Super Suppers fresh and sassy look
Super Suppers is kicking off August with a sassy new look. It looks pretty good, but that damn box that keeps popping up on the screen asking me for my city information has got to go! Every time I click something that stupid box comes up. Why can’t I just look over the site without being prompted?
And judging by their new tagline they really aren’t in the meal assembly business anymore, but seem firmly entrenched in the take out business.
Need dinner tonight? Just come in and pick up delicious entrees, sides and desserts we’ve made fresh for you. No need to schedule an appointment. We make dinner time easy.
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August 5th, 2008 at 9:19 am
I completely agree about that google location box. I don’t want to tell them where I am. I just want to look around!
August 5th, 2008 at 9:38 am
I went there yesterday and yes another vote for completely annoying. It looks like that then defaults as your preferred location.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:12 am
As well as the obviously annoying aspects of this site already mentioned, my favorite is going to the stores that are out of business, and the page won’t take you anywhere. To a first time customer, that’s smart business. Confuse them and hopefully they’ll go away-it really breeds consumer confidence. The stores that are open have a message written in some difficult to read gray print (good choice, really attracts attention-makes you want to keep reading!). But you have to find a store that is open for business to know that……………….and some are not……………
August 5th, 2008 at 11:01 am
How about the fact that one store I know is opened appears to be closed!
What a stupid move! I have to agree with whomever said that letting your website be maintained out of house is ridiculous!
August 5th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Leaving closed stores on the website seems to part of Zors Business Basics 101. Supper Thyme USA also leaves stores up after they have closed. Sometimes the stores put up a message on their own that they are closed, and other times it is up to the customer to figure it out….kinda hard to place an order with no menu or times.
Right now one STU store says they were going on vacation in July (a month??) …but it’s now August and nothing is there.
Again, just a bad impression for the remaining stores and the industry. I just don’t get it but there must be some bizarre rationale behind this common pratice.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Chef George, In my opinion I think it’s called making the industry look healthier than it is. Think about how you sell more franchises if people can track how many have closed over the course of your company being opened. We may see it as a dubious business practice, they see it as marketing.
August 5th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Ya I’ve heard that rationale and I always try to look for something with more depth…either rightly or wrongly. Does it really take that little to pull the wool over people’s eyes? These are potential business owners seriously assessing risk and putting out serious cash. It doesn’t take much digging anymore to get at the truth.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I am all for calling the kettle black, if it is. But, SS is not one of the offenders in the “temporarily closed” or “let’s just pretend it’s open” camp. There are a few stores still listed that are closed, but when stores close as fast as they have been, it’s a little tough to keep up. Plus even closed stores deserve a web presence until all their customers know. EMPA lists SS at 140 or so stores–as of July 1 and that was pretty accurate. SS has been pretty honest about their numbers and their closures.
The new website has been a very tough transition for a lot of stores, self included–it just doesn’t work for the way some of us run our businesses, so it may take a while to work out the kinks. You can criticize all you want, that’s fair and helpful, but it is important to correct any errors and false allegations and SS has NOT tried to hide their closures like some others. Lisa
August 7th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Depending on whose numbers you want to believe, if Super Suppers currently has 140 stores open, that means they have potentially closed anywhere from 60-100 stores. I have seen reports that SS had as many as 240 stores under their belt. Somewhere between 200-212 seems to be a more accurate number which would still leave 60 stores no longer in operation.
I would think that Dream Dinners would be in the same position as far as stores opened. They have claimed well into the 200’s as being opened (with dozens more to come), but I doubt they can have too many more than 160 currently open, which means they have scuttled a ton of stores as well.
If you can believe any of these numbers…
August 7th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Tuckerbox,
DD looks to still number, at least, 190 and maybe a few more.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Actually, 140 WAS accurate on July 1, we now have about 125 stores open. SS sold about 305 territories, several never opened, maybe 10, I can’t remember exactly, but we have closed a lot. We also just got a new President/CEO today, someone named Bruce Thompson, anyone heard of him, used to be a GM with High Desert Broadcasting in CA? Apparently we were bought out, or something, by a private equity firm… Lisa
August 7th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Lisa,
Is this the Bruce Thompson you are refering to?
http://center.spoke.com/info/p9tTijC/BruceThompson
August 7th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I don’t think so. There are a lot of Bruce Thompsons. There is also an internet entrepreneur in Dallas with the same name–there is an article about him somewhere that said his faith led him to start a website called http://www.777live.com, but that’s a porn site–what do you think about that?!?!?!?! I think it was a typo, but I told you about that proclivity, didn’t I? Lisa
August 7th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
or better yet…….check this Bruce Thompson out. LMAO Indictment. I think I will hold my tongue….LOL
http://mediaverse-memphis.blogspot.com/2007/11/on-bruce-thompsons-indictment.html
August 8th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Lisa, you are saying Judy has stepped down and there is a new CEO for Super Suppers? (I guess Bill is technically the CEO) There is also a possibility the company has actually been sold to another group?
