The Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe franchise has a shockingly high SBA loan default rate of 58%.
Are you familiar with the Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe franchise opportunity? Please share a comment below.
Camille’s Sidewalk Café franchise is owned by Beautiful Brands, franchisor of the Freshberry and Rex’s Chicken franchises. (Also read: BEAUTIFUL BRANDS Franchise Complaints) It was founded by Camille and David Rutkauskas.
According to the Small Business Administration, Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe franchisees have received 66 SBA-guaranteed loans to date; more than half of those loans have been defaulted on by Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe franchise owners.
Camille’s Sidewalk Café franchise website lists 32 US locations currently open. It claims “With hundreds territories in development worldwide Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe continues to grow…”
What Camille’s Sidewalk Café doesn’t mention is that it’s likely that Camille’s Sidewalk Café franchise owners who received SBA loans may have collateralized their franchise loan with their houses or other personal assets, and more than half were unable to repay those franchise loans… despite serious incentive to do so.
The Camille’s Sidewalk Café 2011 Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) indicates that in the beginning of 2008 there were 81 Camille’s franchises open in the U.S..
By the end of 2010, that number had dropped to just 41 U.S. franchises.
As of June, 2012, there are 32 Camille’s U.S. locations listed on their website. The Camille’s U.S. franchise network has shrunk 60% since 2008.
What do you think accounts for the SBA loan failure rate of Camille’s Sidewalk Café franchise owners?
What steps should Camille’s Sidewalk Café and Beautiful Brands be taking to stop further franchise failures?
Have Camille and David Rutkauskas taken serious action to address the problems that led to the 58% loan failures?
Please share a comment, opinion or insight below.
ARE YOU A CAMILLE’S SIDEWALK CAFE FRANCHISE OWNER OR FORMER CAMILLE’S FRANCHISEE? ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE CAMILLE’S SIDEWALK CAFÉ FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITY? PLEASE SHARE A COMMENT BELOW.
Tags: Camille’s Sidewalk Café, Camille’s franchise, Camille’s Sidewalk Café franchise, Camille’s Sidewalk Café complaints, fast casual franchise, café franchise, sandwich franchise, franchise opportunity, restaurant franchise, food franchise, franchise failure rate, worst franchise, sba failure rates, SBA franchise loans, franchise information, Camille, Rutkauskas, David Rutkauskas
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It is a very sad commentary for Camille Sidewalk Cafe that most franchisees have had the exact same horrible experience. I opened two locations in Illinois and ultimately lost over a million dollars and declared bankruptcy. Although David was very chummy when we signed up for the franchise that quickly turned to greed as he refused to help us with running the stores or suspend royalties while we struggled to make ends meet. I will never open a franchise again and would strongly advise anyone considering this opportunity to stop and back away! This has brought my family nothing but heartache and financial ruin. I only wish someone had shared what was going on with me before I signed on the dotted line.
The success of a franchisor is measured by the success of their franchisees. When a franchisor is succesful but his franchisee fail he to is a failure. When a franchisor becomes very wealthy and most of his franchisees lose everything, then exploits his original fabricated succuss to develop a business model to expand his fortune on the failure of his past and future franchisees, that is fraud.
I am also someone who believed in and trusted in the Camille's franchisor and his brand, only to find out when the ink was dry and the check cleared I got screwed, just like all the other franchisees who wrote comments. There was no support when needed. Could not reach him at any time by phone. Emails went unanswered and when I did get a response, I was told by him that he was too busy , that I would have to deal with someone else. Too busy taking someone else's money instead of trying to help franchisees become successful. No one in corporate seemed to have the experience needed to solve problems, It seemed like they were learning as they went along. The franchisor is a VERY greedy man and if there is a buck to be made he is there with his hands in your pocket, in fact so greedy he stole our catering customers for his own cafe. He also did some very unethical things related to catering that I do not wish to put into this blog. This is NOT a franchise I would recommend to anyone, as I know a lot more than I can say here.
Well, I got the lawyer letter today to ceast and desist. The good news is that David is reading our posts the bad news is David is reading our posts. I will change one thing, Camilles did approve a site and then the landlord said no because of a non-compete.
Take a look at the Camille's Restaurant in Rhode Island and you could see they have the same name using the same font and said they never would have allowed us to use the name since they have used it for 75 years.
http://www.camillesonthehill.com
Thanks very much for telling us about the cease & desist letter, Greg.
If others have received similar letters from Beautiful Brands, please share your experience here and/or send me an email at UnhappyFranchisee[at]gmail.com. Please send a copy of the letter if you are willing. I can send you a physical address for hard copies.
Such bullying tactics and attempts to kill franchisees' 1st Amendment right to free speech should not be tolerated by a free society. UnhappyFranchisee.com is determined to end such tactics, and to give both sides of each issue a forum to open discussion out in the light of day. Good franchisors have nothing to fear by open discussion, and bad franchisors are going to get the bad press they deserve.
