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The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) restaurant franchise has become a national hit offering breakfast, lunch and dinner all in a family friendly atmosphere. Ever since the first store in Toluca Lake, California opened in 1958 franchising has been at the heart of the IHOP Corporation's business model. Today franchising remains the backbone of the corporation's growth strategy but the business model has changed over the years along with the requirements to buy an IHOP franchise.
Throughout the 60's and 70's the IHOP Corp. continued to grow it's empire by not only franchising their International House of Pancakes locations but by also buying up other franchises--not necessarily limiting themselves to just restaurants. By the time the 80's rolled around the company had gone through ownership changes and a shift in business philosophy. Instead of growing the company by opening new franchises management focused on improving sales in the current locations.
The end of the 80's marked more change as the company was bought by a new set of investors and with this came a new business strategy in the 90's. Throughout the 90's the corporation doubled the number of franchises and also went public on the NASDAQ under the symbol "IHOP"-- it has since switched to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and now trades as "IHP". As the company continues to grow they have readjusted their business model once again.
It used to be that the IHOP Corporation would help finance a new franchisee's store and work out repayment over time. For those without a lot of capital to invest up front this made it easier to buy an IHOP franchise. The latest shift in strategy puts the onus of financing a new
store on the franchisees--while freeing up cash for the corporation to pour into marketing and training among other things. With this new strategy the corporation hopes to grow its number of stores by over 400 in the near future.
In order to jump in on these expansion plans and own a franchise of your own you should have some sort of restaurant experience as well as the capital needed to open a new store or buy a current one. According to the IHOP Corporation's website you will need to have at a minimum $1 million net worth along with $250,000 of liquid assets.
Additional information on IHOP:
IHOP Restaurant Support Center is located at:
450 North Brand Blvd
Glendale, California 91203.
(818)240-6055
8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Julia A. Stewart - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Mark D. Weisberger - Vice President, Legal, Secretary and General Counsel
Richard C. Celio - Vice President, Franchise and Development
Thomas G. Conforti - Chief Financial Officer
Carolyn P. O'Keefe - Chief Marketing Officer
Patrick J. Piccininno - Vice President, Information Technology
Rand M. Ferris - Vice President, Franchise Operations
Dustin Dixon, Ph.D. - Vice President, Product, Quality Assurance and Procurement
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