Dickey's Barbecue PIt DBRI, Jerald Denton, Roland Dickey Jr Mislead information on startup cost, construction cost, financing, leasing, training, support and profits Dallas Texas

Prior to signing franchise agreement:

Gerald Denton described profit at 15% to 20% profit margin. 

I have been in operation for six weeks and have not seen profit due to extravagant expenses related to daily operation and startup cost.  Lack of experience and training are apparent due to improper management of resources, labor, expenses etc.  I thought this was going to be taught to me in their comprehensive three week training class known as Barbecue University.  We basically talked about it and then worked at their stores in positions for twelve hours a day.  Not much management training at all.

Gerald Denton described the extremely low startup cost due to the following items:

1)      A whole team of finance experts to help secure financing  - the following was found on the net.

found at franchiseopportunities.com/advertorial.asp?prid=1179

Lauren Parker, DBRI's Project Coordinator, works closely with Sibley guiding new and existing owner/operators through the construction process. Her role encompasses many things, one of which is to seek out the best and most efficient financing for Dickey's franchisees.

"We have to be creative with financing. In recent months, the credit market is definitely loosening up but we are still being creative," she said, smiling.

Parker said she has been focusing more on community banks recently, as they are more willing to work with entrepreneurs in small towns and offer better interest rates.

"I have really begun to function as an in-house financing department whereas other franchises turn people away if they don't have the financing. But we help them. We guide our owner/operators through the whole process and make it work for them," she said.

And another post

businessmart.com/franchise/dickeys-barbecue/

Dickeys Barbecue Franchise Costs

Dickeys Barbecue Franchise

Capital Required

• • Total Capital Investment

   $350,000 - $850,000

• • Liquid Capital Requirement

   $100,000 - $250,000

Financing

• • Yes. Via Third Party

Support/Training

• • Yes

fundingcircle.com (855) 385-5356

2)      Not necessary to use SBA because it takes too long (36% failure rate – SBA does not like Dickeys, banks do not like restaurants)  Dickey’s has a whole team of finance experts to help secure loans and the vendors they use know Dickey’s and how much money the Franchisees make and have no problem making the loans.  (this was repeated over six times and 1 time had five other people on conference call including James Stennet.)

3)      Complete financing for equipment – out of $38,000 of required equipment only $20,000 financed had to pay $18,000 out of pocket.

4)      Professional Advisors to negotiate the best rates for Lease.  Lease is for 3200 sq ft of space which is too expensive and too big for our cash flow.  Dickeys runs best with about 1500 to 1800.  Not impossible but not a lot of room for profit.  Dickeys negotiator (no longer in the department) pushed me into releasing the landlords work letter which ended up costing us an extra $20,000 in construction cost according to our contractor.  Some required work still has not been completed such as the bathrooms.  Lots of problems with contractor but they did enough to get us open.  Landlord added third air conditioner instead of replacing the two units as they originally agreed to.  3 new units were cheaper.  They failed to get proper inspection or design drawings and cost us additional $8,000.  This was landlords fault but should have been caught by architect or by Dickeys.

5)      Utilizing second generation restaurants supposedly to save on cost.  Required architect did not inspect equipment.  Dickeys was suppose to send an inspector but relied upon the architect to do so.  They approved all of the equipment.  All of it turned out to cost too much to refurbish or was totally useless due to the condition it was in.  I have a lot of pictures.  Architects did not plan well and made several costly mistakes.

Loans were never secured.  They kept leading me on telling me to follow their plan.  Sign the documents, buy a van, sign the lease, buy a sign, attend the training and we would be successful.  During the second week of December during training they told me that they had submitted my loan application to one company which submitted it to two finance companies and they turned it down.  Then they said I was on my own to secure financing.  Then they told me “we never promised you financing”.  At this point we were over $60,000 invested.

I attempted to get financing from SBA and several local banks.  I complained to them that I was not successful and they directed me to another bank that turned me down as well. 

Each finance officer gave the same reason for turning me down:

1)      Lack of funds (we already spent all of our money on the startup and construction fees)

2)      Lack of experience

3)      Startup business

4)      Restaurant

I spoke with my contractor Venator prior to signing a contract with them.  They knew that we were not getting finance but we had hopes of getting an extension to our HELOC.  We were turned down for this as well.  We already had $100,000 on it to help with construction cost.  We paid 15,000 down,  made 2 x $20,000 payments to contractor and after opening made another $20,000 and 2 x 1000.  We still owe about $127,000.

