My Christmas came early.

Talk about your new shoes, new car, or UFO's!
olds442jetaway
Video Poker Master
Posts: 9262
Joined: Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:08 pm

Re: My Christmas came early.

Post by olds442jetaway »

Correction to above. The first Subway was in Bridgeport, but it had a rough start due to the area and moved to Milford. Headquarters are still there today, but the original Milford store in downtown Milford closed last year.
Interesting idea about the real estate/ franchise venture. I think I mentioned before, I liked investing in reits. Used to get over 10 percent annual returns and growth as well. That one fraud one nailed me good though.
The Burger King one that I did well with for the most part held on to the real estate and collected rent from the Burger King businesses. The reit just owned the real estate at the burger king locations. Anyway, best of luck. Not easy today to get a successful business of any type going. So many bureauocratic headaches along the way

billryan
Video Poker Master
Posts: 4421
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2009 1:20 pm

Post by billryan »

In college, a professor asked the class what business McDonalds was in. Many said the hamburger business, others said fast food. No one gave the correct answer. McDonalds is in the real estate business.

olds442jetaway
Video Poker Master
Posts: 9262
Joined: Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:08 pm

Post by olds442jetaway »

Most all of their restaurants are in prime locations. A notch or two better than Burger King stores. For instance, around here, right accross the street from a huge shopping mall on Rt 1. A little bit north right on a very busy area of Rt 1. And a few miles south, right off the exit of I95 also on Rt 1. They also have spots right on I95 at the rest areas. Even if they got out of the food business, these properties are worth millions and millions just for these three locations.
I have to mention one funny thing BR, when you were talking about college labor. Right around 1966, they were building the Milford location right off I 95 on Route 1. The owner knew I had a bit of Landscaping experience from cutting lawns, trimming etc on my own. He asked me if I wanted to work inside the hot store setting it up in July, or outside the store and handle all of the landscaping. It was a no brainer for me. He gave me the plans, six other high school kids and said, go ahead. Just let me know what you need and we will get it delivered to site. We got it all done in 3 weeks, did a great job, and all I got paid was 1.25 an hour like everyone else. He did hand me a 20 dollar bill at the end. Then I helped the electrician also outside. Same pay of course. I was just glad to have the work. The owner was already a multimillionaire by then. I remember when we took down the sign over 1 million sold and hung up the new one at his other store. Over 3 million sold. The burgers were 15 cents. I think the one million sign went up in 1963. The 3 million around 1965.

billryan
Video Poker Master
Posts: 4421
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2009 1:20 pm

Post by billryan »

I don't recall any McDonalds on Long Island or in Queens until about 1971. Burger King came a year or two later. Before them , there was a chain called Wetsons which was pretty much the same. What I remember most about Wetsons was they put out trays of soda maybe 24 cups with 18 coke and 6 orange.
If they sold the six orange, they wouldn't have any until the last coke sold and they would break out a new tray. I liked their burgers better but McDonalds had far better fries and also had fried apple pie. What I read was that Wetsons leased land from landlords and McDonalds would buy the properties and not renew the leases.

Post Reply