If Dream Dinners still has 190 stores, they are doing a lot better than I would have thought. But still, that seems awfully high considering the number of stores I have seen up for sale.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Judie was never an officer, she oversees recipe development and the culinary school and she is our figurehead, but she has never been involved in the “business” side. Bill has always been CEO, then for a while we had Terrill Phillips as President, maybe 2006 until sometime last year, but that was mostly during the time that as near as I can figure Sam Hance was actually running the company. Then yesterday it was announced that we have a new CEO/President acting on behalf of a private equity group of investors and that Bill Byrd is now “chairman.” I am not sure what that means–how many titles can two guys in a four-person show have? It’s like Greater Tuna, perhaps we should have that as an entree! That’s all I know, Lisa
August 14th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Based on these two articles, Super Suppers claims to have had 200 stores open with an additional 65 in the works. If they have hit 120 then they have at least dropped 80 stores with that additional 65 unaccounted for. Total that up and there is a loss of 145 stores somewhere along the way…
Super Suppers has sold approximately 265 franchises in nearly 40 states, with 200 locations now open.
Super Suppers has multiplied into 205 franchisees in 40 states
August 14th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Tuckerbox, that number wouldn’t surprise me. The interesting thing to me all along has been the over inflated number of stores “in operation” or on the drawing board claimed by any franchisor in general not any one in particular-I understand that numbers of units sold is a powerful a marketing tool for them. And if you go to any of the franchise broker sites you will find seemingly over inflated numbers of stores opened for any given MAK franchisor listed. In my opinion there seems to be little concern that the numbers on these sites are grossly outdated.
The numbers would seem to be a little misleading in my opinion.
Also interesting is that folks looking to buy an MAK store, second generation buyers as well, use these numbers without a true understanding that franchises sold and stores in current operation are two different things.
If the numbers are true, a total of 145 stores closed out of grand total of 265 stores sold should be a sobering thought for anyone who is pondering a purchase from any of the various franchisors in this industry. But where is this information readily available for general consumption? The closure rates of MAK’s from what I can decipher is staggering and not just in terms of franchised stores, but independents as well.
Stringent Due diligence is the way to go in my opinion, but that should include sites like this one and others. True and verifiable store closures numbers are hard to come by, that factor alone would make me nervous about getting into the MAK industry right now. In my opinion this is also complicated by several factors, one being stores just close with no fanfare or announcement. Another is reporters not doing proper research into the industry when writing a story and just reporting what industry “experts” tell them as truth with no verification or checking with other sources.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Interesting place to put an advertising puff piece to sell franchises isn’t it?
“Super Suppers has sold approximately 265 franchises in nearly 40 states, with 200 locations now open.”
August 14th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Tuckerbox, those are both old articles, you don’t have to believe my numbers if you don’t want to, but both of those articles date back to 2007. Lisa
August 14th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
No, no not disagreeing with you at all. I was showing the articles from 2007 that state Super Suppers as having 200+ stores open (potentially 260) and how they now have a fraction of that number. By your figures they only have 120 open now which means 145 stores have potentially been lost or more than 50%. Simply showing where they were versus where they are.
Even this shows the downward trend and lower figures and agrees with your figures:
Fort Worth Texas based Super Suppers has over 150 locations and is close to being the largest meal preparation franchise in the world.
150 stores, down from 265 and you are on the way to becoming the largest in the world?
August 14th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
But we opened about 295 stores, remember the 265 number doesn’t account for the stores that had ALREADY closed when those articles were written. We have closed about 180 stores. Lisa
August 14th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
That is even more shocking…the loss of 180 stores is well, I’m speechless that a company that has that kind of failure rate is still actively trying to sell franchises and seems to be doing it, using the same model, is well in my opinion beyond the pale.
I think other MAK companies have similar failure/closure rates. When I started with Supper Thyme they had 40 stores open, no there are somewhere around 15 operating. That’s a failure rate of over 50%.
So if I understand this correctly SS since it started selling franchises OPENED 295 but closed 180. If my math is correct that leaves 115 stores still open.
My question is why are these figures not discussed somewhere and available to the public?
Lisa, I hope everything is going well for you and your family.
August 14th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Somewhere in there are the ten stores that never opened, I count them as closed, some people don’t, but I think that if someone paid $35k for a territory and never opened it, that’s a failure too. If it were my franchise, I would consider it a failure–because I am honest that way! We have about 125 still open. But if history repeats, we tend to have a lot of closures in Sept/Oct… The figures are public if you request the FDD, but you really have to get all of them and compare numbers over the years since the UFOC/FDD only requires they report open stores and numbers that closed. It is a pretty decent bookkeeping exercise to get an accurate picture, but all the data is there if you want it. Lisa
August 14th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I think this will be a Sept/Oct that is going to be defining moment of the MAK industry.
