The Empanada Maker

The vendor opportunity at The Empanada Maker

The Empanada Maker operates as a quick-service restaurant concept with a total of 2 units, both of which are company-owned. The number of franchised units was not disclosed in the 2024 Franchise Disclosure Document. This represents an extremely limited addressable market for software vendors. The brand does not report an Average Unit Volume (AUV), and year-over-year unit growth figures are not available. For a vendor, the opportunity here is not in scaling across a large franchise network but in potentially displacing or augmenting the mandated stack at the corporate level.

Who controls software purchasing

Software purchasing decisions are centralized at the brand's headquarters. The FDD lists three key executives in Item 1: Cameron Davis holds the title of Owner and Manager, Sergio Friderici serves as Senior Vice President of Operations & Sales, and Tatiana Friderici is the Chief Operating Officer. For a software vendor, the most direct paths are through the operational leadership. Sergio Friderici's purview over operations and sales makes him a likely stakeholder for tools affecting store workflow or revenue, while Tatiana Friderici's COO role places her at the center of technology and process decisions. There is no CIO or CTO listed, which is consistent with a small, founder-led organization where the C-suite directly manages vendor relationships.

Mandated and current tech stack

The Empanada Maker mandates a specific set of technology systems for its operations. According to the 2024 FDD, the required POS system is Toast by Toast, Inc. For accounting, the brand mandates QuickBooks by Intuit Inc. Employee scheduling is managed through Sling Scheduling, which is also a mandated system. This stack covers the core operational triad of point-of-sale, back-office finance, and labor management. Vendors offering complementary solutions in areas like inventory management, loyalty, or online ordering would need to integrate with this existing Toast-centric environment, while any competitor to these mandated systems would face a replacement sale with no franchisee-level entry point.

Procurement, renewals, and timing

The procurement model for The Empanada Maker is not detailed in the available FDD extract. Our corpus contains no Item 8 signal indicating whether the brand uses a designated supplier, approved supplier, or open procurement framework. Regarding contract timing, the initial franchise agreement term is 7 years. The Item 17 renewal conditions specify that a franchisee must be in good standing, execute the renewal option within a specific window, complete required restaurant upgrades, secure a sufficient lease term, sign a release, and pay a $5,000 renewal fee. The renewal term is 5 years, and the franchisor notes that the new contract may contain materially different terms. However, with no franchised units currently mapped in our operator footprint, these renewal windows are theoretical for now. Any software sales cycle would be tied to the corporate calendar and the priorities of the HQ leadership team.

How to read The Empanada Maker FDD

The 2024 FDD provides the foundational data for evaluating this brand as a software prospect. Item 1 identifies the executive team and the brand's corporate structure, which appears to be independently owned with no parent company on file. Item 11 is the critical section for technology vendors, as it lists the mandated systems: Toast, QuickBooks, and Sling Scheduling. Item 17 outlines the renewal process and the potential for contract changes at the 5-year mark. Because the system is entirely company-owned, the standard franchise sales playbook does not apply. The embedded PDF viewer below contains the full filing, allowing you to verify these details and search for any additional technology or operational requirements that may impact your product's fit. For a ranked target list of franchise brands with stronger unit economics and growth signals, talk to FranCloud.