over-year unit growth sits at -1.25%, indicating a mature network where software vendors may find replacement and optimization opportunities rather than greenfield expansion.

The brand's operational leadership sits within FAT Brands, where Taylor Wiederhorn serves as President and CEO of Great American Cookies and Co-CEO and Chief Development Officer of FAT. The franchisee base is entirely single-unit operators: 311 mapped operators run 311 located units, with no multi-unit operators recorded. This fragmented ownership structure means any software sale must account for 311 independent decision-makers at the store level, even if the franchisor controls technology mandates from the top.

Geographically, the system concentrates in Texas (96 units), Georgia (28), Tennessee (28), Florida (21), and Louisiana (20). Vendors with regional support capabilities in these states will find the densest addressable markets.

Who controls software purchasing

The 2025 FDD names Drew Martin as Chief Information Officer of FAT Brands, making him the most direct technology buyer for the franchise system. Taylor Wiederhorn, as President and CEO of Great American Cookies, holds ultimate authority over brand-level mandates. Kenneth J. Kuick, CFO of both Great American Cookies and FAT Brands, likely controls budget approvals for any system-wide technology investment. Mason Wiederhorn, Chief Brand Officer of FAT, may influence marketing technology decisions, particularly given the existing social media management mandate.

Because all 395 units are franchised and operated by single-unit owners, the purchasing dynamic is hybrid: the franchisor can mandate specific technologies (as it already does with social media management), but individual franchisees retain autonomy over non-mandated tools. A vendor pitch must therefore address both the HQ mandate path and the operator-level adoption path.

Mandated and current tech stack

The only technology explicitly mandated in the 2025 FDD is Social Media Management Software. No point-of-sale system, inventory management platform, scheduling tool, or other operational software is named as required. This does not mean such systems are absent from the network — only that the franchisor has not yet mandated a specific vendor for those categories.

For software vendors, this represents a greenfield in most operational categories. A vendor selling POS, labor scheduling, inventory, or catering management software can approach Great American Cookies without needing to displace a mandated incumbent. The absence of a mandated POS is particularly notable for a 395-unit food retail chain.

Procurement, renewals, and timing

Item 8 of the FDD does not extract specific procurement restrictions, which typically indicates an approved-supplier or open procurement model rather than a designated-supplier regime. Vendors should expect to seek franchisor approval for any system that touches brand operations, but the path is not blocked by an exclusive supplier arrangement.

Renewal cycles create natural software evaluation windows. The initial 15-year term is followed by two 10-year renewal options. Each renewal requires the franchisee to sign the then-current franchise agreement, which may include updated technology mandates. The renewal fee is 40% of the then-current initial franchise fee, and franchisees must renovate their premises and meet current training requirements. These renewal events — occurring at years 15, 25, and 35 of a franchise relationship — are moments when the franchisor can introduce new technology requirements across the system.

How to read the Great American Cookies FDD

The embedded PDF viewer below contains the full 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document. For software vendors, the critical sections are Item 1 (executive team and brand structure), Item 11 (franchisor's obligations, including technology mandates), Item 8 (procurement restrictions), and Item 17 (renewal and termination conditions). The executive roster confirms that technology decisions route through FAT Brands' CIO, while the operator table reveals a single-unit-dominated network with no multi-unit aggregators. If you need a ranked target list of franchise systems matched to your software category, FranCloud can build that from FDD data like this.