San Francisco-born burger chain The Melt has signed its first franchise development agreement, pairing with veteran operator Syed Ahmad on eight planned Texas restaurants aimed at Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin.
The company announced the deal on November 13. None of those eight restaurants is described as open, and the announcement does not say how the locations will be split between the two markets or when the first one might arrive. PR Newswire reported the agreement as the chain's initial franchise development deal.
A Long Company-Owned Run
The Melt was founded in San Francisco in 2011 and still operates 24 company-owned restaurants. It spent about 15 years working on its menu, kitchen design, labor model, and operating systems before launching a franchise program earlier this year.
That sequence is the point of the Texas deal. Franchising is starting after a long company-owned stretch, not instead of one. The company says it wants to keep a hospitality-driven culture and an "I Love It Here" philosophy as other operators take the brand outside its own restaurants.
Food & Beverage Magazine, which reported the signing, put the practical question to prospective franchisees in blunt terms: check how long, and how deeply, a brand has tested its operations before committing.
Why Ahmad, and Why Texas
Ahmad brings more than four decades in restaurants. Over that career he has owned and operated 90 Burger King restaurants, 64 Denny's locations, three Dunkin locations, and 11 Popeyes restaurants, according to the company announcement.
He has known chief executive Ralph Bower and Greg Vojnovic, vice president and head of franchising, for nearly 20 years. Vojnovic said Ahmad understands multi-location development, team building, and consistent execution at scale, and that the investment reflects the strength of the opportunity. Ahmad, for his part, described the choice as an easy one because he already knew the culture and how the company treats franchisees. He also said the chain had refined the concept before taking franchisees on.
Ahmad's background includes a 30-year residence in Dallas, an early role as a Jack in the Box franchisee, and a growing portfolio across Texas, Oregon, and Washington, according to the company release. He is opening new Dunkin' and Jimmy John's locations and said he has learned to separate lasting restaurant concepts from trends.
The Numbers Behind the Pitch
When The Melt launched national franchising, it put 2025 results in front of multi-unit operators. Corporate revenue that year was $58.3 million. Locations open more than a year averaged $3.4 million in annual sales, and the top third exceeded $4.5 million in average unit volume.
Those are different measures. Corporate revenue is the company's own top line. The unit figures describe restaurant sales at locations that had already been open for more than a year, not a forecast for a Texas franchise that does not exist yet.
QSR Magazine has reported 10 consecutive years of positive same-store sales. The same coverage said 40 percent of sales occur after 10 p.m. A separate franchise write-up said restaurants generate nearly 40 percent of sales after 8 p.m. under a Melt After Dark strategy. The cutoffs are not the same, so the two figures should not be read as one statistic.
Company Growth and Franchise Growth
The Texas agreement sits next to a company plan that is still centered elsewhere. In the April franchising announcement, The Melt said its five-year company plan focused on aggressive growth in California and Arizona, with franchising as the route beyond those core markets.
QSR Magazine reported a related target of 80 corporate restaurants by 2030 across California and Arizona. That is a company-owned goal, not a count of Ahmad's eight Texas restaurants, and it is a plan rather than restaurants already built.
The menu the company is taking into that expansion is built around a MeltBurger of Angus and Wagyu beef topped with melted aged cheddar. The broader lineup includes melted classics, crispy chicken sandwiches, mac and cheese, seasoned fries, and handspun shakes. The company says the food uses all-natural ingredients and no artificial additives.
Ahmad's Other Texas Deal
Ahmad is not new to multi-unit development agreements in North Texas. QSR Magazine reported that he signed an agreement to bring 20 Noodles & Company restaurants to the Dallas market, with plans to place them across Collin, Denton, Dallas, and Rockwell counties.
That is a separate brand and a separate deal from the eight Melt locations. Noodles & Company has said it is pushing franchise growth in southern and southeastern markets, including Texas, along with Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Oklahoma.
For The Melt, the concrete development so far is the agreement itself: eight planned restaurants, two target markets, and a first franchisee who already operates at scale. Opening dates, addresses, and the split between Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin have not been set out in the announcement.
