Grocery Store Business Broker · HedgeStone Business Advisors · Jason Taken
Last updated 2026-09-04
Business brokers on a grocery file usually get paid when a sale funds — a success fee defined in an engagement — not when a teaser goes out. Grocery Store Business Broker, the grocery practice of HedgeStone Business Advisors led by Jason Taken, will not quote a promised percent in this body. A webpage is not your listing agreement. Book a confidential intro to read how an engagement would sit on your recast, your inventory, and whether the building is in the deal.
The longer essay is how grocery brokers get paid. Do I need a business broker to sell is the process question. This page is the invoice: what success means, what the fee sits on, and who else still gets paid.
FMI’s 2.1 percent average net profit for food retailers in 2025 is why you should care what the fee is calculated on. There is little slack in a grocery check for a definition that quietly includes a six-figure stockroom. Recast SDE first. Then read the engagement the way a buyer reads a lease.
A success fee is earned when the engagement’s definition of a closed transaction happens: typically funds wired, keys, and the APA’s closing conditions met. Marketing is not closing. An LOI is not closing. A buyer who dies in SNAP diligence is not closing. USDA FNS: SNAP authorization does not transfer; the new owner files a new application. Agency clocks can kill a file after months of work. Read whether the fee is due only at funding.
Some engagements pair a modest retainer or expense budget with a success fee so the recast and the CIM actually get built. Some do not. Neither model is a sourced “market standard percent” in this pack. What you can demand is a written scope: confidential outreach, NDA log, CIM, license calendar, and a close that survives the count. How a sale works is the sequence those hours buy.
Tail or protection clauses sometimes say that if you close with a buyer introduced during the term, a fee can still be due after expiration. Counsel reads that sentence. It is how a “we decided to sell to my cousin later” conversation becomes an invoice. Selling to family or a manager still needs a real price; it does not automatically erase an introduction the engagement already defined.
Ask whether the base is the going-concern price for goodwill and fixtures, or “total consideration.” Grocery custom is inventory at cost as a separate line, counted at close, usually FIFO invoice cost. If the fee definition swallows that count, you are paying a success fee on cans and milk. Write inventory out unless you intend it in.
Seller notes, holdbacks, and earn-outs are the next definition fight. A note that sits on standby behind SBA 7(a) — change of ownership is an eligible 7(a) use; published maximum $5 million — may still be “consideration.” Holdbacks exist because grocery has shrink and successor tax risk. Earn-outs are hard because the buyer controls mix after Monday. If the fee is due on contingent pieces, ask when: at close, at release, or never. This pack does not invent a standard split.
BizBuySell grocery/supermarket sold businesses: 3.38 average earnings multiple in 2025, 2.66 five-year average, IQR 1.60–3.15 for 2021–2025. A 0.43 average revenue multiple on the 2025 sold sample is a sanity check. Those figures price the store, not the intermediary. Do not let a listing-site multiple become a substitute for reading your fee base. Recast before you argue either number.
Cooperating fees to a buyer’s representative, if any, should be explicit. Grocery is not residential MLS. A handshake “we’ll work it out” is how two invoices land on one close.
Attorneys and CPAs invoice separately. A grocery file needs both: a recast a lender will believe, and paper that writes SNAP, alcohol, inventory night, and tax clearance into the APA. Working with attorneys and CPAs is the day-one handoff. Attorneys who have never closed a grocery file rediscover SNAP in week six.
Third-party inventory counters, equipment inspectors, and environmental on owned dirt are buyer or split costs unless the engagement says otherwise. Count-night rules — unsellable, who pays the crew, dispute resolution — belong in the LOI regardless of who pays the broker.
Minimum fees exist on some Main Street engagements so a small goodwill number still covers a full license calendar. Whether that is fair depends on the file, not on a percent this page will not print. Rural boxes can be a good living and a thin goodwill check. Price the work, then decide.
Sellers usually pay the sell-side success fee from proceeds at escrow. Buyers who retain their own advisor pay that advisor under a separate paper. Do not assume the other side’s representative is free.
If the transaction includes real estate — the building or an interest in the building or land — a real-estate license is required in every state. BizBuySell’s licensing article and IBBA-style summaries conflict at the edges on when a business-only sale needs a real-estate license. Confirm with the state real estate commission before you rely on a blog list. That sentence is not a claim that HedgeStone or Jason Taken holds a license in your state. State-by-state business broker licensing is the caution page.
