Episode 36: Break Coffee Franchise with Anthony Spagnola

Pam (00:01.499)
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Franchise Sisters Business Radio Show, a platform to bring business professionals together to connect and educate to serve aspiring entrepreneurs looking to invest and operate a franchise. I’m your co-host, Pam Curry.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (00:17.613)
And I’m your other co-host, Sherry Curry Skoldager. And on today’s show, we have Anthony Spagnola, Chief Development Officer with Oakscale and representing franchise brand Break Coffee. So Anthony has been in franchising for over 15 years. He has experience as a franchise supplier, independent franchise consultant, franchiser, and franchisee. So a lot. Currently, Anthony manages franchise development for Break Coffee and operates his own.

Break Coffee franchise in New Jersey. Welcome to the show, Anthony.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (00:51.426)
Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (00:53.571)
We’re excited to have you. And you know, just so our community knows, in the franchise world, everybody knows Anthony is Spags. So we’re gonna call you Spags moving forward, okay? Okay.

Pam (00:53.916)
huh.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (01:04.192)
Sounds good.

Pam (01:07.323)
Yes, welcome Spags. definitely looking forward to having you share about Break Coffee, especially since you kind of come at it from two angles, right? Your franchise development as well as franchisee. So why don’t you just go ahead and kick us off and tell us the story behind Break Coffee?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (01:24.534)
Yeah, Break Coffee has a really kind of interesting story. a lot of people know us as kind of a newer emerging brand. We’re really not. We actually have a lot of history. This goes back all the way to the early 2000s, 2003, I believe, in Australia. It was called Expresso Delight. Huge franchise, over 200 locations, very successful, very proven model. They came to the US in, I want to say 2016.

They launched in New York City. Later, they partnered with Oakscale to start franchising. Oakscale launched their first eight franchisees. So we awarded eight franchisees. We got them all up and running. They got off to a great start. And then wham, COVID hit. So it was kind of bad timing to start an office coffee business. But you know, we took that opportunity to rebrand.

So we rebranded from Expresso Delight into Break Coffee. We revamped like the whole model and we really just focused on, you know, keeping our franchisees afloat. unlike other businesses that really struggled through COVID, went out of business, lost a lot of money, we have very little overhead with this model. And most of our franchisees were doing it as a side hustle. So they still had their full-time jobs. So we actually didn’t lose any franchisees through COVID. We kept everybody on board. they’re all with us today. They’re all

you know, ramping back up now. And since then, we just started re franchising as break coffee within the last like six to nine months. And we’ve over doubled in size in our franchisee count in the last six months. So we’re just about to hit like hyper growth mode.

Pam (03:08.442)
Congratulations. So th tell us a little bit about the actual business model. It’s my understanding it’s a B to B model. Talk to us a little bit about the mo business model.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (03:10.828)
Thanks.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (03:17.631)
It is, yeah. Business to business sales and customer service is really what it’s all about. So it’s coffee as a service. We provide an all-inclusive service for businesses. It could be any business with like 20 or more employees, could be a traditional office like a law firm, for example. It could also be a retailer, like a car dealership, a country club. We’re in doctor’s offices, public schools, nonprofits, restaurants, hotels.

You name it, anywhere where there’s people drinking coffee, that could be a great customer for break. And what we do is we provide this all-inclusive service where we provide the equipment, we provide freshly roasted coffee, and we provide a regular regular service visits to kind of do a deep clean on the machine and make sure that they have plenty of coffee. We do this with no upfront cost to the business, and there’s no commitment month to month.

Cancel anytime. We even give you a free trial if you want to just try it out for free for a couple of weeks. Once our machines and our coffee is in a business, it almost never comes out. So it’s a it’s a premium high-end kind of coffee subscription. We do this on a per cup pricing or flat monthly subscription.

Pam (04:36.052)
Well, so the obviously it’s recurring revenue. and customer acquisition is gonna be important here. the B to B customer what what is the I guess sales process for the franchisee to acquire their customers?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (04:52.824)
So corporate, Break Corporate actually does a lot of marketing for the franchisees. So they have a ton of different marketing programs in place that you can opt in for and you can start generating leads. They do email marketing, they have cold calling campaigns, there’s different portals that we work with that we buy leads from, LinkedIn advertising, social media, you know, paid ads, organic, and then there’s a local networking component.

Pam (04:57.464)
okay.

Pam (05:02.767)
Mm.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (05:20.322)
You know, going out and building relationships in your community, joining your local chamber of commerce, your BI groups, sponsoring local events, building referral partnerships with office furniture companies, property management companies, any other service providers, you can get a lot of leads, you know, if you build those types of relationships. So a lot of leads are coming from corporate, and then the franchisees are also going out and trying to drum up their own business as well. And then you’re typically leading with that free trial.

