FacebookMeta
, or other communications that can be accessed through electronic means, including, for example, the Internet, World Wide Web, webpages, microsites, social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, L
From the filings
HQ-led decisions
Nathan's Famous SDNathan's Famous
Quick service restaurantSoftware purchasing at Nathan's Famous is controlled from the brand's New York headquarters, where a lean executive team—including the CEO and VP of Franchise Operations—oversees decisions for 75 total units. The most recent FDD does not disclose any mandated or recommended technology systems, leaving the current tech stack undefined for outside vendors. With 71 franchised locations concentrated in New York and Florida, the addressable market is compact but may reward vendors who can navigate a centralized, relationship-driven sales process.
For software vendors selling into US franchise brands.
Live signals
Total units
75
71 franchised
Unit growth YoY
—
vs prior filing
AUV
—
Item 19, 2025
Royalty
5.5%
of gross sales
Ad fund
2.5%
national + local
Initial fee
$30K
per unit
Investment range
$554K–$2.03M
all-in, Item 7
Procurement
Approved supplier
from the filing
Non-compete
2 years
from the filing
Item 19
No claims
from the filing
Ongoing fee load
What the operator pays every month
The recurring percentage of gross sales named in this filing, before rent, labour or any technology fee.
8%of gross sales (FY2025)
15% reference
Mandated & recommended tech
The systems vendors compete with
Systems named in Item 11 of this filing. None is recorded as mandated here, which is not the same as the filing mandating nothing. Read Item 11 before treating the category as open.
LinkedInLinkedIn
ations that can be accessed through electronic means, including, for example, the Internet, World Wide Web, webpages, microsites, social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, You Tube,
PinterestPinterest
gh electronic means, including, for example, the Internet, World Wide Web, webpages, microsites, social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, You Tube, Google Plus, Pinterest, etc.), bl
TwitterX
communications that can be accessed through electronic means, including, for example, the Internet, World Wide Web, webpages, microsites, social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yo
Franchisor behaviours
What the franchisor requires
24 requirements the franchisor states in this filing, each in its own words; 5 explicit no's; 5 questions the text does not settle, which is not a no.
Accounting
Does the franchisor have direct or independent electronic access to the franchisee's financial, sales or customer records?
YesItem 11
We reserve the right to have independent access to your computer for the purpose of downloading sales and other data.
Must the franchisee submit periodic financial statements (monthly, quarterly or annual) to the franchisor?
YesFranchise agreement
In addition, no later than the twentieth (20th) day after each month (or, if we elect, other periodic time period) during the term of this Agreement after the opening of the Franchised Business, you will submit to us, in a format acceptable to us (or, at our election, in a form that we have specified): (a) a fiscal…
How the franchisor buys
Does the franchisor reserve the right to change designated suppliers or systems at any time?
YesFranchise agreement
You recognize and agree that we may periodically change or modify the System and you agree to accept and use for the purpose of this Agreement any such change in the System (which may include, among other things, new or modified trade names, service marks, trademarks or copyrighted materials, new products, new…
How much revenue did the franchisor and its affiliates earn from franchisee purchases in the last fiscal year?
646368Item 8
During NFSI's fiscal year ended March 30, 2025, NFSI received revenue (in the form of rebates) from franchisees' and licensees' purchases from approved suppliers in the amount of $646,368, or approximately 0.5% of NFSI's total revenues of $135,971,505.
Does the franchisor or an affiliate receive rebates, commissions or other revenue from designated or approved suppliers?
YesItem 8
Under an agreement with certain soft drink suppliers, food suppliers, and other operational service suppliers, those suppliers may pay us rebates based upon purchases by franchised and company-owned Restaurants.
Does the franchisor charge a fee to evaluate a proposed supplier?
YesItem 6
Inspection and Will not exceed Upon request If you ask us to consider a new product testing reasonable cost of supplier, we may incur certain charge inspection and actual costs, including testing the cost of test supplier's facilities and products, and will ask you or the proposed supplier to reimburse us for those…
Can a franchisee propose a new supplier for the franchisor's approval?
YesItem 8
We will have the right to require that our representatives be permitted to inspect the proposed supplier's facilities, and that samples from the proposed supplier be delivered, either to us or to an independent laboratory that we designate for testing.
Communications
Does the franchisor own or control the business telephone numbers, or take them over when the agreement ends?
YesFranchise agreement
In addition, you will cease use of all telephone numbers and any domain names, websites, e-mail addresses, and any other print and online identifiers, whether or not authorized by us, that you have while operating the Franchised Business, and shall promptly execute such documents or take such steps necessary to…
Data and IT
Must the franchisee comply with PCI, data-security or cybersecurity standards set by the franchisor?
