Ingredients For Success

In a shopping center north of Spokane there's a restaurant, of sorts, where they won't wait on you, give you a menu or even provide a dinner table to eat at. In fact, they make you prepare your own meals. And people love it.

The place is called "Cena," meaning dinner in Spanish and Italian, and it's one of hundreds of similar food preparation businesses that have sprouted up around the country in the last few years. The idea is this: In our busy society, people don't have time to make dinner each night, but they also want healthy food, not fast food or TV dinners. Places like Cena, called food assembly kitchens, provide the ingredients, recipes, tools and time to whip up gourmet dinners that you can pull from the freezer and munch for several weeks. For the Spokane women behind Cena, the reception has been piping hot. Cena President Tami Badinger and owner Nancy Cole Hough decided more than a year ago to start selling franchises for their version of the business, which includes chandeliers in the kitchen and fine wine, both to sip while preparing meals and to purchase for later.If buying a franchise is likened to dating, a metaphor Cole Hough jokingly used, then the women have flirted countless times and have gone on 11 dates in the past 16 months. Those 11 franchisees are planning to open 20 stores in cities throughout the West and as far away at Boca Raton, Fla. So far, three stores, in Olympia, Elk Grove, Calif. and San Diego, have opened outside of Spokane.Badinger and Cole Hough decided to start franchising their small business 11 months after opening it. "We decided to bust a move early because if we didn't, our franchisees wouldn't be on the ground floor of this burgeoning business," Cole Hough said. And flourishing it is, said Amy Vasquez, a representative for the Easy Meal Prep Association, a trade organization that sprouted up to inform the new industry. The whole idea started in 2002, when Dream Dinners, now one of the largest food assembly companies in the country, opened for business in Seattle, Vasquez said. It's grown fast. In 2005, there were 561 food assembly outlets in the U.S., Vasquez said. This year, there are 932 of them. By 2010, the Easy Meal Prep Association predicts about 3,000 in the U.S. and 250 internationally. The association's predictions aren't outlandish; it predicted there would be 1,100 by the end of this year, and the number is closing in on that. Right now there are plenty of customers to go around. The trade group knows of only 47 meal preparation companies that have folded since 2004, Vasquez said. Vasquez said the market is expected to slow down a bit after this year, and the Easy Meal Prep Association predicts that by 2010 it will be saturated.

But, she said, "We still have two-thirds of the way to go." That's why Cena decided to come out of the gates running. A Cena franchisee in North Carolina will sell franchises on the East Coast and will train franchisees in his store, Badinger and Cole Hough say. Cena's franchise company, which employs 10 people, aims to put no more than one location per 75,000 people.

The women, who two years ago were foreign language teachers at Joel E. Ferris High School in Spokane, say Cena has succeeded for several reasons. With warm colors, a couch and coffee table in the corner, chandeliers over the kitchen counters and fine wine recommendations, the stores appeal to customers wanting to construct gourmet meals in a pleasant environment, they say. To ensure consistency of the atmosphere, their franchise agreements go so far as to require that owners burn candles with vanilla, cinnamon and sage scents, among others, while forbidding floral scents, Badinger said. But the agreements don't leave franchisees vulnerable, allowing owners to set food prices to adjust for regional differences in the bottom line. Real estate costs differ from region to region, requiring owners in San Diego, for example, to charge more than those in Spokane to stay in business. The total cost of starting a Cena, including the franchise fee, is about $125,000 in Spokane, whereas in San Diego it's about $175,000, Badinger said. Food preferences also are different in each region, which is why Bruce Badinger, Badinger's husband and the company's vice president and director of culinary arts, develops recipes and gets feedback from around the country, Badinger said. Because the first Cena franchise location opened in April, it's hard to tell what sales will be like at each location, Cole Hough said. But outside of the slow months of July and August, franchisees have reported at least 150 customers a month paying an average of about $180 each, she said. The locations start turning a profit at about 120 customers. To increase profits, Cena franchises also sell wine, baked goods, coffee and even rent their facilities, if groups are interested. Badinger said Cena insists on meeting potential franchisees in person several times. When they arrive to sign papers, future owners are introduced to employees, shown around and given wine. Badinger and Cole Hough call it a "discovery day." "We're big on nurturing franchisees," Badinger said. "We want them to feel like part of the family."

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