We just signed a line of credit for 50,000.  Owe 20,000 on food bill and 6,000 to a sub contractor for hood work that was not included.  Venator is expecting the 50,000 but we need it to pay some of the food bill and some to the sub contractor.  After we make payments for 30 days we may be able to extend it and get more to pay contractor and eventually get them paid off.  This will take about 13% of our daily sales but it is cheaper than 10,000 a week etc.  We are actually giving venator $40,000 and we paid $8200 to our food bill and will pay $2000 to JP mechanical to pay down the $6000 we owe them.

We may or may not actually be able to stay in business.  Not sure if we can file Chapter 13 etc.  We may be able to keep going if we can get our sales up, cost down and keep making payments.  Staying in business is the only way I can see us getting our life savings back.

Construction Cost:

Attached is a document from dickeys that shows what our expected startup cost are.  We have been told consistently that we could do this with 40,000 to 60,000 depending upon certain situations.  We have over $160,000 and now owe another $135,000 on top of that.

The documents show for a second generation restaurant construction cost would be around $60 to $90k.  We topped out at $197k.  Architectural cost would be $2000.  They charged us over $12,000 and still want more and would not make corrections to their mistakes.  I still owe another local architect $1500 for some changes that had to be made for the AC units.

Profit margins are not there.  In order to keep my labor cost at or below their requirements I have to work 14 hours a day.  It is wearing me out and still I am not able to keep up with the paperwork or get the work done without extra staff.  Even on slow days with no money coming in we still have a large area to clean etc.  I do not claim to be the best manager but I am doing better than the last manager who could not or would not do it and he had over 20 years of experience.

IF we had of obtained SBA or bank financing at the beginning we would not be in debt and barely squeezing by.  WE would be making small reasonable payments and actually seeing a profit from our hard work. 

If I were able to file bankruptcy and walk away I would lose everything from my prospective.  The only way we will be able to hopefully get anything back is to keep going.  It is not likely we will succeed.  Dickeys plan is flawed from the beginning.

If I could walk away today and get my original investment back and be free and clear of all the debt I would do so.

I have made countless phone calls and emails to Dickey’s.  Specifically to Gerald Denton, Amber (Real Estate) Then there was another and another and another.  I lost track but have all the emails on yahoo.

My basic complaints to them were not that they promised financing, they did not promise that.  But Gerald Denton mislead me on how to go about getting the financing.  I was in a position prior to signing the agreement to get an SBA loan.  Our credit was not bad 650, we had $91,000 in stocks, $65,000 in cash and home paid for worth $170,000.  We owed $7,000 on a vehicle and had $300.00 on a credit card.  I was working and making $15.00 an hour as a computer tech.

With the latest letters from Dickey’s it is now brought to my attention that Gerald Denton did not want me to pursue an SBA loan due to the following:

1)      Dickey’s has a 36% failure rate according to the SBA

2)      Banks do not like to loan to restaurants

3)      Banks do not like to loan to startups

4)      Banks do not like to loan to people without experience.

This is information they did not want me to find out.  Therefore they mislead me and told me to not pursue financing but to rely upon them to let their whole team of finance experts get it for me.

They tell you one thing and then advertise another or at least make it sound as though they actually do help with lending.

Another reason that they did not want me to pursue financing is that I fully disclosed by criminal history, bankruptcy and credit information prior to signing the agreement on a separate letter.  Now I am being accused of lying and falsifying my agreement.  Clearly on the signed agreement there is a place that ask if you have ever been convicted etc.  I answered yes and attached the explanation as shown on the attachments and below.

James Neighbors – Attachments and Personal Information

Militry:

  I served in the US Airforce from March 1977 to December 1980.  During that time i went through a court martial and was found guilty of distribution of controlled substances / marijuana.  I served sixty days in the brig and was fined $1000.00 then returned to my duty station.  Eventually I requested to be discharged.  I was discharged Under other than Honorable Conditions.  Not the lowest discharge but not a good discharge.  Not to make excuses.  I used marijauna.  I was never caught with any.  I was accused of going into a Dentist office (the address given in court) and purchasing a bag of marijauna and selling half of it to an undercover agent.  None was produced in court.  There were other similar charges.  Some prescription medications were removed from my trash can and I was accused of distributing them (sinus pills).  The only actual crime I committed was I applied for two weeks leave and was granted it.  I went from New Mexico to Texas, my home.  After about six or seven days, I was then told to return to base within 24 hours because my leave was cancelled due to the fact that I was not supposed to be given leave pending my court martial.  I became even more angry and did not handle the situation well.  I went AWOL for about two weeks.  Then returned and accepted my punishment.  Basically a $1000.00 fine.  Then the Court Martial process and served my time then went back to work.  I could not get over being angry.  I was very disappointed.  However, looking back I was immature and reacted to the situation in the wrong way.