YesFranchise agreement
You agree to comply with the then-current Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards as those standards may be revised and modified by the PCI Security Standards Council, LLC (see www.pcisecuritystandards.org), or any successor organization or standards that we may reasonably specify.
Franchise management
Does the franchisor conduct periodic inspections, audits or evaluations of the franchised business?
YesItem 11
We may conduct, as we deem advisable, periodic inspections of the Restaurant, and may provide evaluations of the products sold and services rendered by the Franchised Business.
Can the franchisor change the operations manual and brand standards unilaterally?
YesItem 14
We may revise the contents of the Manual, and you must comply with each new or changed standard.
Must the franchisor approve the franchisee's site or location before opening?
YesFranchise agreement
You must provide us with a copy of the lease or purchase agreement proposed for the Approved Location, and you must receive our written approval, before you enter into such lease or purchase agreement.
Marketing
Is the franchisee prohibited from operating its own website or social media accounts, or required to use pages the franchisor provides?
YesItem 11
In connection with any Online Site, the Franchise Agreement provides that you may not establish an Online Site, nor may you offer, promote, or sell any products or services, or make any use of the Proprietary Marks, through the Internet without our prior written approval.
Is a minimum grand opening advertising spend required?
YesFranchise agreement
You shall conduct, at your expense, such grand opening promotional and advertising activities as we may require which expense shall be credited against your obligation to pay a Marketing Development Fund Contribution, as set forth in Section 13 below.
Must the franchisee participate in a customer loyalty or rewards program?
YesFranchise agreement
You agree to offer for sale, and to honor for purchases by customers, all gift cards and other incentive or convenience programs that we may periodically institute (including loyalty programs that we or a third party vendor operate, as well as mobile payment applications); and you agree to do all of those things in…
Must the franchisee participate in a regional advertising cooperative when one exists?
YesItem 11
If a Regional Fund has been established in the geographic area in which your Restaurant is located when you begin operation, you must immediately become a member.
Payments
Must the franchisee use a payment processor or merchant-services provider designated or approved by the franchisor?
YesFranchise agreement
You agree to maintain, at all times, credit-card relationships with the credit- and debit- card issuers or sponsors, check or credit verification services, financial-center services, merchant service providers, and electronic-fund-transfer systems (together, “Payment Vendors”) that we may periodically designate as…
Are royalties and other fees collected by automatic bank debit (ACH or electronic funds transfer) from the franchisee's account?
YesFranchise agreement
You agree to establish an arrangement for electronic funds transfer to us, or electronic deposit to us of any payments required under Sections 4 or 13 of this Agreement.
Must the franchisee participate in a gift card program?
YesFranchise agreement
You agree to offer for sale, and to honor for purchases by customers, all gift cards and other incentive or convenience programs that we may periodically institute
People
Does the franchisor require minimum staffing levels or specific roles?
YesItem 11
You must maintain the requisite number of Specially Trained Management Employees as employees of the Restaurant during the term of the Franchise Agreement.
Must employees wear uniforms specified by the franchisor?
YesFranchise agreement
Your employees must comply with such dress code or standards as we may require, which may include use of branded (or other “uniform”) apparel, and otherwise identify themselves with the Proprietary Marks at all times in the manner we specify (whether in the Manual or otherwise in writing) while on a job for the…
Point of sale
Must the franchisee use a specific point-of-sale system designated or approved by the franchisor?
YesItem 11
At this time, we require our franchisees to buy an approved computer hardware and software point of sale (POS) system.
Does the franchisor have independent access to the data in the franchisee's POS or computer system?
YesItem 11
We reserve the right to have independent access to your computer for the purpose of downloading sales and other data.
Training
Can the franchisor charge the franchisee for additional, refresher or remedial training?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisee and its Specially Trained Management Employees may also be required to attend such refresher courses, seminars, and other training programs as Franchisor may reasonably require periodically.
The filing answers no to 5 questions
- Is the franchisor or an affiliate itself a supplier of required products, services or systems?Item 8
- Must the franchisee participate in a customer-satisfaction or net-promoter survey program?Franchise agreement
- Is the franchisee required to spend a minimum amount on local advertising or marketing, as a percentage of sales or a fixed amount?Item 11
- Must the franchisee buy products from a designated distributor?Item 8
- Must equipment be purchased from designated or approved suppliers?Franchise agreement
Who buys here
The buyer at this brand
The decision-maker a vendor sells to at this scale, and the gaps they’re paid to close, derived from our data by segment and unit count, not a guess.
The franchisor's owner/CEO decides; an ops or franchise-development lead may evaluate.
VP SalesHead of SalesCROSales Director
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- 82.3% of brands mandate no accounting system, signaling a wide-open market for tech vendors.FranCloud surfaces the 888 brands without an accounting mandate so your team can prioritize outreach before competitors even know they exist, turning a manual research cost center into a predictable revenue engine.
