Dream Dinners is a clever food franchise that’s growing fast.
The term “dream dinner”
may bring to mind a perfect date at a candlelit table, violin music in the background, with the meal capped by a wedding ring hidden in the champaign glass.
Dream Dinners is also a clever food franchise that’s growing fast. It involves prepared menus and locations where people go to receive instruction in cooking them. Yes, you’re probably saying “why didn’t I come up with that one”?
People are very busy today. Eating well at home is besoming more and more difficult . Sure there are many quality frozen and ready made foods, but somehow it’s never the same as a good home cooked meal.
When the schedule is packed, however, will people give up their jobs or their self made meals? This franchise comes to the rescue.
This is how it functions. Patrons go in and select some or all of 14 meals from a menu. Number of servings determines cost of each meal. Then they cook it while still at the shop.
There are both private and public supervised cooking sessions. It’s as if a cooking show host steps out of the television to show people how to make the meal.
The meals are a lot less expensive than it would appear when the concept is first described. A 14 item menu costs about $3.50 per serving, with side dishes and extras like salads and potatoes purchased separately.
A total of about $5 per serving isn’t a bad price to pay for a good meal. That’s a great deal for the food plus the cooking instruction.
These locations are franchises people own. It has its problems. It’s not the food or menus or preparation, but rather the franchisees. Some of the franchisees aren’t happy. Forbes Magazine profiled Dream Dinners in March 2008. The company didn’t look very good in the article.
The new concept quickly gained popularity and attracted would be business owners. But it seems the business plan wasn’t strong, as many of these people found themselves unable to continue the business after a short time and a lot of investment.
The article detailed what was described as misrepresentations of the profit possible, and thus the overall valuation of franchises.
That’s something for the company to handle. For patrons, it’s fun to handle the cooking chores while working off of a wonderful menu.
Evan
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