Buying an existing Milestones

What Foodtastic says

The Milestones page on foodtastic.ca sets out “Franchise Conditions” and “Conditions to be met by a franchisee” for a new restaurant: a one-time franchise fee of $40,000, an unencumbered cash requirement of $800,000 to $900,000 and a projected cost of $2,500,000 to $3,200,000 (as published, read Oct 22, 2026). It says nothing about existing restaurants, transfers or resales, so none of those figures should be read as the price of a trading restaurant.

Resale or new build

Foodtastic’s published conditions describe a new build or retro-fit. For an existing restaurant, ask the seller what transfers with it — the lease, equipment, staff and sales records. A listing’s asking price is what the seller or broker wrote. It is not Foodtastic’s number and not a valuation, so ask the seller what the price includes (equipment, leasehold improvements, inventory, the liquor licence where there is one).

The franchisor still has a say

Ask whether Foodtastic must approve you as the buyer, what a transfer fee is, whether you must complete franchisee training and whether the restaurant has to be renovated to the current format. None of those answers is on Foodtastic’s page, so get them from the franchise agreement and the disclosure document. Who has to approve a franchise resale explains the two approvals that run on separate tracks; also see what a transfer fee is, whether a resale requires retraining and whether you must renovate.

Disclosure before you sign

Deavo’s Milestones listings on Oct 20, 2026 were in Ontario (6) and New Brunswick (2). In Ontario and New Brunswick the franchise statute, where its section 5 applies, has the franchisor provide a disclosure document not less than 14 days before the earlier of signing any agreement relating to the franchise and paying any consideration relating to it to the franchisor or its associate. Whether it applies to a resale from a franchisee depends on the facts — what disclosure a resale buyer gets explains how.

Ontario’s Arthur Wishart Act (Franchise Disclosure), 2000 shows what an exemption looks like. Section 5(7)(a) says the disclosure duty does not apply to “the grant of a franchise by a franchisee” if all four conditions hold: the franchisee “is not the franchisor, an associate of the franchisor or a director, officer or employee of the franchisor or of the franchisor’s associate”; the franchise is for the franchisee’s own account; in the case of a master franchise, the entire franchise is granted; and the grant “is not effected by or through the franchisor.” Section 5(8) adds that a grant is not “effected by or through” the franchisor merely because the franchisor has a right, exercisable on reasonable grounds, to approve or disapprove it, or because a transfer fee is payable — one set out in the franchise agreement or no more than the franchisor’s reasonable actual cost of processing the grant. Whether it applies to a given Ontario sale is a question for a franchise lawyer before you sign. New Brunswick’s Franchises Act has its own definition of “franchise” and its own section 5 disclosure rule; check it separately for the New Brunswick restaurants.