Here come the price increases!

[storewanderer]

I think you start doing the Tommy's Burgers thing. First 59 are Tommy's. Next 59 are Tommi's. Next 59 are Tomy's. Next 59 are Tommy's Plus. Next are Tommy's (in small print below "By Tom's") And so on... Cook up the paperwork so they're separate.

I don't think anyone would necessarily want to get around the law over the wages. Everyone is going to have to pay that much due to the competition for labor. It's the lack of control and not knowing what kind of BS is coming next as they start to try to change work rules. At least the owners have seats on that "Fast Food Council" and they're going to be able to start showing the uneducated, illiterate fry cooks and such that were appointed to the board that their actions have led to XX thousand lost jobs, X thousand closures and bankruptcies of small business family owners, and most importantly that the big corporations they thought they were standing up against are doing just fine. But then these are the same people who probably supported the Senate candidate that wanted a $50 minimum wage, so we can implement the new $10, $20, and $30 Dollar Menu... You tell these people that the restaurant makes low single digit profits, if at all, and they just think that there's some magic hidden Fort Knox vault in there somewhere with fantastical amounts of profits and it just can't be true that once the employees, vendors, lenders, rent etc. is paid there's basically little to nothing left. I just read somewhere that a "good profit" for a restaurant after everyone is paid is about $50K per MILLION in revenue, but few owners/operators are good enough to even make that much. Let that sink in...

I am just not sure the customers will take Tommy's, Tommi's, Tomy's .. seriously. I feel like some may try this but they are destined to be low volume operations.

$50k bottom line profit per million in revenue sounds about right. It is very variable though and sometimes that is not the entire picture. With some of these concepts the franchisee will own the real estate under a separate LLC from the restaurants and lease it back to the LLC that owns the restaurant. Of course lease expense was recorded to expense to get to that $50k bottom line profit but in the rather UNCOMMON CASE (emphasis here before someone assumes all the franchisees do this; FEW do and the few who do only typically do it on a LIMITED NUMBER OF THEIR STORES) lease revenue going to an LLC controlled by the franchisee is the other side of the story. Even better in the case of one burger franchisee in my area who owns multiple of the buildings free and clear so the whole thing is straight profit. Questionable for another who has ownership of a building but it is a more recent purchase and the price paid was a little high in my opinion. And if you have a low volume unit that only does around $600k as part of your "package" that you are basically stuck operating due to a franchise contract/lease, that unit may well lose $50k a year and even if you profit from leasing it to yourself it is not an optimal arrangement, but canceling the contract or even not renewing it at the 10 year mark when it comes due risks losing your standing with the franchisor in the market.