Buy a profitable restaurant — without starting from scratch
Learn exactly how to find, evaluate, finance, and buy a profitable independent restaurant generating $200,000+ in owner earnings — without making a costly, irreversible mistake.
"I'd rather teach you to walk away from a bad deal than close a good-looking one that quietly destroys your capital."— Becky Auer
What you'll learn
What you'll be able to do
- Identify and source profitable independent restaurants for sale using broker networks, off-market channels, and systematic search criteria
- Analyze Owner Discretionary Earnings (ODE) and financial statements to determine a restaurant's true cash flow and earning power
- Accurately value any independent restaurant using industry-standard multiples and asset-based approaches so you never overpay
- Conduct rigorous due diligence — spotting hidden red flags in leases, licenses, vendor contracts, and operational data before you commit
- Structure and negotiate a purchase agreement, including price, seller financing, earnouts, and asset vs. entity deal terms that protect your capital
- Execute a confident ownership transition — inheriting staff, systems, and customer relationships while avoiding the mistakes that derail new buyers in year one
How it works
A school that adapts to you
This isn't a set of static videos. Every lesson is generated live and tuned to where you actually are.
We learn your level
A quick placement check tailors your starting point so you're never bored or lost.
Lessons adapt as you go
Each lesson is written for your pace and your goal, adjusting as your skills grow.
Your AI coach keeps you moving
Checkpoints, feedback, and gentle nudges turn progress into a real result.
The curriculum
What's inside your school
6 modules · 20 lessons
The Restaurant Buyer's Mindset & Market Landscape
Establishes the foundational philosophy, personal readiness criteria, and market context every buyer needs before searching for a deal. Students leave knowing why acquisition is strategically superior to a startup, exactly what financial profile they're targeting, and how the independent restaurant resale market is structured — setting a clear filter for everything that follows.
- 1.1Why Acquisition Beats Starting From ScratchIncluded
- 1.2Self-Assessment & Buyer ReadinessIncluded
- 1.3Defining Your Buy Box: The $200K+ ODE TargetIncluded
- 1.4How the Restaurant Acquisition Market Actually WorksIncluded
Finding Profitable Restaurants For Sale
Builds a systematic, multi-channel deal sourcing engine so students are never dependent on a single listing platform. By the end of this module, students have an active broker network, an off-market outreach system, and a rapid-filtering process that lets them move from hundreds of leads to a qualified shortlist without wasting due diligence resources.
- 2.1Working the Broker Network Like an InsiderIncluded
- 2.2Off-Market Sourcing: Finding Deals Before They're ListedIncluded
- 2.3Qualifying Deals Fast: The 15-Minute FilterIncluded
Financial Analysis: Reading the Numbers Like a Pro
Builds the financial fluency required to look behind a seller's stated earnings and reconstruct the true economic picture of any restaurant. Students learn to read and critique restaurant-specific financial statements, reconstruct Owner Discretionary Earnings from raw data, and benchmark against industry norms to surface hidden problems — the analytical foundation for all valuation and negotiation work that follows.
- 3.1The Financial Statements Every Restaurant Buyer Must UnderstandIncluded
- 3.2Reconstructing Owner Discretionary Earnings (ODE)Included
- 3.3Benchmarking & Red Flag Detection in the NumbersIncluded
Valuation: What Is This Restaurant Actually Worth?
Translates the financial analysis from the previous module into a defensible, quantified opinion of value. Students master the two primary valuation methodologies used in independent restaurant transactions — earnings-based and asset-based — learn to triangulate between them, and develop the judgment to assess whether a seller's asking price reflects market reality or wishful thinking. Critically, this module also introduces market-context literacy so students understand how comparable sales data informs value.
- 4.1ODE Multiples & Earnings-Based ValuationIncluded
- 4.2Asset-Based Valuation & Comparable Sales AnalysisIncluded
Due Diligence, Deal Structure & Negotiation
The largest and most operationally complex module — covering the full arc from signing a Letter of Intent through closing. Students build a complete due diligence system, learn to identify hidden deal-killers across financial, legal, and operational domains, explore the full landscape of acquisition financing, and develop the negotiation and deal-structuring skills needed to protect their capital and close on favorable terms. The sequencing within this module is critical: due diligence precedes financing commitment and negotiation of final terms.