A note to Beautiful Brands: Feel free to enter into the conversation in the comments section of any post. Submit a rebuttal, clarification or company statement and we will be happy to publish it in its entirety. However, if you choose to bully our readers or try to stifle free speech, you will not do so secretly or out of the public eye as may have been possible in the past.
Welcome, all, to the age of transparency in franchising.
ADMIN
Below is a link to the FBI web site for white collar crime. Please forward it to anyone who would like to share there story.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fbi.gov%2Fwhitecollarcrime.htm&ei=yU0sUNGECOK9ygGupICoDw&usg=AFQjCNFIgwIsG4553m-01yweK6dPfbS0cg
what a crock!
be very, very careful of this crook. he pays for his press.
http://newsok.com/qa-with-david-rutkauskas-founder-president-and-ceo-of-beautiful-brands-international/article/3701163
I am an ex-Camille's Sidwalk Cafe franchisee who also lost everything and felt a strong need to add to this discussion. David is a slickster that will tell you anything to get you to sign up. Once signed everything changes. No support whatsoever, only a lot of excuses. Camille's SC is not a good business model and its extremely difficult for a franchisee to succeed.
David pushes a lot of publicity to take credit for the success of Camille's (if you call decieving franchisees a success) but if you really want to know the truth you have to look a little deeper. I was one of the early franchisees so I know the history pretty good. About 4 years after opening Camille's Sidewalk Cafe in the mall in Tulsa, David hired a company (fransmart) to help them franchise. Truth be told, fransmart was mainly responsible for the success of Camille's. But of course David never mentions anything like that. He makes it out like it was all his doing. Ask around the industry and you'll hear the truth.
Not too long after being with Fransmart, David's David's sleezeball ways kicked in and the two companies (fransmart and camilles) had a falling out and parted ways. If you don't believe me, google it.
David claims he's some great franchise expert but in reality, he doesn't know much about growing a company through franchising the right away. Beautiful brands is a joke. He put this company together because of the decline of Camilles.
They truly don't have very much experience as a franchise company but they make it seem like they have been helping companies franchise for 25 years. Its just not true.
I suggest you google beautiful brands, look at the numerous announcements about them bringing aboard a new company, then see how many of those companiese are still with them. I'm confident you will be shocked. Several companies have hired beautiful brands and are no longer with them after a SHORT time period. This tells you a lot!
I really have a lot more I could say but will not at this time....
I'm posting in hopes of truly saving you from the nightmare experience that my family went through with David R. He should be sued and I'm sure its only a matter of time!
WHOA - STOP AND PLEASE READ THIS - I'm warning you - DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH BBI or Rutkauskas or you will be extremely sorry that you did!
If the information posted above was available sooner it would have saved us a lot of time, money and B.S. We lost everything! They will tell you anything to convince you but all of it is a bunch of crap.
We are former franchisees and the company is so full of you know what it makes me sick. I strongly urge you to do your due diligence. They will tell you different and some crap about franchisees not following their systems but you need to ask around to discover the truth. We did everything to a T and still lost our asses. We had no support, no help, nothing. Their attitude changed the second we paid our fee. It was text book amazing!
Look at how many companies have signed up with them and then just a short while later are no longer affiliated with them. Facts are facts. As the comments above mention, I am also hoping to save some people of having this same fate but it is up to you to look for more information. Best of luck.
You reap what you sow
To David, Camille, his family and non family who work or have worked at Beautiful Brands. I know you are all sitting back laughing at us former franchisees thinking these post won't change anything for us. You're right about that. My only satisfaction is the life full of paranoia you all will have. With the Internet your friends and family will see these post and be able to see the truth. It won't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Its easy to see that when you(David) talk about your success. It is always about your big sale to a unsuspecting new franchisee of your new unproven concept. It is never about about the success or combined success of your franchisee with one of your concepts. Its never about the franchisee who became rich investing their hard earned money into a Beautiful Brands concept. Why out of the the hundreds of franchisees sold has no franchisee came forward to defend or dispute all these post or to tell about their success with Beautiful Brands. The only satisfaction I see is as all your children grow up, your children will see these post and realize that the wealth they grew up with was stolen and not earned by destroying hundreds of families. That when you nonchalantly write a check for their Ivy League school that we are still struggling to swing getting our kids into community college on a scholarship. When we all bought into your con we all had a fair amount of money. David you know you cant open up one of your $500,000 concepts without cash in bank, and cash in your home with good credit. You and your entourage will always have to wonder what your family really knows and really thinks about your self proclaimed and self promoted success. Your family and family members who worked at Beautiful Brands will probably always have money not needing to work anymore. But for the non family members putting Beautiful Brands on a resume will hopefully carry the same stigma as working for Enron.