We bought a franchised unit from Kahala Corp, the name of the franchise is Nrgize Lifestyle Cafe, these units are primarily in La Fitness gyms, when we bought ours you could not have a smoothie juice bar in a La Fitness without buying an Nrgize franchise. They charged $130,000 for the franchise fees and equipment, the breakdown went like this Kahala took $50k, La Fitness took $50k, and they charged another $30k for a couple of coolers and a cash register and signage.
Their training at the corporate office went very well, Lynette which is no longer with the company did a great job, but as soon as the store was opened it went down hill from there! The regional rep did not train the staff the correct way from the beginning, the food suppliers they required us to use constantly messed up orders and did not show up, shipments from their owned supplement supplier were constantly messed and late.
Eventually we fixed these issues internally, problems we could not fix ourselves were and still are ignored by Kahala and La Fitness, we eventually stopped paying all franchise fees, and only then did Kahala contact us to find out what was going on. We asked for a reduction of fees and explained that the clubs memberships had dropped to the point that the fees they were charging could not be paid. Kahala claimed to have contacted La Fitness to ask for a reduction of rent from them, their claim was that La Fitness denied a reduction due to the number of "check ins" were high enough to charge what they were charging. That was it, they did not offer to lower their franchise fees nor lower the fees they charged for "rent" and they wanted to know how we planned on paying.
We contacted La Fitness directly and they offered to let us rent directly from them at a REDUCED rent, that was until Kahala contacted them and told them they did not want us renting from La Fitness directly. So this is where it is at, Kahala wants us to pay a franchise fee and a rent charge to La Fitness or close the store.
This company does nothing to support the brand we bought into, they do nothing for marketing although they charge a separate monthly fee for just that, they ignore you on any problems you address to them. We have spoken with other Nrgize franchisee's and other brands from Kahala it appears this is a common problem not with just this brand but other Kahala brands.
This company needs to fix these problems within their organization and they need to have a class action lawsuit brought against them.
Do not do business with kahala corp, you will be sorry!!
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