Tom’s Franchise Information Blog

Friendly’s restaurants are a chain of restaurants in the USA which were began as an ice cream shop back in the 30′s. Today however they have transformed from an ice cream vendor to a chain of restaurants serving full meals. They have not lost touch their ice cream roots as they try to incorporate ice cream with their meals. Friendly’s have trademark products like the Big Beef, Burgers, SuperMelt sandwiches, Royal banana split sundae, berry patch desserts covered with chocolate among many other favorite delicacies. The products are sold in the restaurants and also in retail shops and supermarkets all over the country.

The over 500 Friendly’s outlets are built to closely resemble each other like many other franchise outlets with a trademark street clock, with the name of the town in it, outside every Friendly’s restaurant. This makes it very easy to spot and identify the restaurants even when you are out of your local area. Despite the administration changes made over time, Friendly’s has retained its practice of serving ordinary snacks in an extraordinary way. Customer satisfaction has always been a priority.

Due to the favorable franchise cost, most of the restaurants are operated as franchises and can be found in 17 states across the US. The franchise not only operates restaurants but also run food processing and distribution plants that produce the trademark products sold in supermarkets all over. The franchise growth is not yet over. The franchise management provides an easy frame work to interested investors who want a share of the cake with the 200th most franchised restaurant, according to The Entrepreneur of 2010. Friendly’s allows conversion of existing ice cream shops and full restaurants in to Friendly’s restaurants. The investment cost is said to be between 650,000$ and 1.5m$.

The expansion of the franchise today is mainly geographical with the management aimed to cover new states in the USA to the demand of its products which are mainly sold in some 4,000 supermarkets spread in cities that don’t have the restaurants. But still, Friendly’s has been doing a lot of product diversification and there is no doubt this will continue. Ice cream has been their major specialty but fast foods are slowly getting popular in Friendly’s restaurants all over the USA. Most of the restaurants have been renovated to a modern style which has seen the newly renovated outlets lack the trademark street clock associated with earlier friendly’s restaurants.

The franchise has enjoyed years of good management with each incoming CEO being better than the previous. Harsha Agadi, is the current CEO of the franchise owned by Sun Capital Partners. Harsha Agadi is very aggressive and enthusiastic in the expansion of the franchise and intends to increase the penetration of the franchise in the East coast and at the same time maintain consumer confidence and solidify investor trust. The franchise has been doing very well since it started trading in the American Stock Exchange 10 years ago and it appears this will continue through the next decade in which Sun Capital Partners plan to open 100 more restaurants.

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Thomas White is an internet coach and mentor, broker and past owner of multi-location franchises, dedicated to helping other achieve financial freedom leveraging the online market. To see his methods of creating an automated and thriving online business or how you can leverage the internet to send your existing business through the roof visit: http://whatsbetterthanafranchise.com.