Franchise Business Opportunities

MarketWatch:

Charlotte deck builder Archadeck of Charlotte took top honors at the annual awards banquet held at The Hammock Beach Resort Great Atlantic Ballroom in Palm Coast, Florida.

Outdoor Living Brands honors excellence in sales and marketing each year for franchisees of Archadeck Outdoor Living as well as its sister brands Mosquito Squad and Outdoor Lighting Perspectives.

Bestowed at the Outdoor Living Brands annual meeting in Florida on January 17, 2012, Archadeck of Charlotte took the equivalent of the “Best of Show” by becoming the very first recipient of the Six Million Dollar Sales Club Award, for exceeding $6,000,000 in sales for designing and construction custom outdoor living spaces in the Charlotte, North Carolina market. Examples of the affordable, functional and innovative decks, screened porches, patios, outdoor kitchens and other custom outdoor living structure and areas can be found online at http://charlotte.archadeck.com/.

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Manila Standard Today:

Edgar “Injap” Sia II, founder and vice chairman of Mang Inasal food chain, started with a vision for a business that potentially could expand on a nationwide scale. With no specific industry in mind, Sia came upon a concept that nobody dared to venture in—the barbeque fast food category.

“It was something unique. No fast food store carried barbecue at the time. I do not believe in copying business models. It is very hard to compete and sustain the business if you just copy. You have to really innovate [as a player] in the food industry. It just happened – I was able to spot the opportunity,” shares Sia. More.

Sacramento Bee:

If at first you don’t succeed… well, there’s always next year. New Year’s resolutions are the perennial letdowns. High hopes one day that this year will be different, dashed at the first sign of temptation. Health clubs, diet-book publishers and weight-loss centers depend on good intentions and short memories for a large portion of their revenues every year. After all it’s their bread and butter… or at least their whole-grain bread and low-fat spread.

So why is eating healthy and losing weight so hard? 7-Eleven, Inc. Corporate Dietitian Patsy Ross said she thinks some resolution-makers try such drastic changes, completely giving up foods they love, that failure is inevitable. Read more here.

The Franchise Magazine:

A valuable part of any research before investing in a franchise opportunity is to talk to existing franchise owners, who have already followed the same path you are about to embark on.

One of the most useful checks when researching a franchise opportunity is to talk to a company’s existing franchise owners, as they will be a font of invaluable first-hand, non-corporate opinions of what it is like to run the franchise.

By talking to them, you will be able to receive realistic insights into how many hours you will need to put in to make the business succeed, how long you can reasonably expect to wait before breaking even, how much operational and working capital will be needed to run the business, what sort of challenges you may encounter, how good the training and support is, how the franchisor relates to individual franchise owners once they have signed up – and much more in the way of operational realities.

Read on.

BurgerBusiness.com:

Burger King is rethinking and revising its menu. Branded Cinnabon cinnamon rolls are now available in some markets (at $1.99 apiece or two for $3.29, three for $5.99); it has introduced the $5 Chef’s Choice and $1.99 BK Toppers burgers; and it has recently upgraded its fries and bacon. The bacon-and-oyster Hangtown Fry isn’t on the menu, but John Koch, Executive Chef and Director of Product Innovation for Culinary Research & Development, says he’d love to give it a shot. Koch (pronounced “cook”) talked to BurgerBusiness.com about the process of creating new menu items.

BurgerBusiness.com: Talk a little about the development of the Chef’s Choice burger you brought out in October. It seems like an important shift toward a more “artisan” culinary style for Burger King.

Chef John Koch: Well, we set out by asking, “How can we make the most premium burger in the category? What would it look like to have a bacon-topped cheeseburger where every element is as good as we can make it?” So we put together a 100% ground chuck patty that’s seasoned, of course, with thick-cut hardwood-smoked bacon and thick cut cheese, romaine lettuce, red onion and a sauce we designed just for that sandwich. Full interview.

PizzaMarketplace.com:

Michigan-based Jet’s Pizza will launch a new Buffalo Chicken Pizza in March, just in time for the NCAA Basketball Tournament and spring break.

“Customers are demanding a different flavor profile, and hot and spicy is at the top of their wish list,” said John Jetts, vice president of franchise marketing. “In consumer taste testing, our Buffalo Chicken Pizza tested very positively.”

The new offering is topped with Jet’s Premium Mozzarella Cheese, grilled white-meat chicken, red onions, mild yellow peppers and Frank’s Red Hot Original Buffalo Sauce.

Crain’s Detroit Business:

Farmington Hills-based Pet Supplies Plus has acquired its largest franchisee for an undisclosed amount.

Co-owners Dave McQueen and Andy Monas, who sold their franchise back to Pet Supplies Plus, had managed 12 stores in northeast Pennsylvania, built up over the past 16 years.

Those stores together represented not only the largest Pet Supplies Plus franchisee but also one of the best-managed franchise operations in its network, Pet Supplies CEO Dave Bolen said in a release.

Salmon Arm Observer:

Wednesday’s Wendy’s Dreamlift Day is one to remember.

The event raised a record $114,276 at the nine Wendy’s restaurants in the Thompson-Okanagan, bringing the cumulative total to $1.1 million since the event began in 1995.

“We’ve done it and it’s great,” said Akbal Mund, with Inland Restaurants, the Wendy’s franchisee.

“It’s truly a community event.” Read more.

Patch.com:

Two local food franchisees came before the West Roxbury Neighborhood Council on Tuesday. McDonalds proposed to extend their operating hours, while unknowingly exposing an alleged malpractice within the neighboring area businesses. Separately, Subway restaurant talked about opening on Centre Street in the coming months.

McDonald’s, located on 1650 VFW Parkway, sought to extend their operating hours by requesting to open one hour earlier and closing an hour later. Owner Bob King shared his desire to remodel the establishment, as well as to be up to par with the neighboring businesses.

BusinessWeek:

Caribbean Restaurants Inc, the franchisee of Burger King restaurants in Puerto Rico, set the interest rate it will pay on a $190 million term loan it’s seeking to refinance debt, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction.

The five-year debt will pay 8 percentage points more than the London interbank offered rate, said the person, who declined to be identified because the terms are private. Libor, the rate banks say they can borrow in dollars from each other, will have a 1.5 percent floor.

Caribbean Restaurants is proposing to sell the loan at 97 cents on the dollar, the person said, reducing proceeds for the company and boosting the yield to investors.