Most Dickey’s Franchises Are Unprofitable, Franchisees Report

15 thoughts on “Most Dickey’s Franchises Are Unprofitable, Franchisees Report”

• Please list the latest updates on dickeys barbecue closing list.

• I believe people who work hard for their money should not invest in a franchise.

• Ryan Wenrich President of the Pit Owners Association for Dickey’s BBQ has closed all 6 of the stores he owns in the Kansas/Missouri Market in 2019 most in the last month. Another Bankrupt Owner.

• Shouldn’t companies like IFPG be held accountable for some of these closings? They use deceptive images, practices and even trickery to get you to open emails.

  How much did the International Franchise Professionals Group (aka smoke and mirrors) make off of Dickey’s BBQ or the beloved “Cuppies”?

  Wake up and hold some people accountable.

  Red, we always viewed you as a man of integrity and a man of God, but you’ve hooked up with some people and creatures that don’t support that. I’ll miss you Red!

• Laura Rae looks like a porker in the above picture

• What’s scary is this survey doesn’t count that 113 stores that closed in 2018.

• How much did the international franchise professionals group makes off for Dickey’s BBQ or the beloved “Cuppies”?

• With statistics like this, I wonder how they are selling ANY new locations. They used to open 2-3 a week, now it seems it is 1-2 a month and they close quite a few more than that.

• Everything is bigger in Texas. Including the greed. DBRI is only in it for themselves, they don’t help their franchisees in any matter.

  Laura Rae – I would offer to give you some advice here, but your track record shows you do not listen. You had hundreds of franchisees offer their experience with YOUR system in this report (which combined is years more than Roland and yourself can claim), and you essentially weekly give them the middle finger. You are deaf to your franchisee’s needs whether out of stupidity or malice. You consistently blame the franchisees for “not doing things the Dickey’s way” – which quite clearly is working so well for all the locations that are down year over year. If the Dickey’s way truly worked, franchisees would be clamoring to follow it. It is obvious that these marketing/business tactics do not produce the results you claim.

  Get over your greed, allow your franchisees to succeed, and quit pocketing US Foods rebates for yourself claiming locations are “not following all brand standards”.

• So DBRI keeps automatically signing franchisees up for new services like UberEats, GrubHub and other third party services that cost them money. You have to go through great lengths to not be signed up for these services that suck 25-50% of your gross sales for the order under the guise of “bringing new customers”. If corporate truly cared about making the franchisees money, they wouldn’t be wasting it with every 3rd party restaurant vendor in the face of the planet.

  The reality is that DBRI has a “throw everything at the wall mentality” and hope it sticks. Meanwhile, the individual stores are shouldering the price and mostly taking losses on these purchases so the royalty payments can go up. DBRI, I’m sure, also gets payments on the backend from these companies. It’s become a new profit center for them that allows them to double-dip in sales.

  Questionable legality, unquestionably unethical.

• Dickeys California locations down again to 63 (including food trucks). US locations down to 452 including food trucks and concession locations.

• This company uses their Franchise Agreement to strong arm locations into forking over more money every single month. When the cost of processing gift cards is 5x with a new gift card processor, you can’t possibly believe that Dickey’s does any negotiating on behalf of their franchisees.

  Anyone considering buying a Dickey’s, DON’T DO IT. You will regret it with every single email that comes to you from @Dickeys.com. They are constantly hounding you and blaming poor store performance on the franchisee. Not once since we’ve opened has DBRI ever admitted that they made a mistake, yet mistakes are made daily.

  There is zero respect for the franchisee from Laura, Roland, Ed Hermann, or Jeff Gruber. The way they act in their positions would result in ousting if this were a publicly traded company. Instead, we get to watch the four of them destroy a once- good business, and in the process, take down hundreds of franchisees who have invested their life savings with a company who doesn’t at all care about anything except lining Roland’s pocket.

  Ask any franchisee, they will tell you the same thing. No one makes any money except DBRI.

• What do you expect? Anybody’s mother or daddy can make BBQ. I’d rather go to a real deal roadside BBQ than some BS franchise.

• @James Day –

  Customers’ preferences aside, the discussion is about how the franchisee is treated by the franchisor. There are plenty of people like yourself that immediately write off franchised barbecue, and there are probably way more that have no idea the real definition of barbecue and just want food. For them, yes, the Dickey’s FOOD is good, and if there is a market, only a fool wouldn’t go after it. Up for discussion here is how inept corporate is at supporting their franchisees – not an individual’s opinion as to whether they would choose to eat barbecue from a franchise or from a ‘more authentic’ roadside stand.

• What is the best way to get out of the franchise agreement without being sued?