I agree with Tuckerbox on this one-2008 is not going to be great for the MAK industry.
Has anyone gotten the new EMPA newsletter? I’m told that is looks suspiciously a lot like mealassemblywatch. I’m guessing they go where the real experts are to get their “industry news” these days?
I have spent literally hours researching companies with over 10 stores in their network to see what kind of closure vs. total number of stores sold is over the time they started selling franchise to present. You’re right it is indeed a daunting task. It’s also a frightening system to see.
August 14th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I think I’m astounded by that failure rate. And, I agree that I don’t think it is specific to only one brand or franchise vs. independent. Extrapolation and total guesstimation…
If at the peak there were 1400 stores (or so) listed on either of the public directories, with a failure rate (for one franchise mind you) of 61%, then that means at a minimum 854 stores have opened and closed. That peak doesn’t account for situations as described above, where people made significant investments but never opened or the fact that there isn’t a hard number of the total number of stores ever opened b/c stores came and went and the details are hard to track.
That said, its probably not too unlikely that the real number approaches or exceeds a thousand people/families who lost their shirts (and shorts and shoes…) in this game, so far.
Crazy.
August 14th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
How about we go one step further and ponder the amount of money franchisors have cost the government in defaulted SBA loans @probably $100-200 k avg. for say 85% of that over 854 stores closed?
I think a while back someone said to jeers& sneers from the crowd that the industry had lost over 800 stores.
Crazy indeed…
August 14th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
To quote myself for half a second:
First off I believe at least 500 stores will close their doors in 2008 (franchise and independent).
Just from what we know, if you do some rough math you will see that we have a debt somewhere in the neighborhood of $18,750,000.00 (Just based on the survey results posted)
However, if we apply the new numbers and what we know it’s actually more like this:
- At 500 stores, with each owner losing $250k (which was the average from the survey) you have $125,000,000. Even at halve that amount you have $75 million lost.
- At 854 stores, with $250k lost you get $213,500,000. Even if you halve that amount you still well over $100 million.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Thanks Tuckerbox; You can quote yourself anytime!
Let’s ponder one more thought while we’re here…
How much money has been MADE in royalties and franchise fees, plus franchise fees from stores churned, while 800-1000 FAMILIES have lost their shirts, shoes, and sock?
August 18th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Numbers can be painful. I wonder if the SBA is sophisticated enough to track success rates and has a formula to decide when to cut off funding….I probably don’t want to know the answer.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Chef George,
Based on what I saw this morning perusing the HUNDREDS of ads online for existing Meal Assembly Stores for sale AND that there were two or three SBA “representatives” listed on some biz for sale websites advertising help in getting financing, I would hazard a guess that the SBA is still loaning money for MAK start-ups and resales. Do they track statistics ? I don’t know.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Well I did my part and gave our SBA loan officer an earful….including a link to this site.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:55 am
So, this is somewhat off subject, but how did everyone handle their SBA loan? Were they allowed out without filing bankruptcy? Did you extend your payments. We are in that position currently. I’m not convinced our zor will be around a lot longer and I have no desire to do the website stuff or recipe development. That is why I bought a franchise in the first place. So, I am trying to figure out what we should expect with the SBA. If only I knew then what I know now. Just think, we could have had a second home or two nice new BMWs fully paid for…
August 19th, 2008 at 10:44 am
LOL-In our situation our SBA loan became part of our bankruptcy as did our home, cars and business debt (we lost it all, plus most of our retirement).
The vacation home would have been nice-I’ve read here that some franchisors have both nice vacation homes and yachts, wonder if they drive Beemers? I drive a nice late model car-not complaining mind you, I feel blessed to have gotten out alive!
I have read here that some have negotiated with the SBA-talk to your lawyer for the best advice.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Guest…rowing the same boat but have a question.
Did you lose the retirement because you were putting it into the business or did the trustee take it as part of the bankruptcy?
Thanks!
September 4th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Can we go back to this comment for half a second? Is there any more information on this in regards to Super Suppers being purchased by another group?
“Apparently we were bought out, or something, by a private equity firm”
September 4th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
We haven’t gotten any add’l information beyond what Lisa stated. Our new CEO announced that he was happy to be here, on behalf of a private equity group.
September 16th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
It might be a dead horse, but yes I must poke at it some more. So Super Suppers is now in the hands of a private equity firm? It has been sold or at least turned over to another company? It’s certainly a change in circumstances from just a year ago.
That would make Dream Dinners as one of the last franchisors who actually still owns their own business, at least for the time being and perhaps just on paper…