We usually offer a two week free trial for qualified businesses.

Pam (05:53.816)
That’s a great door opener and a value proposition. Free.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (05:57.828)
Yeah.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (05:58.233)
Exactly. It’s hard to say no to free coffee.

Pam (06:00.049)
Right. I’m kind of curious. So the the equipment and the inventory of the coffee, how does all that get managed?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (06:09.772)
Yeah, so we have a partnership with a company called Jura. They’re based in Switzerland. These are the best coffee machines on the market. We’ve tested them all out. We have an amazing partnership with them. So we get the equipment for about 40% off MSRP. So we get a really good deal for the franchisees on the equipment. We have a great service agreement with them as well. So if that equipment ever fails, you can send it back to the manufacturer. They’ll actually, you know, fix it and send you back a working machine.

Pam (06:13.839)
Okay.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (06:39.538)
They have a distribution center right in New Jersey, which also happens to be where our coffee comes from. So our infrastructure, I mean, it really is a business in a box. We have an amazing infrastructure where you can just open this proprietary portal that we have on any browser. You click a button or two, and you can order coffee, you can order machines, you can order cleaning supplies, you could kind of manage everything from this portal. But

One of the reasons we really like the Jura machines, it’s a bean to cup technology. So it grinds the beans fresh for every cup of coffee. We don’t use plastic pods or anything like that. And it’s one of the few machines out there that uses fresh milk. A lot of the other machines use powdered milk. It’s just not the same. our machines use fresh milk. So one click, you’re getting a full cafe menu. Espresso, coffee, cappuccino, latte, macchiato, flat white, americano.

You name it with one click. so it’s a much more premium kind of high-end solution. Our coffee is amazing. it’s imported from a few different countries. It’s roasted in New Jersey and then it’s shipped from the roaster right to your customer. So they’re getting the coffee like a few days after it’s been roasted. Most people have never had really fresh coffee like that. and that’s a huge advantage.

Pam (08:00.888)
You you mentioned with the business model that it also has a very, you know, it’s customer service oriented. What what is the frequency of having to go to the offices and how you know, do you need employees to do this? How does that all come together?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (08:19.096)
So I think probably my favorite part about break coffee is that you don’t have to hire any employees to start. You can do this completely by yourself. When you set up an account, the machine keeps a count of how many cups of coffee it produces. So if you’re doing, if you’re a big account and you’re doing, you know, a couple hundred cups a week or more, that would probably be a weekly service visit. So you would pop in once a week and you do this cleaning program on the machine.

The machine does all the work. You you just press a few buttons and the machine cleans itself. You’re also checking the count when you’re there, making sure they have plenty of coffee, you know, maybe just straightening up a little bit, making sure everything’s kind of perfect. most accounts are gonna be probably every other week you can pop in, and then you know, some of those bigger accounts will be weekly. But it’s a very easy, probably 30 minute on average visit. You could do that by yourself.

Or you can hire people to do that for you, like 1099. I have a guy who cleans machines for me, because I have an account that’s like over an hour away. He’s he goes once a week for me. It’s a pretty big account. He sends pictures of everything I need to see so that I can update the portal. I sell him 25 bucks per visit, and that’s it. So that’s all the ki kind of labor that you need in the beginning. Maybe a couple of 1099 people to service some equipment until you get to like

Pam (09:38.455)
Nice.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (09:45.302)
you know, ten, fifteen machines or more, then it makes sense to maybe bring someone on as like a part time role.

Pam (09:51.641)
I that makes sense. before we kind of dive into the franchise system growth side, any anything else you would like to add about the business model itself?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (10:04.162)
No, I mean it really is as simple as it sounds. You know, I think some people try to overcomplicate it and try to figure out like what am I missing here? I mean, listen, you’re you’re ordering coffee machines, you’re setting them up at home. We teach you how to do that, and then you’re bringing them into local businesses and showing them how to use it, you know, and then checking in with them in a week or two and and then just taking good care of them. It’s it’s sales and service. Corporate does everything else, they’re gonna handle billing and collections.

Pam (10:06.0)
Straightforward. Yeah, I agree.

Yeah.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (10:33.422)
So they actually take care of all the invoicing and collecting all the funds for you. And then they just drop the money in your account. They take care of all the marketing. So yeah.

Pam (10:39.69)
that’s great.

