There are two ways to enter a new market.

The first is broker-led. A vacant end-cap appears. The rent looks workable. The co-tenancy is familiar. The story gets built backward from the space. Sometimes that works. Often it produces an average restaurant that consumes the same capital and management attention as a great one.

The second is plan-led. You start with the trade areas that actually resemble the restaurants already producing your numbers. Then you look for real estate inside those trade areas. Sites that cannot clear the filter do not get a narrative. They get passed.

The Melt is being expanded the second way.

What “plan-led” means here

We built a national trade-area scoring model against the traits of our best-performing company restaurants. It does not declare a city good or bad. It asks a narrower question: how closely does this specific catchment resemble the trade areas that already work?

We measure on drive time, not a fixed mile radius. A five-minute drive expands in an easier-to-navigate market and contracts in a dense, high-traffic one. That keeps the comparison honest across geographies. It softens density differences. It does not erase them. Lower-population areas still read as lower population. That is signal we want.

Widening the ring is how distinct trade areas get blended into one optimistic blob. A university corridor, a capital-district strip, and a lifestyle center can sit a few minutes apart and serve completely different demand. A tight ring is what keeps them separate — and what keeps a five-store plan from turning into a fifteen-store wish list.

Filter first, ranking second

Every candidate receives a fit score and a grade calibrated to real company-store performance: A++, A+, A, and B. We do not chase C, even when C is above a generic target.

The model’s first job is not to find more deals. It is to identify the deals we should not do. Average sites and bad sites use the same capital as winners. Removing them is the entire point.

That discipline matters most in smaller geographies. Jacksonville, university markets, secondary DMAs — these are not markets that forgive a loose prototype. If the filter only produces four A and B corridors instead of five, the honest plan is four. Not a creative fifth.

Why this matters to multi-brand operators

If you already develop multiple concepts, you have lived both methods. You know what happens when a market is filled from the outside in. You also know the value of locking the best trade areas first and treating suburbs as a later conversation.

We award protected territories to operators who want that kind of plan — DMA-level exclusivity on a measured development schedule, with sites discussed only after they grade. Early partners receive meaningful economics, including a 50% royalty reduction through June 2028 on the first term for qualifying founding franchisees.

The FDD can show you what mature company stores delivered. It cannot show you whether your geography produces enough of the right trade areas, or whether you want to operate the restaurants behind those numbers.

That is a different conversation — maps first, then the stores themselves.

If you develop that way already, visit meltfranchising.com or reach out directly. We only partner with the right operators, and we take the time to do it right.

Financial performance representations in Item 19 of The Melt’s 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document are based on company-owned restaurants only. Other than representations made in Item 19, we do not make any representations about a franchisee’s future financial performance or the past financial performance of any company-owned or franchised outlets. We also do not authorize our employee or representatives to make any such representations either orally or in writing. If you are purchasing an existing outlet, however, we may provide you with the actual records of that outlet. If you receive any other financial performance information or projections of your future income, you should report it to the franchisor’s management by contacting Greg Vojnovic, VP and Head of Franchising, 925 Market Street, San Francisco, California 94103, telephone 877-250-6358, the Federal Trade Commission, and the appropriate state regulatory agencies.

Melt Franchising, LLC, 925 Market Street, San Francisco, California 94103