Overview
TruStoreSite is a pizza franchise site selection system that keeps location quality separate from deal, owner, and financing questions. Use the default Location Potential — No Owner or Loan scope when you want to judge Greenville, another trade area, or a specific building without allowing your finances or a bank structure to change the result.
The tool offers two modes: a Quick Score for rapid screening, and a Detailed Evaluation for comprehensive site assessment.
Quick Score vs. Detailed Evaluation
Quick Score
The Quick Score asks you to rate each of the 10 major areas on a single 0–10 slider. It takes a few minutes and produces a single screening score. Use it when you want to quickly compare multiple candidate sites, or when you need a rough assessment before investing time in a full evaluation.
All 10 sections are weighted equally in the Quick Score.
Detailed Evaluation
The Detailed Evaluation scores 59 individual factors across 10 sections. Each section has its own tab with multiple sliders, each accompanied by guide post descriptions to help you calibrate your rating. Sections are weighted differently based on the selected site type.
The Detailed Evaluation includes AI property intake, factor-level evidence quality, seven independent location categories, decision gates, deal-breaker flags, partner decision briefs, and a separate lender package-readiness memo.
The Location-First Categories
| Category | What It Answers |
|---|---|
| Local Economics & Demand | Are enough suitable customers, demand generators, and realistic sales opportunities present? |
| Competition Opportunity | Does restaurant activity validate dining demand, is there room after all restaurants divide that demand, and is direct pizza supply limited enough to leave a real category gap? |
| Access, Visibility & Customer Reach | Can customers see, enter, park, pick up, and receive delivery from the location easily? |
| Site & Real Estate Readiness | Is the building, permitted-use path, condition, size, and opening timeline workable? |
| Build / Conversion Fit | How naturally does the prior use convert to pizza? A prior restaurant starts with a better assumption than retail, automotive, or gas-station use, subject to verification. |
| Operating Environment | Can the store hire, license, supply, train, and operate reliably in this market? |
| Strategic & Brand Fit | Does the site fit territory, cannibalization, market-entry, and expansion strategy? |
These seven categories produce Independent Location Potential. Owner financials, financing structure, loan inputs, and lender readiness are excluded. Deal economics and sponsor/lender readiness are evaluated only when you deliberately select the full evaluation.
Competition is deliberately not scored as “fewer restaurants is always better.” A restaurant desert receives a weak ecosystem signal. A heavily concentrated restaurant district may validate dining demand while still receiving a weak demand-headroom signal. The strongest pattern is an active restaurant area with supportable overall supply and few or no direct pizza competitors.
AI Property Intake
Use the AI Property Intake panel when you have property notes, a broker package, listing text, a PDF, a modern Word document (.docx), or even only an address. Paste text or upload a readable file, enter your OpenAI API key, and select Analyze & Fill. PDFs are attached directly to the AI request so image-heavy brochures and scanned page layouts can be reviewed even when local text extraction is sparse. The AI analyzes only the information supplied in the intake panel and maps it to the site evaluation sliders.
Confidence Score
The AI confidence score reflects how much reliable information was supplied. A full property package with rent, square footage, condition, utilities, market notes, and financial assumptions should receive higher confidence. An address-only input should receive low confidence and leave most unknown factors neutral until verified.
The 10 Evaluation Sections
| Section | Weight | What It Measures |
|---|---|---|
| Site Type & Deal | Profile-weighted | Opportunity path, property control, prototype fit, purchase/lease basis, due diligence readiness. |
| Market & Location | Profile-weighted | Trade area strength: population density, income, traffic, accessibility, competition, delivery viability, zoning. |
| Real Estate & Build-Out | Profile-weighted | Physical space readiness: build type, square footage, lease terms, infrastructure condition, ADA compliance, timeline. |
| Pizza Conversion Fit | Profile-weighted | Hood, grease trap, utilities, oven line, kitchen flow, pickup/delivery flow, equipment reuse, building risk. |
| Staffing | Profile-weighted | Labor availability, wage dynamics, workforce proximity, training pipeline, GM readiness. |
| Owner Financials | Profile-weighted | Capital position, financing strength, financial runway for ramp-up, multi-unit capacity. |
| Tax & Regulatory | Profile-weighted | State/local tax burden, labor laws, health department licensing, alcohol licensing, franchise registration. |
| Supply Chain & Logistics | Profile-weighted | Distributor distance, delivery reliability, storage capacity, proximity to existing operations, specialty sourcing. |
| Revenue & Unit Economics | Profile-weighted | Projected revenue vs. comps, rent-to-revenue ratio, prime cost estimate, break-even timeline, catering potential. |
| Brand & Territory Strategy | Profile-weighted | Fit with expansion plan, territory protection, cannibalization risk, market entry type, local marketing. |
How Scoring Works
Slider Values
Each slider represents a factor rated from 0 (worst) to 10 (best). Every slider includes guide post descriptions that appear as you adjust the value — these help you calibrate your rating against real-world benchmarks rather than guessing.
Section Scores
Within each section, individual slider values are combined using weighted averages. Some factors carry more weight within their section (for example, "build type" is weighted more heavily than "ADA compliance" in the Real Estate section, because it has a larger impact on cost and timeline). The weighted average is converted to a 0–100 scale.
Score and Evidence Are Different
A factor rating describes attractiveness. Evidence quality describes how much trust to place in that rating: Unknown, Assumption, Documented Source, or Independently Verified. Moving a slider automatically marks it as an assumption until you assign stronger evidence. A high score with weak evidence remains a screening hypothesis, not a partner approval.