Wow, I I didn’t realize they took care of the finance piece too, the invoicing and all that back office. And that that explains why it lends itself so nicely if you wanted to do it more on the side and be semi involved as an operator.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (10:58.186)
Exactly. Yeah, this is a great it’s a great side hustle. It was built to be a side hustle. A lot of franchise companies, I think they try to force, you know, a semi-absentee type of a model, and it oftentimes becomes a full time job or a second full-time job for somebody. This really truly is built to be a side hustle. I think every franchisee, almost every franchisee that we’ve had to date has kept their full time job to to to do this on the side. And now some of them have quit their jobs and gone all in.

Pam (11:04.099)
Okay.

Pam (11:12.751)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (11:27.266)
So it’s a great way to bridge out of that corporate job and, you know, get into get into your own business. but I I would say yeah, it’s a great way to kind of, you know, dip your toes in, put in as much time as you can, grow this slowly, like on the side until you get to that, you know, 10, 15, 20 machines wherever you’re comfortable. And then, you know, if you want to go all in, you can.

Pam (11:42.384)
Uh-huh.

Pam (11:48.494)
Yep. Do the transition strategy. I get it. I get it.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (11:51.202)
Exactly.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (11:51.236)
Yeah. Everybody wants that. That’s actually, yeah, that’s nice to know that that’s an option that it can actually grow to a level where it could be a fully involved business if you want to take it to that level. I’m going to get into the franchise systems and growth, but just out of curiosity, the revenue streams. So you can put a machine in an office and they are simply charged for anybody who uses it per cup. Is that what you said? Or

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (12:19.82)
Yeah. So yeah, some people get confused because they try to compare this to vending, where like you’re you’re relying on the user to, you know, to actually pay and put a dollar in the machine. The problem with vending is you don’t know how much money you’re gonna make off of those machines. So you invest all this capital, you put a machine somewhere, you don’t really know what it’s gonna what it’s gonna make you. With our machines, it keeps a count of every cup of coffee. And we do either a per cup price where we have weekly minimums.

So maybe it’s like 125 cups a week minimum. or we could do a flat rate, maybe it’s $599 a month, but maybe we cap it, you know, at a hundred something cups a week. So we know at a minimum we’re making, you know, 500 bucks a month or 600 bucks a month or whatever it is on each machine that we place. The business pays us and then their employees get to use it for free as like an office amenity. You know, it’s a nice perk to have in your office.

the problem in most offices is they’re still using these cure eggs and and K cups and pods, and the plastic’s not good for you. It’s not good for the environment. the coffee’s old, it’s stale. If you want a good cappuccino or a latte or something, you have to leave the office to go to your local coffee shop. And businesses are losing a ton of productivity this way. People are doing this every day some sometimes. They’re leaving for 30 minutes, 40 minutes to go get their fix. If you had cafe quality coffee in the office,

Shari Currie Skjoldager (13:35.353)
Yes.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (13:44.003)
problem solved. You know, it keeps everybody in the office, it keeps them happy, it keeps them productive. So it it does help with employee satisfaction. It’s also great if you have clients or customers or patients coming into your business. It’s a great way to impress them and and create a better customer experience as well.

Pam (14:00.728)
Make sense.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (14:00.911)
That makes yeah, I actually worked for a company that fed us. They actually had a cafeteria that you would go downstairs and you get free food and they had a refrigerator with every drink you could imagine. And the reason behind that is they this was an actuarial company, so they knew their numbers, they understood the value of keeping everybody in the building, eating a lot quicker than if you left and came back, and having a more productive day. So it very much aligns with that philosophy.

Pam (14:23.972)
Uh-huh.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (14:29.772)
Yep, absolutely.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (14:31.651)
So you kind of tapped into this already. this was founded. it was in Australia that you said it was or that’s crazy. And it and it was back in what, 2003? And and then you all decide to go ahead and launch it and start franchising. so

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (14:39.125)
Australia, yeah.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (14:44.344)
Yep.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (14:52.439)
I know you said the growth was a little bit slow initially. You had like maybe a little under ten. You hit COVID, which slowed it down. But where are you guys standing now and where do you see the growth gro going to now that you’ve kind of gotten your feedback under your

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (15:06.562)
Yeah, I think we ended the year 2025 with eight franchisees, eight or nine franchisees. And as of today, we have 19 franchisees signed and a few more moving forward here in in the next couple of weeks. so we are like really starting to take off. I think it’s a great time to come in. We actually just brought on a new CEO.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (15:13.731)
Okay.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (15:30.562)
The founder and president of Oakscale moved over to be the CEO for Break Coffee because we’re seeing so much growth. we just hired someone new for the team to kind of help support the franchisees. So the team is growing and and that’s exciting. so yeah, we’re we’re we’re blowing up. We we just awarded territories in Portland, Oregon, San Antonio, we’re coming to Dallas, Atlanta, Florida. I mean, you name it.