Civil:

  In 1982 I was a arrested and convicted of Robbery and subsequent charges of Rape.  I plead guilty to a 25 year sentence.  I served 8 years in TDC and was released and served 17 years on parole with counseling from PSY in Fort Worth, Texas.  I discharged my sentence around March of 2007 and have not had an arrest or conviction since.

Bankruptcy:

  Nancy and I filed chapter 13 bankruptcy around 2005 and discharged it.  We both had good jobs I was in IT and she was a Nurse and we lived on credit cards.  We over spent and when we lost our jobs we started getting behind in payments.  The bills mounted with the interest and late payments etc.  I attempted to resolve the debts on my own for over three years.  The credit companies would not work with me and we kept getting further behind.  We eventually filed for bankruptcy.

Auto:

  After our bankruptcy was filed.  I began to rebuild our credit.  I received an auto loan at 9% and was told if I paid on it for 1 year I could build my credit and refinance it at a lower rate.  This was through Wells Fargo Auto, Their website says you can refinance after 6 months.  I made regular ontime payments for over a year and saved $2000.00 in cash to put down to pay it down and refinance it.  They turned me down and so did Chase and EECU credit union.  Rates dropped and they kept telling me my credit was too bad to refinance it.  But my credit was bad when they gave me the 9% loan.  I tried again a year later.  This time I had about $3000.00 to put down and again I was turned down.  The economy was bad and I had to decide whether to buy groceries or pay a car payment.  I sent the car back to them.  I settled the debt later on.  Not proud of the situation but that is the fact.

Business Experience:

  I opened Its Pcs LLC a Texas based business in July of 2006.  We were a small IT company providing onsite service and repair to desktops, servers and network infrastructure.  I had at various times 5 part time employees.  I could never seem to get far enough ahead to hire full time with benefits.  After the economy went down in 2008 and 2009 I closed the business and started working again for an IT Company.  I never had debt or loans unpaid related to my business.  However, I was sued in small claims court one time.  I worked on a website and provided hosting to a commercial leasing comany in Grapevine, Texas.  After their contract expired I notified them by mail, phone and email that they needed to renew their subscripton to keep the hosting going.  They never replied.  Again I emailed and phoned them.  They did not respond.  I kept their account active for another year since it was very little cost to me.  Then their account was about to expire again.  I again notified them.  They did not respond.  I did not renew their account.  Before their account was actually expired the web server wend down for about an hour due to a network issue at the hosting compay.  For whatever reason the Owner of the leasing company called me and was angry and the first thing he said was I am going to sue you if my web site is not up in ten minutes.  Well I looked into the issue and within the hour it was back up and running.  I offered him hosting and backup and he got mad and said he did not have to pay for anything.  He then sued me.  I was ordered to provide him a copy of his website pages on a cd but not required to provide free hosting for him any further.  I closed his account and provided the cd with his web pages on them to the court.  I mailed him a cd with his site on it when I first set it up.  I did not have the receipt and therefore could not prove I did provide the website to him.  It was his property and therefore had to provide it to him.  I did not counter sue for the free year of service since I took it upon my self to do so.  

End of item

Dickey’s Corporate, Gerald Denton specifically would not return my emails or calls for several months.  We spent all of our cash, stocks and $100,000 form a HELOC on our home.  We have and still face bankruptcy every day.  After many months I finally became so angry and dissappointed that I started searching around on the internet and found unhappyfranchisee.com and posted my story. unhappyfranchisee.com/dickeys-bbq-franchise-opportunity/    

Many weeks later I was contacted by Dickey’s specifically Gerald Denton and another man that at that time held a position of management.  I have been told he is no longer with them.  It seems that when he called me to make an agreement he had already turned in his notice.  Our agreement was that if they made an effort to locate some type of financing then I would make a positive statement about Dickey’s on unhappyfranchisee.com  I was then contacted by Pioneer Capitol Group who at this time has extended a line of credit to us for $50,000.  We used $40k of it to pay our contractor and $8200 to pay our food vendor and $2000 to a sub contractor.

