FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q. How much does it cost to open a Marble Slab Creamery®?
A. The total start up investment for a Marble Slab Creamery franchise varies depending on U.S. Region or country. Review Item 7 of the Federal Disclosure Document and consult with your Development Manager regarding your specific situation.

Q. What are the initial franchise fee and royalty payments?
A. The initial franchise fee for a single store in the USA is $25,000, which is paid in full at the time you execute the franchise agreement. Development fees for multiple stores are additional. The ongoing royalties are 6% of your net sales and 2% for the Marketing Support Fund (MSF). Master Franchise/international fees vary per country. Please contact us directly for more information.

Q. What does the franchise fee cover?
A. It secures the right to own and operate a Marble Slab Creamery in a given location, as well as the right to use the Marble Slab Creamery trade name, trade mark, recipes, dÈcor, and manner of doing business. It also includes site approval and assistance with lease negotiations, architectural layout and construction. Most importantly it includes training at NexCen University, where we teach you everything you need to know to operate and manage a Marble Slab Creamery. Our trained personnel will help you open your store and offer you continued field supervision and public relations assistance before your store is opened.

Q. What are the minimum requirements for franchise candidates?
A. To ensure that our franchisees will be able to qualify with both lenders and landlords, we require potential franchisees within the United States to have at least $75,000 in liquid capital and a $225,000 net worth. In addition, food service and/or retail experience is desired, although not mandatory.

Q. How much can I make as a Marble Slab Creamery Franchisee?
A. We only provide an earnings claim in our Federal Disclosure Document. Please refer to Item 19 of that document for more information. We recommend that prospective franchisees conduct their own independent investigation to determine whether or not the franchise will be profitable. We can provide you with a detailed listing of our current franchisees and developers, whom you may contact directly to discuss sales figures or earnings.

Q. Can a store be purchased as an investment without my being the full time manager?
A. Yes, but you will need a qualified manager to operate the store. In our experience, the more involved the franchisee, the more successful the store With this goal in mind, we require that every franchisee attend the company's training headquarters in Norcross, Georgia.

Q. What is the size of a typical store?
A. The typical store size is between 650 and 1,500 square feet (meter square/m²)

Q. Is your ice cream made in a factory and then shipped to your different locations like most ice cream franchises?
A. Absolutely not. All of our stores make their ice cream fresh daily starting with our proprietary recipe milk/dairy mix combined with only the finest ingredients. In fact, Sweet Cream, our most popular ice cream flavor, consists of only the base milk mixture with none of the flavors or ingredients added.

Q. Do you serve anything else besides ice cream?
A. Yes. While ice cream, in a freshly baked waffle cone is our most popular product combination, we offer many other desserts alternatives, including nonfat frozen yogurt, smoothies, shakes, and malts, sundaes, banana splits, ice cream cakes and pies and made from scratch brownies.

Q. Do we honor U.S. military veteran's discount?
A. Yes we do. We find that military veterans make excellent franchisees and we encourage these individuals to consider becoming a part of our system. We offer a 15% discount off the initial franchise fee for U.S. military veterans.

Q. Are multiple store opportunities available?
A. We highly encourage Area Development Agreements in the United States and Master Franchise Agreements internationally.

For qualified franchisees who desire the right to develop multiple stores within a designated territory, we offer the opportunity to enter into an Area Development Agreement. Under this agreement, the franchisee is licensed to develop a mutually agreed upon number of stores in accordance with a specified development schedule. The number of stores to be opened in a particular area is dependent upon a number of factors such as population density, demographic data, the number of potential locations for stores, and the presence of competition. During the term of the Area Development Agreement, we may not open, nor permit others to open, stores operating under the Marble Slab Creamery marks in the territory for as long as the Area Development Agreement is in effect.

An International Master Franchise agreement is when a Master Franchisee is licensed to open and operate multiple stores with the additional possibility of sub-franchising within a defined territory. The territory is typically a state, a single country or group of neighboring countries and the one time "country fee" or "master fee" is based upon the potential store development with in the territory. The amount of monthly and the possibility of participating in the Marketing Support Fund may vary.

For more information, please read our 10 Steps to Becoming a Franchisee or
Request Franchise Information to get started.