--- title: "How The Counter® Benefits From The Backing of Kahala Brands™" url: https://burnaze.com/article/e87f01b6-62d4-4638-b83e-1ebfac2d1afc source: "1851 Franchise" original_url: https://1851franchise.com/how-the-counter-benefits-from-the-backing-of-kahala-brands-2712252 category: "Restaurants" industry: "Restaurants" published: 2020-02-13T01:20:14.000Z modified: 2026-11-01T02:30:26.659Z image: https://newimage.1851franchise.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,format=webp,width=1280,height=720/story/featureImage/e4e6a8b1a072a3353470c1ae172620c51362.jpg --- # How The Counter® Benefits From The Backing of Kahala Brands™ **TL;DR:** The Counter benefits from the backing of Kahala Brands, which delivers extensive franchising expertise, superior support systems, and supply chain advantages to its franchisees. Kahala Brands' portfolio includes 27 other franchised concepts, and its experienced team provides top-tier support to The Counter. *originally published in 1851 Franchise on 2020-02-13. [Read the original](https://1851franchise.com/how-the-counter-benefits-from-the-backing-of-kahala-brands-2712252).* ## Key facts - The Counter has 27 franchised concepts under Kahala Brands - Kahala Brands provides top-tier support to The Counter - Start-up costs to open a franchise with The Counter range from $746,000 to $2,340,250 ## Story **With the expansion of** **The Counter** **underway, the industry knowledge powering the brand’s growth is well-seasoned thanks to its parent company,** **Kahala Brands****. While** **The Counter’s** **custom-built gourmet burgers are undoubtedly that which fuels the fire that is brand popularity—and franchise demand—it is the extensive franchising expertise, superior support systems and supply chain advantages that Kahala Brands delivers the franchises under its umbrella that amplify the attractiveness of its franchise opportunity.** **In addition to The Counter, Kahala Brands’ current portfolio is made up of 27 other franchised concepts including Cold Stone Creamery™; Baja Fresh™; Blimpie™; Planet Smoothie™; Samurai Sam’s Teriyaki Grill™; Taco Time™; and Great Steak™, among others.** **Nicole Rayborn, VP of Franchise Development for Kahala Brands** **is among the team that lends their deep-seated industry expertise to The Counter. She explained that one of the key advantages to franchising with The Counter is the access to top-tier support Kahala Brands brings in the fields of real estate; construction; training; purchasing; research and development; operations; and marketing.** **“Being a part of the Kahala Brands family, our franchisees benefit from working with both our experienced brand-specific team at The Counter and an industry-leading group of executives and personnel at Kahala that are set up to deliver on our primary standard of business by focusing on franchisee support,” Rayborn said. “Our teams have decades of experience in their specialized fields and have been given the tools and guidance necessary to allow their teams to achieve the goal of supporting our franchisees through every step of the process in opening and operating their restaurants.”** ## Industry trends and support **With such an experienced team working across multiple concepts, Kahala Brands is expertly in-tune with** **changing consumer preferences and emerging trends** **as well as the changing landscape of the restaurant industry at large, valuable perspective that facilitates idea sharing and has been cross-applied to The Counter with tremendous success. According to Rayborn, some of the most significant areas in which The Counter has successfully tapped into the resources Kahala Brands provides are on the marketing and public relations and purchasing front.** **“With Kahala’s support,** **our marketing and public relations teams** **have done an exceptional job of creating brand awareness and developing PR strategies that continue to put The Counter on the map and showcase our brand on a national scale,” Rayborn said. “Also, our purchasing division has spent decades developing and maintaining relationships and negotiating contracts that are structured to provide cost savings to benefit our franchisees, which continues to be a huge asset.”** **April Fogle, VP of Operations for The Counter, agreed, adding that The Counter’s franchise system has greatly benefitted from the seamlessness with which the brand can adopt and implement programs that have already proven successful for other concepts under the Kahala umbrella.** ## Operations and resources **“The collaboration between our marketing and operations teams is huge,” Fogle said. “****We prioritize having the most comprehensive resources possible in place** **to help our franchisees gain the strongest understanding of what will make their business successful. Kahala leverages the partnerships it has with bigger concepts to The Counter’s benefit regularly, whether it be through the development of a transferrable loyalty program, more competitive supply chain pricing, or master agreements with third-party delivery providers like Postmates and Doordash. These connections help The Counter and add to the strength of our franchise opportunity.” **This support within Kahala Brands is so far-reaching that a number of franchisees with other brands under its umbrella have joined The Counter’s franchise system, as well—Cold Stone Creamery franchisees James and Linda Shiao now operate The Counter’s Reston, Virginia location, while multi-unit Cold Stone Creamery franchisee Hitesh Barvaliya owns The Counter in Naples, Florida.** **“With Kahala’s experienced executive team’s valuable restaurant experience, collaborative internal teams and a culture of cross-brand idea sharing all working together, Kahala’s system is extremely attractive to all franchisees looking to reap the benefits of the way the company thinks about business,” Fogle said. “As a result, The Counter is able to capitalize on its parent company’s industry knowledge, tried-and-true processes and innovative tendencies.”** ## Entities - 1851 Franchise (publication) - Restaurants (sector) - franchise development (topic) - franchise support (topic) - DoorDash (company) - Postmates (company) - Kahala Brands (company) - restaurant industry trends (topic) - industry expertise (topic) - Cold Stone (company) - supply chain advantages (topic) --- Originally reported by 1851 Franchise (https://1851franchise.com/how-the-counter-benefits-from-the-backing-of-kahala-brands-2712252). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/e87f01b6-62d4-4638-b83e-1ebfac2d1afc).