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Daily News (Bowling Green,
KY)
Fat Mo’s franchise failed due to lack of
training, owner says
AMEERAH CETAWAYO, The Daily News,
acetawayo@bgdailynews.com
Published: May 28,
2007
A lack of
training explains how a Nashville-based fast-food eatery
lasted less than a year here before closing its doors.
Fat Mo’s owner and franchisor Mohammad Karimy
said the restaurant’s first Kentucky location closed May 13,
after the partners could not transform the building at 1854
Russellville Road.
“By myself I opened up (several locations). I didn’t
have any problems,” Karimy said. “But these two gentleman,
unfortunately they couldn’t run it.”
There were also quality issues, like a lack of air
conditioning and persistent flies, that led customers to call
Karimy, he said.
“I am very sensitive about my products,” Karimy said.
“Something was going on. I didn’t know about it, and I
couldn’t go and check on them.”
The people who managed the Bowling Green Fat
Mo’s were former employees of one of the dozen or so
locations Karimy has in Middle Tennessee.
Because of the partners’ backgrounds, Karimy thought he
could hand them the franchise without taking them through a
formal training process, Karimy said.
It’s something he said he regrets.
Franchise expert Richard Rennick said being a former
employee doesn’t guarantee a person will be a good franchisee.
Rennick, the former chairman of the nation’s franchise
trade association, founded American Leak Detection, a
high-tech service franchise headquartered in Palm Springs,
Calif., which has more than 360 units in 40 states and a dozen
foreign countries.
There are more than 3,000 franchises in the U.S. with
more than 800,000 individual units, Rennick said, and keeping
those locations in line can be difficult.
“The job of the franchisor is to protect and enhance
the brand and make sure they make the right choices in who
they franchise their concept to,” Rennick said.
Karimy said he realizes Fat Mo’s Bowling Green
locale barely extended beyond the look of the Hardee’s that
once occupied the building.
The building was painted red, but the “In” and “Out”
signs were still blue and orange – Hardee’s colors.
Rennick said that was another mistake, because any
remnants of the old brand is an immediate turn off to
customers.
“You can’t try to use a shell of something that
someone’s else used. If you do it, you have to completely
remodel so that it has no remnants of the what former
locations looked like,” Rennick said.
Jonathan Britt, planner for the City-County Planning
Commission of Warren County, said some businesses make
adaptive reuses of a building, but usually changes are market
driven.
“Some don’t make all the necessary changes,” Britt
said.
There were no code enforcement issues, he said but
Britt pointed out that the growing traffic count and
residences in the Russellville Road area is one of the factors
behind a growing appeal for eating options on Russellville
Road.
“Obviously, if you have more residences in that area
there’s more trips per day, which encourages more
restaurants,” Britt said.
Karimy still hopes to expand the Fat Mo’s brand
in Kentucky.
“Hopefully in the future I can get another franchisee,”
Karimy said. “Next time, if I get a new franchisee, I will
give them good training to run the business and take care of
the business very well.”
— Rennick said Karimy and others involved with
franchising can gain from organizations like the International
Franchise Association, which offers conventions and seminars.
For more on the IFA, visit http://www.franchise.org.
Copyright 2007 News Publishing LLC (Bowling Green,
KY)
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