Howdy, am asking this to give my eldest Grandson some advice (which I doubt he will take). His MIL has him involved in exploring opening a Chicken Salad Chicks joint in Midland, TX. I have no direct knowledge of restaurants, I did, however, know several friends that did, and their stories are not pretty. In a general sense the time spent overseeing the operation is almost all day every day. Employee theft and performance is always a problem. That is what little I know.

Several of my concerns are that a Chicken Salad only joint caters to women almost exclusively, therefore one half of your potential clients are gone. Chicken Salad is a seasonal dish, no one eats Chicken Salad in Texas in the winter. Staffing in Midland, Texas during an Oil Boom is extremely problematic.

Business side of Franchising is something I know zero about. The Chicken Salad Chick initial fee is $50K, with a 5% of revenue burden. Purchase of all expendables, napkins, cups, plates, table clothes are all branded and must be purchased through them.

Need all you smart guys that have been through this to give the facts that I can present to him to PERHAPS stop what, to me, is a LOOMING TRAIN WRECK both personally and financially!

Thanks!!

Sometimes I accidentally order chicken salad when I think I'm getting a salad with grilled chicken on it. I'm always disappointed on those days and realize I need to be more careful.

Has he said why that franchise in particular?

All I know is you can't make chicken salad out of chicken sh*t.

Hope that helps.

I have nothing to add other than opening a Chicken Salad franchise in Midland, TX would be last on my list of businesses to start. It seems like a very high probability of failure.

Live in Midland. Would not eat there

Have one of those near me, and we've been once in the several years it's existed. Place never seems busy, and we drive by it every day.

Chicken salad just isn't a food the average person thinks about going out to eat for as your sole option.

Would advise a hard pass.

I actually enjoy chicken salad

but would never start a franchise business selling it.

especially in Texas.

especially in Midland.

Tell him he stands to make millions more investing in the great pork bacchanal

https://instagr.am/p/Ct9gSb1M50D

Seriously though, the only people I know that eat chicken salad are women in their 70's, and they don't eat out. I can't imagine the mostly male oilfield crowd in Midland will buck that trend.

I'm doing pretty well on my Split Pea Soup Brothers franchise

Went to one last week and it was indeed 80% women, but was delicious. Really makes you think.

Mark Fairchild said:

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Howdy, am asking this to give my eldest Grandson some advice (which I doubt he will take). His MIL has him involved in exploring opening a Chicken Salad Chicks joint in Midland, TX. I have no direct knowledge of restaurants, I did, however, know several friends that did, and their stories are not pretty. In a general sense the time spent overseeing the operation is almost all day every day. Employee theft and performance is always a problem. That is what little I know.

Several of my concerns are that a Chicken Salad only joint caters to women almost exclusively, therefore one half of your potential clients are gone. Chicken Salad is a seasonal dish, no one eats Chicken Salad in Texas in the winter. Staffing in Midland, Texas during an Oil Boom is extremely problematic.

Business side of Franchising is something I know zero about. The Chicken Salad Chick initial fee is $50K, with a 5% of revenue burden. Purchase of all expendables, napkins, cups, plates, table clothes are all branded and must be purchased through them.

Need all you smart guys that have been through this to give the facts that I can present to him to PERHAPS stop what, to me, is a LOOMING TRAIN WRECK both personally and financially!

Thanks!!

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In my over three decades of preparing tax returns, every restaurant that I had for a client, or who visited with me and I didn't take them on or they didn't hire me, failed. The two exceptions were Mexican food places and almost every employee was related to the owner(s). So did many others who I knew nothing about other than they opened and then not too much later they shut down.

You mention many of the issues that I have seen: having a bunch of employees (many of them are younger folks), them failing to show up, the pay is not all that great, so lots of turnover, spoilage of inventory, etc. Another hurdle is location, a poor location will doom you. A good location will be costly.

In my experience, the biggest hurdle a first-time restaurant owner encounters is going from a "normal" work week (often Monday through Friday, 40 to 45 hours a week) to a business many of which are open 363 days a year (not on Christmas or Easter) and 12 or so hours a day.

It would be the last type of business I would be involved in.

Didn't realize there was aggressive seasonality when it comes to chicken salad consumption in Texas. But that's probably because I'm a dude and it's not a food that resonates with me.