Split Scorecard
The split scorecard separates the final decision into Market Demand, Pizza Fit, Deal Economics, Operating Readiness, and Strategic Fit. This prevents one good area from hiding a serious weakness elsewhere.
Deal-Breaker Flags
Some low scores trigger deal-breaker flags. Examples include blocked food-service permitting, no feasible hood or exhaust path, no grease-management solution, utilities that cannot support pizza equipment, unsustainable occupancy cost, severe building risk, weak property control, or unacceptable entry economics. A flagged site should not be approved until the issue is verified and resolved.
Lender Financing Snapshot
The lender panel appears only in the full evaluation. It captures the financing path, sources and uses, owner equity, loan request, projected cash flow and debt service, property-value estimate, global cash flow/debt service, projection basis, and collateral/guarantor notes. It never changes Location Potential.
Loan Support Memo
The Loan button generates a banker-facing memo. Its “Lender Package Readiness” score is an internal completeness and presentation aid—not a credit decision, eligibility determination, commitment, or approval. The selected lender controls underwriting, valuation, collateral, guaranties, equity requirements, and required documents.
Confirm current requirements with the lender and primary guidance, including the SBA 7(a) program overview, SBA SOP 50 10, SBA Form 1919, and the OCC Commercial Real Estate Lending handbook.
Score Tiers
| Score | Tier | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 80–100 | Strong | Strong underlying signals; verify evidence and decision gates before commitment. |
| 65–79 | Favorable | Promising signals with normal diligence required. |
| 50–64 | Caution | Mixed signals; resolve weaknesses and missing evidence. |
| 0–49 | Reconsider | Material weaknesses; resolve them or compare another candidate. |
Controls & Features
Sliders
Drag the slider thumb left or right to set your rating. The current numeric value is displayed to the right of the slider. A guide post description appears below the slider, updating as you move it, to help you understand what each value means in practice.
Alcohol Licensing Toggle
In the Tax & Regulatory section, the "Alcohol licensing" slider has a toggle switch: "Will this location sell alcohol?" When turned off, the slider is grayed out and its value is excluded from the section score. The weight is redistributed to the other factors in the section. This prevents the alcohol question from unfairly penalizing or inflating the score for locations where alcohol is not part of the plan.
Import & Export
Export saves your entire evaluation — all slider values, scores, site name, evaluator, and date — as a JSON file. Use this to save your work, share with partners, or submit to a franchisor.
Import loads a previously exported JSON file. All slider values, scores, and metadata are restored. Use this to revisit an evaluation, compare versions, or review a colleague's assessment.
Create Report
Available in the Detailed Evaluation. Generates a structured recommendation document that includes:
- Overall score and tier with a summary recommendation
- Selected site type/deal branch and split scorecard
- AI autofill confidence when the evaluation was generated from uploaded or pasted property information
- Deal-breaker flags that must be resolved before approval
- Lender memo with bankability, sources and uses, DSCR, open items, and attachment checklist
- Section-by-section scores with narrative assessments
- Top 3 strengths (highest-scoring individual factors)
- Top 3 risks (lowest-scoring individual factors)
- A final go/no-go recommendation paragraph
The report can be printed directly from the browser (Ctrl+P / Cmd+P) or saved as a PDF using your browser's print-to-PDF feature.
Reset
Resets all sliders to their default values (5 out of 10) and clears the site name and evaluator fields. This cannot be undone — export your data first if you want to keep it.
Glossary
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| NNN Lease | Triple net lease — tenant pays base rent plus property tax, insurance, and maintenance. Common in retail/restaurant leasing. |
| TI Allowance | Tenant improvement allowance — money the landlord contributes toward build-out costs, expressed as $/sq ft. |
| Prime Cost | Total food cost plus total labor cost, expressed as a percentage of revenue. The single most important operating metric for a restaurant. Target: 55–65%. |
| FDD | Franchise Disclosure Document — a legal document that franchisors must provide to prospective franchisees. Contains financial performance, fees, obligations, and risks. |
| SBA Loan | A loan made by a participating lender with an SBA guaranty. Program eligibility, equity injection, collateral, documentation, and underwriting requirements depend on the transaction, loan size, current SBA rules, and lender policy. |
| CO | Certificate of Occupancy — official approval from local government that a building meets all codes and is approved for its intended use. |
| Trade Area | The geographic area from which a store draws most of its customers. Typically measured as a 3–5 mile radius for a QSR pizza operation. |
| Cannibalization | When a new store location draws customers away from an existing store of the same brand, reducing the existing store's revenue. |
| Infill Store | A new store opened in a market where the brand already has locations, adding density to capture more of the existing market. |
| BATNA | Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement — your fallback option if a lease negotiation fails. The stronger your BATNA, the more leverage you have. |
Tips for Accurate Scoring
- Use the guide posts. They are calibrated to real-world benchmarks. Don't just guess — match your situation to the description.
- Score based on current conditions, not aspirations. If the labor market is tight today, score it tight — even if you believe it will improve.
- Start with Location Potential when owner finances and banking are not part of the current question. Add deal, sponsor, and lender layers only when the decision reaches those stages.
- Do not promote assumptions to “verified” without a named source, document, inspection, municipal confirmation, or qualified professional review.
- Run the Quick Score first on 3–5 candidate sites to narrow the field, then run a Detailed Evaluation on the top 1–2 finalists.
- Export every evaluation. You will want to compare sites side-by-side and revisit scores as conditions change.
Need help interpreting your results? Contact franchise@birddogpizza.com or visit HEaiLTHCaiRE.com for consulting support.