Downtown Timmy's

[fluffy]

The 368k I quoted is not margin, it is net income so debt servicing is already removed as are all operating costs incl franchaise fee's. They are simply cash cows and why it costs, depending on location, 350k to a mill to even get a franchaise now. Then you start buying equipment etc. Someone previously was mistaken that the Timmies physical locations are corporate owned. That is not the case.

So would it make sense to even consider something the size of the Gables property or the former Slack's location? What are they asking for those properties? I'm just thinking that the debt servicing required to cover the franchise cost plus the building and equipment might make one think twice about picking up a building lot that likely runs well into seven digits.

[twobits]

So would it make sense to even consider something the size of the Gables property or the former Slack's location? What are they asking for those properties? I'm just thinking that the debt servicing required to cover the franchise cost plus the building and equipment might make one think twice about picking up a building lot that likely runs well into seven digits.

It's a business decision like any other. The Gables or Slack's properties will not go cheap so you could not justify them as stand alone Timmies locations. That is not to say they could not be tenants in a mixed commercial development though, with either a developer doing the deed and offering up a long term lease to the local Timmies franchaise holder, or the local Timmies franchaise owner doing a mixed commercial development of which they are anchors and leasing space to others to justify the capital cost. The local franchaise owners, with something like 7 or 9 locations, are likely well enough capitalized to pull something like that off if they wanted to.
Having said that, I don't think either of those properties, or our downtown for that matter, fit the ideal location profile for a Timmies outlet. Busy perhpas during banking hours but beyond that rather dead not to mention traffic patterns and parking. Drive thru's are a huge part of their model and only the Slack's property is really suited for that. Don't think the city would be fond of the idea of drive thru traffic routed down the alley behind the Gables and merging back onto main would be a non starter. Vehicular convenience trumps pedestrian traffic for their locations.

[sammym]

So would it make sense to even consider something the size of the Gables property or the former Slack's location? What are they asking for those properties? I'm just thinking that the debt servicing required to cover the franchise cost plus the building and equipment might make one think twice about picking up a building lot that likely runs well into seven digits.

Of course not! Tims would never consider buying a piece of property 20 times the size they need. But if they could get a deal on the corner lot (location and availability for a drive thru) being factored in, they would. So if they could buy a 1/8th corner of the Gables property, or maybe buy the already subdivided corner of where Slacks was, and only buy the corner that Slacks was on, yeah, they'd look at buying that in a heartbeat.