First, the Good News Franchising will be a trillion dollar business in the United States by the turn of the century. Just about every type of business possible is franchised, but the largest franchise category is foodservice, which represents more than 25 percent of the total activity. New Competition for the Southeast Damon s helped start it all in 1979 with a small barbecue place in Columbus, Ohio, and has grown to 135 stores including two in England, and now the company is growing at twenty-five stores per year, most of them franchise operations, according to marketing director Kelly Clark. Twenty of the stores are company owned. Our concept is really different from most other barbecue chains in that we focus on ribs, prime ribs and steak.
Most stores also have carryout and some offer catering.
We have house specialties such as our famous onion loaf, and some really wild desserts. Our concept is casual dining it its best. We do a lot of carryout in our stores that are associated with hotels. We feature a full bar, with alcohol beverages accounting for about 17 percent of total sales. We are currently going after multi-unit franchises.