2 CT Franchises Among Best In North America: Entrepreneur

CONNECTICUT — The business and management magazine Entrepreneur has released its 41st annual rankings of the top 500 franchises in North America.

Dunkin' was ranked No.1 on the list, with Taco Bell and McDonald’s rounding out the top three.

Connecticut serves as home to the headquarters of two of the best franchises in North America.

Subway, headquartered in Milford, is ranked No. 107 in the Entrepreneur Top 500. The sandwich juggernaut got its start in 1965, when 17-year-old Fred DeLuca and family friend Peter Buck opened Pete's Super Submarines in Bridgeport. With a loan from Buck for only $1,000, DeLuca hoped the tiny sandwich shop would earn enough to put him through college. After struggling through the first few years, the founders changed the company's name to Subway and began franchising in 1974. Today, Subway has franchises throughout the United States and in 98 countries, with locations in traditional and nontraditional sites alike.

Wireless Zone, based out of Rocky Hill, targets a very different clientele and is ranked the No. 250 franchise by Entrepreneur. It is the only Verizon franchiser in the U.S. Each location is a technology center offering the latest wireless devices, smart home products, Bluetooth accessories, and more. Your initial investment will fall between $160,000 and $394,500, according to Entrepreneur.

Understanding what a franchise is

In a business format, a franchiser provides a franchisee its trade name, products, services and generally an entire operating system for the business. In most cases, the franchisee pays a royalty and an initial fee for the rights to do business under the franchiser’s name.

A possibly easier way to think about it is that a franchise is a company that allows individual people not associated with the organization to open and manage a location under the company’s name and backing.

You can read more about the process of franchising on franchise.org.

Methodology

To be considered for Entrepreneur’s rankings, franchises submitted a detailed application covering basic information about the company. Additionally, to be eligible, a franchiser must be seeking new franchisees in the United States or Canada and must have had a minimum of 10 units open and operating as of July 31.

The eligible franchisers were then scored based on more than 150 data points, and those with the highest cumulative marks became part of the Franchise 500.

Here are the top 10 franchises in the United States in 2020, according to Entrepreneur:

1. Dunkin'
2. Taco Bell
3. McDonald's
4. Sonic Drive-In
5. The UPS Store
6. Ace Hardware
7. Planet Fitness
8. Jersey Mike's Subs
9. Culver's
10. Pizza Hut LLC

The full list of franchises on the 2020 list is available on Entrepreneur.