It took Krispy Kreme a long time to get to Southern California. The first one in the San Diego area was near my office. I waited until they were a week or so from opening to visit the site. I was expecting a kiosk or perhaps an end-cap in a strip mall. It was a great location, but the facilities were as big as a McDonald's of the era: same size lot, same parking, similar drive-thru, and a full-size building. All this for one product line? It was apparent that the business model was broken because the initial investment was as big as a any QSR. I don't know how long the location lasted but today, that property holds a strip mall with a bunch of stores. The KK building was scraped years ago. .
Selling a product that people only buy a few times a year (doughnuts) is not a winning strategy. If you want to sell a product that people buy infrequently, it has to be a big ticket item with really good margins, like a car or a refrigerator. I'm not sure why any small biz owner knows this but the highly paid suits at MCD don't.
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It took Krispy Kreme a long time to get to Southern California. The first one in the San Diego area was near my office. I waited until they were a week or so from opening to visit the site. I was expecting a kiosk or perhaps an end-cap in a strip mall. It was a great location, but the facilities were as big as a McDonald's of the era: same size lot, same parking, similar drive-thru, and a full-size building. All this for one product line? It was apparent that the business model was broken because the initial investment was as big as a any QSR. I don't know how long the location lasted but today, that property holds a strip mall with a bunch of stores. The KK building was scraped years ago.
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Selling a product that people only buy a few times a year (doughnuts) is not a winning strategy. If you want to sell a product that people buy infrequently, it has to be a big ticket item with really good margins, like a car or a refrigerator. I'm not sure why any small biz owner knows this but the highly paid suits at MCD don't.
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