Owned real estate is a second asset. Recast the store on market rent, then cap the building. Mixing both into one “grocery multiple” is how fee bases and valuations both go wrong. Selling with a lease vs real estate is the split.
Securities, franchise, and finder rules can still apply even when a state is not treated as a state listed as requiring a real-estate license for business brokerage state on published lists. Lists conflict. Counsel in the store’s state signs that opinion.
Read the circle: confidential process, no vestibule sign as a default, NDA before CIM. FMI’s $1 trillion in 2025 supermarket sales and 45,575 U.S. supermarkets in 2024 describe the channel. Your box is not that sample. The engagement should describe operator outreach, not a promise to paste you onto a public board.
Read the termination and tail. Read exclusivity. Read whether you can still talk to a manager-buyer you already had in mind — and whether that person is excluded from the fee if they were on a written list on day one. Can I sell to my manager still needs a real note. Soft language creates hard lawsuits, including fee lawsuits.
Read the close definition against grocery reality: inventory true-up, SNAP application, alcohol, landlord assignment. A fee due “on APA signature” can come due before FNS has spoken. Prefer funding.
Jason Taken’s hour is for the recast and the paper, not a percent shouted on a website. Book a confidential intro. Bring last week’s sales and whether the building is in. We will talk through how a success fee would sit on your file — and what it would not include — before anyone drafts a teaser.
Use this napkin recast on How do business brokers charge? when you book the call. It is labeled illustrative. BizBuySell's 2025 grocery sold-business earnings multiple averaged 3.38, with a 2021-2025 IQR of 1.60-3.15.
| Input or output | Illustrative figure |
|---|---|
| Weekly sales (illustrative) | $108,000 |
| Annual sales | $5,616,000 |
| Recast SDE | $263,952 (4.7% of sales) |
| Inventory at cost | $312,000 (~18 turns) |
| Occupancy check | $179,712 / year (3.2% of sales) |
| Low going-concern | $760,718 at 1.70x SDE + inventory |
| High going-concern | $1,143,449 at 3.15x SDE + inventory |
| Sketch DSCR on a note | 1.45 |
If weekly sales or shrink move 8 percent, the SDE and the note move with them. That is why Jason Taken starts with scan data and the lease, not with a neighbor's rumor multiple.
Book the intro call with your side of the table ready: seller files or buyer capital. The calendar is the only next step.
Print these, mark them up, and bring the marked copy to the intro. They are educational. They are not a valuation letter and not a listing. All downloadable guides.
Have the file ready so the hour is a recast, not a scavenger hunt. Then pick a time.
Get a specialist on the other side of the table
Grocery deals turn on licenses, inventory, and a recast a lender will believe. Book the intro and bring the file.
Book an Intro Call With Jason TakenNo. A quoted percent on a webpage is a promise this practice will not make in body copy. Success fees are negotiated in an engagement. The parent guide is how brokers get paid. The intro call is where a specific file gets a specific paper.
A true success fee is due on a closed, funded sale under the engagement’s definition of success. Read that definition. Some agreements also address retainers, withdrawal, or a buyer the seller later closes with. Counsel reads those clauses before you sign.
Only if the engagement says so. Grocery custom often treats inventory at cost as a separate check. If the fee sits on a ‘total consideration’ definition that swallows the stockroom, you will pay for cans. Ask. Write the answer.
Usually each side pays its own counsel and tax advisor. A broker success fee does not replace those invoices. Grocery files need a grocery-literate CPA for the recast and counsel who has seen SNAP.
If the transaction includes real estate, a real-estate license is required in every state. That is not a claim that HedgeStone or Jason Taken holds a license in your state. Confirm the rule before anyone invoices on the dirt.
Start a confidential grocery conversation
Whether you are exiting or acquiring, pick a time and we will talk through the file.
Book an Intro Call With Jason TakenThis page is educational information from Grocery Store Business Broker (HedgeStone Business Advisors). It is not legal, tax, or investment advice. Licensing, tax, and financing rules vary by state and deal. Confirm every item with counsel and your lender before you sign.
Ready when you are. Jason Taken will talk through the file.
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