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Sonic Drive-In vs Taco Bell — which franchise is the better buy?

Side by side from the public FDDs — no franchisor spin.

	Sonic Drive-In	Taco Bell
Disclosure honesty	C	C
Investment from	$670,200	$934,750
Total fees	9.15%	9.75%
Outlets	3,120	7,998
Lawsuits	2	0

Sonic Drive-In: what their numbers say

Discloses AUVs (gross sales only) for 3,057 franchised traditional restaurants by quartile and venue type. No costs, expenses, or net income shown. Excludes 56 closed locations and underperforming non-traditional units, skewing results upward.

Taco Bell: what their numbers say

Bell Point, Kalibrate, SiteZeus forecast tools for free-standing drive-thru units only. 59-65% accuracy within 20%. Explicit disclaimer: no guaranteed performance; ±20% margin of error; 35% of projections exceed 20% variance. Cherry-picking: limited historical validation; excludes multi-brand, inline, licensed units.

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