Barbara Ellington, Lifestyle Editor

Isaacs-Green

Patricia Isaacs-Green is negotiating deals with three unnamed, but separate parties to set up franchises of her restaurant and sports bar, JamRock.

The first franchise is to be rolled out in Kingston at month end, while , Isaacs-Green told Wednesday Business.

As part of the agreements to be struck, the food-service-operator-turned-farmer said she would assist with training and setting up of the businesses, but won't contribute any of the capital.

For access to the JamRock name, and the advice she is dispensing, Isaacs-Green suggested that she might take about 3.0 per cent off the top in franchise fees.

Flexible Deals

"I will be very involved, but at the same time flexible in my deals," she said.

The former restaurateur has been in the food service industry for more than three decades, cutting her teeth in the business with McDonald's Corporation as trainee manager before working her way up the chain to vice-president.

She brought the fast-food company to Jamaica in 1995 as franchise owner/operator of a chain of stores, but sold out the business seven years later in 2002.

In 2004, Isaacs-Green acquired JamRock, which she ran from its New Kingston location up to 2007, when she chose to go rural as farmer of a 300-acre property in St Ann.

The restaurant, she said, had become too expensive to operate.

But Isaacs-Green, who had trademarked the JamRock name, both in Jamaica and the United States, when she acquired the business, is now looking to build value from the name without getting back into the day-to-day operation of a restaurant business.

The model for the franchise is being created as negotiations with the prospective franchisees are played out, she advised Wednesday Business, but draws on her experience with McDonald's.

"We used the business facility loan (BFL), which can extend up to five years over which period the franchisee accumulates the funds to make the purchase," she said.

"They could also own their building and pay me a fee to use the restaurant name. Rules change over time, but it's usually three per cent of top line sales."

JamRock, she said, already has a menu of products - dishes, drinks and snacks - developed to a specific standard.

Challenges

Isaacs-Green gave up JamRock in favour of her farm because the food business had become too expensive to operate.

"I learned that I could not do two businesses at once. I had bought the farm and started to work here, but travelling to and from Kingston was putting a strain on me, and I found myself spending more time here (St Ann) than in Kingston," she said in an interview from her farm.

"Add to that, challenges on the road when problems cause traffic jams and combined with theft in my absence from Kingston, and you get many physical and mental challenges."

barbara.ellington@gleanerjm.com