We make $350 a day Monday thru Friday payments.  The day I spoke with Gerald Denton about this agreement was a Friday and I immediately made the following post to show my willingness to work with them.   unhappyfranchisee.com/index.php?s=dickeys

We opened April 10, 2014 and still have the doors open despite all of our set backs.  How much longer will depend upon how well I can learn to manage.  Barbecue University, Dickey’s version of a “Comprehensive Management Training Program”  It was a nice introduction to cooking barbecue and working a staff position but very vague in management.  I thought I was to be an owner operator not an employee.  I spend most of my time working a position in order to keep our labor rate down but if our sales are not up no matter what we have high labor and low profit.  Add high food cost and all of the outrageous expenses on top of that such as POS, Music system, log knapkins, etc and it can be very disastrous to your profit.

During our opening we had a corporate trainer Rod Little.  A very nice guy but not a very good trainer.  He did very little simulations and actual training.  However, there was a lot of lecturing and paperwork.  He trained my managers and employees to make green beans and put them in the cooler.  He stated this would save us time and money.  Now 2 weeks later we get a QA inspection by someone from corporate.  We failed our inspection.  5 items were green beans.  They claimed we were reheating.  We were not.  We prepared but never heated.  Then they stated I did not work at least 40 hours in a week in the store.  That too was not true.  They said our bathrooms were dirty.  They were not.  The floors are stained but they were hand scrubbed before we opened and we sweep and mop daily.  They claim we have failing equipment (our freezer and cooler need new door gaskets)  this is true the Dickey’s sponsored contractor did not replace the gaskets.  We have been going back and forth with emails. 

They refuse to listen to my comments or explanations.  I blame them for improper training and poor construction and the fact that we have no money to fix anything and then they turn around and find something else.  I will send all of our correspondence.  Up until the point that I threatened to hire an attorney they have ignored me.  Then after I keep accusing them of acting unfairly and threaten to obtain an attorney my area director Kim Juda calls and tells me they are giving me back my points for the green beans.

Every couple of days we get a letter stating we are in violation of the franchise agreement etc.  Not once have they reached out and asked why we were having problems or what they could do to help.

We have had some issues and we recognize the fact that I am not the best manager and am having trouble with scheduling, labor, food cost and we have had some complaints.  I am trying to do better and my employees are trying to do the best they can.  We have a lot of things to correct but we do not have money to fix things.

What prompted me to seek counsel is this.  During the green bean war they sent me a non compliance letter stating that I lied on my Franchise Agreement application about my criminal history.  Then they made an insinuation by adding in another paragraph that I better not make any further postings on the internet or else “my words” they will spill the beans about my past and everyone in Johnson City will know and business will slowly die.

My objective:

1)      Recover my original investment and pay my HELOC on my home.  This is about $250,000.00

2)      Seek damages for stress, anxiety and discomfort due to their lack of support and misleading information.

3)      Seek damages for the slanderous accusation that I lied on my application.

4)      Dissolve all agreements between Dickey’s and myself.

5)      Pay off all debts related to the funding and operation of Dickey’s TN-845.

6)      Dissolve all contracts including lease agreement, franchise agreement, equipment finance agreement, contractor agreement, and any other agreements that are related to Dickey’s TN-845.

found at franchiseopportunities.com/advertorial.asp?prid=1179

Lauren Parker, DBRI's Project Coordinator, works closely with Sibley guiding new and existing owner/operators through the construction process. Her role encompasses many things, one of which is to seek out the best and most efficient financing for Dickey's franchisees.

"We have to be creative with financing. In recent months, the credit market is definitely loosening up but we are still being creative," she said, smiling.

Parker said she has been focusing more on community banks recently, as they are more willing to work with entrepreneurs in small towns and offer better interest rates.

"I have really begun to function as an in-house financing department whereas other franchises turn people away if they don't have the financing. But we help them. We guide our owner/operators through the whole process and make it work for them," she said.

found on businessmart.com/franchise/dickeys-barbecue/
Dickeys Barbecue Franchise Costs

Dickeys Barbecue Franchise
Capital Required

• Total Capital Investment
$350,000 - $850,000

• Liquid Capital Requirement
$100,000 - $250,000

Financing
• Yes. Via Third Party

Support/Training
• Yes

fundingcircle.com (855) 385-5356