ent. This is significant since acquiring companies do not have to perform a great deal of market analysis of a particular customer base or geographical market area.This industry is intensely competitive with respect to price, service, location and food quality. There are many well-established competitors with substantial financial and other available resources. Some competitors have been in existence for a substantially long time and some franchisees are established in good markets. It is extremely competitive for the consumers' dollars. These restaurants not only compete with other restaurants, but other generic forms of competition; such as eat-at-home foods and supermarket deli take-out arrangements.The business is very capital intensive. It can cost approximately $1 million dollars to open a new fast food store and even more for traditional dining establishments. Most fast food chain restaurants are franchisee operated.The industry is segmented into two major categories: fast food and full-service restaurants.ENVIRONMENT & OVERVIEW OF THE MARKETTraditionally, restaurants (and hotels) have been among the most entrepreneurial of businesses in the sense that the barriers to entry are relatively weak or minor.Factors creating environmental changes were a result of the early 1970's when dual-income families became the norm and generated more disposable income for eating out and leaving less time for cooking at home. The demographic shift, and the restaurant industry's ability to deliver a consistent product, at a reasonable price, has created a generation of U. S. consumers who eat out. Restaurant sales have grown steadily throughout the 1990's (about 5% in 1999). United States citizens spend nearly half of their food dollars eating out (approximately $350 billion each year).As an introduction to the overall restaurant industry, Graph 1 illustrates Percentage of Market Share Sales by Segment for the Top 100 Restaurants for 1998 ...
