Jimmy John's Franchise -Business Opportunity for 2010

Jimmy John’s, known for its incredibly fast service and delivery time, was founded in 1983 by Jimmy John Liautaud. The story of Jimmy John’s beginnings goes something like this. After graduation second to last in his class of 1982 he had the choice of either going to the army or starting a business with $25,000 lent to him by his father. The deal was Jimmy would own 52% of the business and his father 48%. If the business tanked altogether Jimmy would join the army.

The original intention was to start a hot dog shop, but it turned out that it would cost nearly double what was lent to him, so he started a sandwich instead. Realizing that the big selling point with sandwich shops was the bread, he began baking his own bread in his mothers oven and buying quality meats from Dominick’s, a high end deli in the area. After coming up with half a dozen different sandwiches he had his family choose their favorite 4 and proceeded to open the first Jimmy John’s in a garage in Charleston Illinois on January 13th, 1983. Jimmy began with used equipment and no traditional marketing or advertising relying solely on offering samples of his four sandwiches and 25-cent cokes. His business began to thrive and he began catering more towards the college students of Eastern Illinois University. After a couple of friends backed out of positions as managers, Jimmy John was left to run the store by himself for a few years.

After buying out his fathers share in the business in 1985, he became sole owner and opened a second location in Macomb, Illinois. Jimmy ended up managing the second location himself after William “Billy” Burns died in a car accident. Jimmy John’s honored the memory of “Billy” with the “Billy Club” sandwich and can still be found on the menu today. Jimmy John’s continued to open locations and eventually developed a prototype store for franchising to begin in 1993.

Facts and Figures

Jimmy John’s has grown to over 875 locations with it’s headquarters located in Champaign, Illinois. Jimmy John’s believes in ‘true freshness’ meaning meats are not ground up bound with fillers and turned into tube meat which is what gives you the circle meat slices you see at most fast food sandwich shops.Meats are hand sliced at the store everyday. Also, vegetables are grown,packaged, shipped, and put on your sandwich keeping the vegetables fresh too.

Jimmy John’s used 16 stores and put together average numbers for their earnings. With an average gross income of $1,117,661 the franchises came out with an average net profit of $264,546. Not to bad for a sandwich joint.

A detailed list of costs for opening a Jimmy John’s can be found on their website with details like an initial franchise fee of $35,000 and an average initial investment of $304,500-$420,500 with ongoing franchise fees of about 10.5% for advertising and royalties.

To see other lucrative business opportunities that don't require the huge up-front capital and can be run online with automated systems visit http://www.AlternativesToFranchising.com