Middle Spoon

by Charles White | Case Studies
3 minutes
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The Middle Spoon is a specialty cocktail, light fare, and dessert bar which was founded originally in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  The concept was designed to offer a cozy, warm, and intimate setting for primarily female clientele.  The menu, atmosphere, and entire personality of the Middle Spoon were created to make an excellent venue for events such as company lunches or dinners, date nights, girls’ nights out, or just an after-dinner treat for a dessert and a drink in a romantic setting. 

The Middle Spoon was an immediate hit with the Halifax crowd and the first location took off with a bang and became a Nova Scotia favorite. The original location was enormously successful, but the opportunities for growth were limited given the geographic location of the original store.  There were opportunities to open maybe two more stores in the Halifax, Nova Scotia market, but outside of this, there were limited markets for expansion considering the long distance between markets.  The natural evolution of the expansion strategy.       

In 2015, The Middle Spoon decided to franchise the model in order to scale from a single location to new markets in both Canada and the U.S.  The Canadian franchise decided to hire FMS Franchise to develop the brand and create the franchise model. 

The FMS Franchise team of consultants, led by Chris Conner, worked with The Middle Spoon to create a market strategy and develop a plan for how to scale the model.  What was particularly intriguing about the Middle Spoon model was that the market was generally open for both dessert and high-end cocktails on both the consumer and franchise side of the business. 

The Middle Spoon brand needed to be transitioned to the U.S. from a branding, business model, and operating concept standpoint effectively.  The franchise strategy was designed to offer a single, multi-unit, and area developer franchise platform that could provide options for both owner-operator franchisees and larger, well-capitalized franchisees. 

Franchise legal work was handled by a franchise law firm that created the FDD, Franchise Agreement and handled the legal work needed to launch the franchise system in both Canada and the U.S. 

FMS Franchise then created the operations manuals, training programs, and franchise development platform needed to support the new franchisees as they came on board and opened franchise locations.  The documentation was wrapped into franchise operations manuals and training classes by FMS consultants and documented to deliver support and training. 

Then FMS Franchise creative team put together the brochures, presentations, franchise website, and other materials to be used to promote the Middle Spoon Franchise Offering. 

The first two franchises were sold in Canada and the first U.S. franchise was sold in Sugarland, Texas outside of Houston.  Sugarland was considered one of the best markets around Houston as it exhibits the key characteristics of what makes an ideal market for the Middle Spoon. 

Sugarland has great demographics, higher income levels, has a focus on family and is made up of a large population of people with higher disposable income levels.  The menu for Houston was redesigned to focus on a wider range of lunch and dinner offerings to accompany the dessert and drink offerings.  Sugarland, Texas also has a lower level of dessert and cocktail lounges making the Middle Spoon offering even more attractive. 

The concept opened at the following address:

Sugar Land Town Square

15911 City Walk, Sugar Land, TX

For more information on The Middle Spoon Franchise, visit the corporate site.

Charles White
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