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Worth sinking your teeth into: Wendy's and other fast-food chains offer profitable, unique locations.


Fast-food fast food
n.
Inexpensive food, such as hamburgers and fried chicken, prepared and served quickly.



fast
 franchising has taken a new turn and new venues. No longer highway sanctuaries or main street havens, Wendy's, Burger King or McDonald's may soon be coming to your nearest college campus or community hospital cafeteria cafeteria: see restaurant.  or even commanding an audience of crew-cut diners Diners can mean:
  • Diners Club International, a credit card company
  • plural of "diner", see Diner (disambiguation)
 on U.S. Marine bases.

Wendy's International Wendy's International, Inc. NYSE: WEN is the parent company of Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers. It also owns 70 percent of Cafe Express and 25 percent (fully diluted) of Pasta Pomodoro. The Tim Hortons chain was spun off by Wendy's into a separate company in September 2006.  Inc. recently decided to expand its nontraditional market--and the lines are already forming. Nontraditional restaurants are found in unique and convenient locations like malls, military bases, college campuses, hospitals, airports, zoos The following is a partial list of zoological gardens (zoos): Africa
, arenas, theme parks and tollways.

"For the vendor, nontraditional restaurants are less risky," explains the project's spearhead, Hannibal Myers. Hired away from Taco Bell Taco Bell Corp., a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., is a Mexican-style quick service restaurant chain based in Irvine, California, United States. The restaurant has locations primarily in the United States and Canada, but also operates outlets in several other markets. , where he developed nontraditional restaurants, the 31-year-old Myers is now director of national special unit development at Wendy's. He is responsible for selecting new franchisees to operate and run these restaurants. Franchisors such as Wendy's are paying special attention to what's being touted as the fastest-growing section of this $45 billion quick-service industry.

"Typically, [these units] involve less expense and they tend to be very profitable because of the lower investment," explains Myers. These smaller nontraditional units can range in size from 500-sq.-ft. to about 2,000-sq.-ft. Nontraditional Wendy's restaurants are almost always in high-traffic areas, which account for the higher sales revenues.

"Some of the nontraditional units are having sales that are as high or higher than traditional units," Myers notes. That's great news since one of these units can cost as little as $250,000, compared with about $900,000 to $1 million just to build the traditional castle-like complex.

Our of the 4,300 Wendy's restaurants (of which 73 are black owned), about 200 are nontraditional units. Myers plans to bring in another 150 to 200 nontraditional restaurants over the next two years. Many should be popping up on college and university campuses since, thus far, they seem to be the most popular locations.

McDonald's was of the pioneers of the trend. Last year, John Tillman opened a high-tech McDonald's at the University of Houston and Texas Southern University. The restaurant, which has Macintosh and IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries)  computers, laser printers, copy machines and a fax, sits between the two major universities.

McDonald's executives hailed Tillman's idea as "pace setting." They are looking to duplicate DUPLICATE. The double of anything.
     2. It is usually applied to agreements, letters, receipts, and the like, when two originals are made of either of them. Each copy has the same effect.
 the idea.

CASE IN POINT

An old adage states that the secret to success is "location, location, location Location, Location, Location is a popular Channel 4 property programme, presented by Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer. The reality show follows two real estate experts as they try to find the perfect home for a different set of buyers each week. It first aired in May 2001. ." Well, Kenneth James certainly paid heed. Houston's International Airport is where james and his family opened their nontraditional Wendy's in 1992. The state-of-the art restaurant is 1,300 sq. ft. and is housed in the Continental Airlines terminal.

The foot traffic at this airport exceeds more than 40,000 passengers a day. "We have been very, very successful since opening," says Kenneth James, vice president of Latrelle's Management Corp. "If you're in a shopping mall or an airport, like we are, the people are already there," explains James. He points out that his sales revenues ranks his unit among the chain's top 3% worldwide.

The volume is so great that the James family plans to build another unit just to handle it. Currently, they employ 45 people at the airport restaurant. Build-out costs will total $225,000 for the family's second 600-sq.-ft. location, which is simply called Weady's Express.

Director Hannibal Myers counsels minorities to take advantage of the push to open more nontraditional restaurants. "Wendy's has several initiatives in place to boost minority participation, not only as franchisees. We're looking for Looking for

In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with.
 qualified minority vendors, food suppliers, and those who can offer us financial services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page.
."

Experts say the perfect candidate to operate such a unit is someone with a background in the food service business who is willing to work very hard at making the operation a big success.

But even though the cost of entry for nontraditional units is appealing, securing financing is still the biggest barrier to buying a franchise.
COPYRIGHT 1995 Earl G. Graves Publishing Co., Inc.
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 1995, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Article Details
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Author:Gite, Lloyd
Publication:Black Enterprise
Date:Mar 1, 1995
Words:645
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