Garlic Jim's sells franchises to individuals with little to no business experience, provides extremely inadequate training, and very little support. They are all sunshine and happiness in reporting that all their stores are doing well and everyone is happy.
Once the store is open, the owners discover that heavy marketing is needed to get the customers to the door, because Garlic Jim's is not a widely-known name outside of the Seattle area.
Lately they have been changing products all the time, supposedly in an effort to save money. But franchisees will find that the prices GJ's is charging are well over what they would pay for the same or better products at a retail store like Costco. Forcing franchisees to buy all supplies from them is just another revenue stream for Garlic Jim's. And the quality of the products is going down. Why pay Garlic Jim's prices for pizza when the ingredients aren't even of acceptable quality for a Dominoes?
Between the royalties, advertising fees, and over-inflated food prices, and little to no help from the franchise consultants in efforts to get costs down, franchisees will run out of money in a year or less (unless they have a lot of spare working capital) and have to close. But wait, it gets better—after you close, Garlic Jim's will terminate your franchise and demand that you pay 10 years worth of royalties!
About 20 Garlic Jim's stores have closed over the last year and a half, and their owners are bankrupt for the most part. That's about a 30% failure rate. There are currently 36 stores open. Most of them are in Washington state.
If anyone out there is thinking about buying a Garlic Jim's Franchise, talk to LOTS of owners, and even former owners if possible, and STAY AWAY. Don't sign anything, don't give them any money. They don't have a proven, successful business plan. They are just trying to find a new sheep to fleece.
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