My wife will bring home small tubs from Chicken Salad Chick every now and then. The other day she brought in a small tub and we ate it down and I commented that it was better than it usually is. Turns out it came from HEB.

Tell him to look at a Bojangles fried chicken, and have the location inside a truck stop.

Or a Chicken Express.

Either one of those would print money.

Nobody is going to eat that crap, especially not in Midland. The rich wives who go out are going to much nicer places. Dudes won't go there. Restaurants have to have one of the highest failure rates of any business. If the MIL is so keen, she can do it and pay someone to manage it or manage it herself. Hell, if I were going to start a franchise that would be in the bottom 20 of the list. Especially in Midland.



He'd have more success opening a business that sells nothing but truck nuts out there. People would actually go to that business. What an awful idea.

About a year ago my company required us to go back to the office, and there was a CSC (I'm abbreviating it), very nearby that caught my attention. This was in Irving. They had a really easy ability to order online and pickup. Very easy. The food was really good IMO. The menu had enough variety, I'd order from there multiple times a week and get something different every time. That particular location was usually full at lunch and always had many orders sacked up waiting on pickup. I suspect they don't do much business outside of weekday/lunch. I think their target market was mostly nearby office workers more so than just "women".

The company is terribly named IMO.

And I think the location would matter tremendously. If you're in Midland trying to attract some oilfield workers, that's probably not going to work out. IF it's near some large corporate offices, well that could be a completely different story.

Like most things, I think this one is not an easy question. Restaurants are hard. I wouldn't want to be in that business. But I suspect a lot of people make very very good livings off of that.

I would encourage him to manage a fast food restaurant in Midland before jumping in with his own money. Even if he starts at the bottom, he'll likely be a manager within a month if he shows up to work every time he's scheduled. I've never worked in fast food, but I doubt the hassle of running a fast food restaurant in one of the tightest labor markets in the country can adequately be understood without experience.

How is finding labor in midland? I've always thought it was tough because oilfield jobs pay much more $$

There are certain things that cannot be adequately explained to a virgin either by words or pictures. Nor can any description that I might offer here even approximate what it feels like to lose a real chunk of money that you used to own.

Tell him to just give you half his money and take him out back, give him a kick in the nuts and call it a day

You are unlikely to ever crush it in a franchise. Most likely outcome is your are buying a job.

you can crush it as a franchise owner but you need to own 100+ of them and all the land they sit on.

A good friend and his wife opened a franchise in a new city years ago when they were both in their early 30s. Both were managers of the place after doing all of the training and paying the fee. Both had worked as servers and bartending while in college/ high school.

Labor was a constant problem and numerous lawsuits. Slip and fall, food poisoning claims, etc. They eventually sold the place after several years of headaches running it.

Lots of funny stories but my favorite was my buddy finding the cook and cashier having sex in the freezer. On top of a big pile of packaged hamburger buns.

MIL still upset that her daughter's first husband didn't like the idea either?

I have a nephew who was the first Chicken Express franchisee, eventually had about 20 different stores. He's down to maybe 3 now but he's possibly the richest guy in Granbury. High school education but got some good guidance from the guy who started CE.

There's one thing I've not seen on the comments on this thread. It's the consequences of a failed franchise and/or the ability to get out of it should he no longer want to do it.

My father owned the Dickies BBQ next to the Buccees in Madisonville. He's been a long time owner/operator of gas stations and restaurants, franchises, etc. he was pretty successful at it and even owned another dickies up 45 that was pretty good. Plus he had some really good partners along the way (think Texas burger or some notable small town Mexican food places).

He freaking hated the dickies. It was a money losing machine that was obliterated by Buccees. They were losing money and dickies still required them to pay/enforce the franchise agreement and would not release him early. PLUS he still owed monthly payments for the equipment and real estate. It was a money losing operation, with no way out because of the term of the agreement. He struggled to find someone to sell/assume his franchise rights and contract for the location. But when he did, the guy he ended up selling to was convinced my pops was doing it wrong.

That guy didn't make it 6 months before bailing on the operation. My dad still had to pay the rent for the spaces but was able to have assigned/got out of the Dickies franchise agreement which is what he wanted. Eventually had another guy come along who decided to open a boutique BBQ catering gig that did ok for a bit but also went under.

This cost my father well into the 6 figures and was a driving factor in him selling out of most things to retire. He said between the labor and the franchiser, it sucked.

It's not just about the $50K, there's a lot more beneath.