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The vendor opportunity at Nathan's Famous
Nathan's Famous operates a compact system of 75 total units, 71 of which are franchised and 4 company-owned. The brand’s footprint is heavily concentrated in New York (66 locations) and Florida (24), with smaller clusters in Pennsylvania (10), South Carolina (5), and Virginia (2). No average unit volume is disclosed in the 2025 FDD, and year-over-year unit growth is not reported. For software vendors, the addressable market is limited to these 75 locations, all of which appear to be single-unit operators—the FDD maps 114 operators across roughly 114 located units, with zero multi-unit operators in the 2–9, 10–24, or 25+ bands. This operator structure means any sale will likely require buy-in from a centralized HQ team rather than a large multi-unit franchisee.
Who controls software purchasing
Purchasing authority sits at the brand’s headquarters. The 2025 FDD lists five executives: Howard M. Lorber (Executive Chairman), Eric Gatoff (Director and CEO), Robert Steinberg (CFO and VP of Finance), Oliver Powers (VP of Franchise Operations), and Leigh Platte (SVP of Branded Products Program). In a system this size, the CEO and CFO typically hold final sign-off on technology investments, while the VP of Franchise Operations influences adoption and rollout across franchised locations. Vendors should expect a direct, relationship-based sales motion targeting this small group rather than a dispersed field of independent buyers.
Mandated and current tech stack
The 2025 FDD does not capture any mandated or recommended technology systems. No POS provider, back-office platform, inventory management tool, or online ordering vendor is named. This absence of a tech mandate means the current stack is undefined from a public-disclosure standpoint—franchisees may use a patchwork of systems, or the brand may have informal preferences that are not codified in the franchise agreement. For a vendor, this represents either a greenfield opportunity or a signal that technology standardization is not a near-term priority at HQ.
Procurement, renewals, and timing
Item 8 of the FDD, which typically outlines procurement obligations and designated suppliers, was not extracted in the available data. Without that signal, the procurement model—whether designated supplier, approved supplier, or open—remains undisclosed. On renewals, Item 17 provides more color: the initial franchise term is 10 years, and renewal terms run 5 years. Renewal conditions include notice, improvements to the franchised business, satisfaction of monetary obligations, compliance with the franchise agreement, execution of a new franchise agreement (which may contain materially different terms), payment of a renewal fee, and training. These renewal events, occurring on 5-year cycles after the initial decade, may create natural windows for technology evaluation and vendor switching, though no specific contract calendar is published.
How to read the Nathan's Famous FDD
The full 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document is embedded below. It contains the legal and operational disclosures that govern the franchise relationship, including the franchise agreement, fee schedule, and any technology or procurement obligations that may not have been captured in the summary above. Reviewing the complete Item 11 (Franchisor’s Obligations) and Item 8 (Restrictions on Sources of Products and Services) directly is the most reliable way to confirm whether any informal tech preferences exist. For vendors building a ranked target list of franchise systems, the FranCloud platform can surface this level of detail across hundreds of brands and flag the ones where your product aligns with a known mandate or gap.
Questions vendors ask
Nathan's Famous SDNathan's Famous, answered from the filing
The buying center includes Eric Gatoff (CEO), Robert Steinberg (CFO), and Oliver Powers (VP of Franchise Operations), based on the 2025 FDD executive roster.
The 2025 FDD does not list any mandated or recommended POS, back-office, or operational technology systems for franchisees.
There are 75 total units—71 franchised and 4 company-owned—with the heaviest concentration in New York (66) and Florida (24).
The 2025 FDD does not include an Item 8 procurement extract, so the designated-supplier versus approved-supplier structure is not publicly disclosed.
Initial franchise terms run 10 years; renewals are 5 years and require a new agreement. Renewal-driven tech evaluations may cluster around those cycles, though no specific window is disclosed.
The FDD is filed with state franchise regulators in 2025. You can review the full document in the embedded PDF viewer below.
Source
Read the filing itself
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FDD alert
Tell me when this brand refiles.
We’ll email you the moment Nathan's Famous SDNathan's Famous files a new annual FDD, usually the freshest signal of a vendor change.
Operator footprint
Who runs the locations
114 operators run 114 mapped locations. 0 of them are multi-unit. Aggregate counts from the filing; no names.
Operators by units owned
Single-unit114
Top states by locations
| NY | 66 |
|---|---|
| FL | 24 |
| PA | 10 |
| SC | 5 |
| VA | 2 |
Ownership
The portfolio behind Nathan's Famous SDNathan's Famous
single_brand_holdco of Nathan's Famous.
Related Quick service restaurant brands
Primary franchise filings · updated June 2026. Every figure is source-traceable and QA-checked.