Top restaurant franchises 2010 Have you been considering buying a franchise or starting your own business? Well, you are not alone and now that you have set your sights on a franchised business rather than starting one from scratch now you must determine which top restaurant franchises 2010. Guess what? All franchises are not created equally, all company franchise founders are not equally yoked and even franchises in the same category or sub-sector are vastly different. With that entire said let me give you some tips into buying into a franchise. Go meet some of the franchisees once of the companies you are considering buying a franchised outlet from. Compare offers not only brochures, but actual disclosure documents too and do a little market research in your own area to make sure what you will be selling or offering is indeed a desired product or service there. There are many resources available to help a potential franchisee choose the franchise that is the best fit for him. For example, entrepreneur.com ranks them annually in their Franchise 500 list. Entrepreneur.com judges all companies-regardless of size-on the same criteria. Objective and quantifiable data are used to assign each company a cumulative score, and the companies earning the highest scores then become the top restaurant franchises 2010 Franchise 500 list. Some of the factors considered include: financial strength and stability, growth rate and size of the company, number of years in business as well as number of years franchising, start-up costs, litigations, percentage of terminations and whether a company provides financing. All of the financial data considered is audited by an independent CPA to ensure accuracy. The top ten of this year's Franchise 500 included companies such as The UPS Store/Mail Boxes Etc. This is the largest franchisor of retail shipping, postal and business service centers in the world. UPS acquired Mail Boxes Etc., Inc. in 2001, and in 2003 the two companies introduced The UPS Store. This company has enjoyed massive growth that included 500 new locations in the first year alone. By 2004, the company had over 5,000 locations. The UPS Store/Mail Boxes Etc. has been designated as the number one franchise opportunity in the postal and business services category of the Franchise 500 for 16 consecutive years. Each category of top restaurant franchises 2010 companies has pluses and minuses and it also makes sense to buy a franchise where you are closer rather than further from Corporate HQ, because they will have figured things out regionally with marketing and customer buying behavior. The best categories for profitability seem to be service franchises, auto franchises and unique categories. Please feel free to consider all this in 2006.