Baristas Coffee Company, Inc. (BCCI)

[BobSinCA]

No BCCI association with prostitution arrest other than geographic proximity, totally agree.

One poster said controversy is 'helpful' to a company, you concurred.

My point is that controversy is not helpful in a franchising business if it creates a perceived risk of difficulty of getting, or holding, an operating permit -- and I used the prostitution arrests in a competing baristas coffee business as an example of my point.

Do you honestly think that kind of controversy helps??

The risk is that the Barista's kiosk drive-through model is is an unsupervised business, a couple of girls in a kiosk. 'Town fathers' might well not want to offer permits -- and/or 'rogue' employees could mess things up in a business with nominal operating margins (BCCI had $0.60 in operating LOSSES for every $1.00 in revenue in Q3 2014 with no management salaries, and this was AFTER closing three non-performing locations).

So why take the risk if you are a franchisee?

That is why I like the mall model with a broader menu; tone down the costumes and include male employees as well. Worth trying!

Certainly, after years of opening and closing kiosks with negative margins, and afer a HUGE franchisee push a year ago with the prior Inc magazine placement and other similar placements produced not a single new kiosk in a year (and, one promised for opening did not), the kiosk model did not seem to have growth prospects.