- 5.1Due Diligence Deep Dive: Financial, Legal & OperationalIncluded
- 5.2Spotting Hidden Red Flags Before You CommitIncluded
- 5.3Financing Your Acquisition: SBA Loans, Seller Financing & Creative StructuresIncluded
- 5.4Negotiating Price, Terms & the Letter of IntentIncluded
- 5.5Structuring the Purchase Agreement: Asset vs. Entity & Protective ProvisionsIncluded
Ownership Transition & Year One Success
Prepares students to execute a confident, low-disruption transfer of ownership and navigate the highest-risk period of any acquisition — the first 12 months. Covers the operational, relational, and strategic priorities of the transition period; the most expensive mistakes new buyers make and how to avoid them; and how to move from successfully closing a deal to successfully running and growing the business. Closes the course by connecting Year One habits to the long-term wealth-building thesis introduced in Module 1.
- 6.1The First 90 Days: Your Ownership Transition PlaybookIncluded
- 6.2Inheriting Staff, Systems & Customer RelationshipsIncluded
- 6.3Avoiding the Mistakes That Cost New Buyers ThousandsIncluded
Who it's for
Is this you?
First-Time Buyers
You want to own a business and skip the startup risk — this school gives you the exact framework to find, evaluate, and close your first acquisition without costly beginner mistakes.
Restaurant Managers
You've been running someone else's restaurant for years — this school shows you how to buy one of your own using the operational knowledge you already have.
Small Business Investors
You're looking for cash-flowing Main Street businesses to acquire, and restaurants with $200K+ ODE fit squarely in your portfolio strategy.
Hospitality Professionals
You know the industry inside out but have never navigated the financial and legal mechanics of a deal — this school bridges that gap precisely.
Entrepreneurial Chefs
You're ready to own your kitchen and your P&L — acquiring an established restaurant lets you skip the build-out and step into an operation that already works.
Career Transitioners
You're leaving corporate life and want to buy a real, tangible business — this school teaches you to evaluate deals with financial rigor so you deploy your capital wisely.
Questions
Frequently asked
Your teacher
A note from your teacher
Becky Auer
If you're reading this, you've probably already done the math on starting a restaurant from scratch — and the math doesn't look great. Build-out costs, months without revenue, hiring into a staffing market that doesn't care about your timeline, and a concept that may or may not find its audience. You're not afraid of hard work. You just don't want to take a swing that takes two years and six figures to find out if it lands.
That's exactly why acquisition exists. Somewhere right now, a profitable independent restaurant is changing hands — a retiring owner, a partner dispute, a family situation, an operator who simply wants to cash out. That restaurant has regulars, a trained crew, a working kitchen, and real earnings. The question isn't whether these deals exist. The question is whether you know how to find them, read them, value them, and close them without getting burned.
This school exists because most buyers come to the table without a framework. They rely on the seller's numbers without knowing how to reconstruct them. They accept a valuation because the broker says it's "market." They miss the lease clause that gives a landlord the right to terminate on sale. They close, and then spend year one undoing problems they could have caught in due diligence. I built this curriculum around every decision point in a real acquisition — the financial analysis, the valuation methodology, the deal structure, the negotiation, and the transition — because that's where buyers actually need help.
What you'll learn here isn't abstract. It's the 15-minute filter you use to qualify a listing before wasting a week on it. It's how to reconstruct Owner Discretionary Earnings from a messy set of books. It's the difference between an asset deal and an entity deal, and why getting that wrong costs people real money. It's how to walk into an LOI negotiation knowing your number, your terms, and your walk-away point.
You don't need to have owned a restaurant before to do this. You need a clear buy box, a rigorous process, and the discipline to walk away from deals that don't meet your criteria — even when you've already put in the work. That's what this school trains you to do.
If you're ready to stop browsing listings and start building a real acquisition strategy, this is where you start.
— Becky Auer
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- 6 modules, 20 lessons
- AI-adaptive lessons tuned to your level
- Quizzes & checkpoints to lock in progress
- Your own AI learning coach
- Learn on any device, at your pace
- Full access for as long as you're subscribed