Are you looking to buy a fast-casual franchise? Read this report first.

No other part of the foodservice industry has garnered as much buzz in the past decade as fast casual. This hybrid restaurant segment fills a niche between traditional fast food and casual dining, sharing operational similarities with fast food but with food, décor, and price points closer to casual dining.

With this growth has come increased interest in franchise opportunities. For this report, QSR magazine undertook careful research and with great thought assembled an original list of top deals in fast casual franchises. Among the criteria we used are size, name recognition, momentum, niche, and sales.

Note that this could have easily become a best-of list, but we hesitated to go that far. Instead, we have presented it as a group of fast casual concepts we believe are among the best deals for those individuals looking to buy into a fast casual franchise.

In part two of this report, we have included, for the sake of convenience, some of the franchising-related research published in QSR magazine in the past year, including looks at the state of the credit market and unusual financing strategies.

Taken together, you’ll find this report to be a valuable source of information regarding fast casual restaurant franchising.