13 NC Franchises Among Best In North America: Entrepreneur

NORTH CAROLINA — North Carolina is home to more than a dozen successful business franchises. This is according to the business and management magazine Entrepreneur, which just 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.

North Carolina serves as home to the headquarters of 13 of the best franchises in North America.

• Bojangles Famous Chicken ‘n Biscuits, Charlotte — No. 49
• Fleet Feet, Carrboro — No. 86
• Golden Corral, Raleigh — No. 90
• Carstar Franchise Systems, Inc., Charlotte — No. 120
• Burn Boot Camp, Huntersville — No. 212
• Window Gang, Beaufort — No. 256
• STEM for Kids, Morrisville — No. 280
• Enviro-Master International Franchise, LLC, Charlotte — No. 341
• Window World Inc., North Wilkesboro — No. 356
• Maaco Franchising Inc., Charlotte — No. 357
• Take 5 Oil Change, Charlotte — No. 426
• Surface Specialists, Matthews — No. 472
• Meineke Car Care Centers, Charlotte — No. 496

To see the full list of franchises from around the U.S., please visit Entrepreneur.com.

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.