Pam (15:33.349)
Mm-hmm.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (15:59.866)
That’s wonderful. And and you’re basically your vision for Break Coffee is is it’s just to continue to get the name out there and expand nationwide, or is there any additional visions that we should know about and share?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (16:15.17)
So we are we’re registered in almost all 50 states at this point. There may be a couple more that we’re a couple that we’re waiting on, but we are franchising nationwide. We are looking to grow coast to coast. I think, you know, metropolitan areas and b the bigger cities are obviously the, you know, the hottest markets to kind of, you know, target first. But yeah, we are franchising nationwide. I do see this company growing very, very quickly.

I think it’s gonna be one of the fastest growing brands in the country. I really do. this is a unique opportunity. There’s really nothing else like it out there. There’s not another business-to-business coffee franchise out there. There’s not another national company doing what we’re doing, as far as we know. it’s a great way to get into the coffee business without having to spend a fortune. I mean, if you wanna open up a coffee shop that’s obviously very competitive.

you know, business to be in. You’re up against the Starbucks and the Dunkin’ Donuts. This is a great way to get into the coffee industry for a fraction of the price. you know, but you still get those really high margins.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (17:18.915)
Yeah, I I completely agree. I love the fact that you can jump in as a little bit of a side hustle if you’ve got that natural sales networking s background and then potentially grow it to a point where you you’re

Pam (17:19.055)
Yeah.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (17:31.811)
Just running the show in the metropolitan area. And you obviously the coffee sounds terrific. It made me very thirsty when you described it. All right, Anthony, we know that you got into this yourself. You liked it so much that you and your wife decided to get a territory in New Jersey. So this is gonna be an easy question for you. Can you give us some firsthand understanding of what the day in the life is and what the basic role is of a franchisee?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (17:57.847)
Yeah, absolutely. So most people start off by themselves. Like I said, there’s no reason to hire anybody for this. And I think that’s the best part. You can start by yourself, you can work from home, you have practically no overhead. You know, you’ll get like a little insurance, you know, maybe a QuickBooks account. Like that’s pretty much it. and then we start marketing for you and we start driving you leads. corporate actually helps work some of those leads in the beginning and they’ll help kind of place some trials for you.

But then at some point it transitions over, where then the franchisee starts working their own leads. So those leads will pop into your email inbox, and you just reach out to them and you’re essentially pitching them a free trial. training’s very easy. It’s like two days in Jersey City. We teach you how to unbox a machine, how to program a machine, how to test it out, how to do all three cleaning cycles, how to install it.

Pam (18:36.194)
Uh-huh.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (18:57.666)
How to plumb it into a water line if you have that opportunity. It’s a lot easier than it than it sounds. some sales and marketing tactics, but it’s it’s pretty straightforward. And then you order your machines and you go out and you start placing them in in local businesses. you know, so there is an aspect of, you know, you have to pick up the machine, you have to put it in your car, you have to drive it down somewhere. So I try to be careful when I say work from home, it’s really remote.

you can’t just sit behind your desk and do this all day. You know, there is an aspect of going out into your community and and meeting people face to face and setting up the machines and getting people excited about it, showing them how to use it. For me, that’s the most fun part of my day because I’m on like the screen all day for for my day job. So it’s nice kind of getting out and seeing people in person. but yeah, the machine probably weighs 30 pounds, 35 pounds. the the refrigerator also that goes alongside of it.

Pam (19:30.937)
Yeah.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (19:56.655)
So you put that in your car, you drive it down to the business, you set it up, and then you, you know, you pop in a week later, see how things are going. so yeah, training is in two days in Jersey City and then you’re off to the races. You can be up and running like easily within 30 days. We’ve had some franchisees up and running.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (20:17.567)
That’s fast. did you what what would you say the characteristics are that your top franchisees have in order to be successful with a break coffee?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (20:29.698)
At the end of the day, it’s B2B sales is what runs the show here. So you need to be personable. You need to be a relationship builder. You need to be comfortable picking up the phone and and and going out into a meeting and going maybe sponsoring a local event. If if if you’re too shy to go out and do that, I really think, you know, maybe this isn’t the best fit for you. If you have any sales experience at all, if you have a B2B like network, I I think it’s a no brainer.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (20:32.729)
So thanks.

Pam (20:52.944)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (20:59.686)
even if you don’t have like very heavy sales experience, it is a very easy sale we can teach you, but you need to be willing, you know, to to put yourself out there and and get in front of people. So if that’s not you, you know, maybe this this wouldn’t be the great fit. But for anybody else who’s looking to get out and talk to people and build relationships and get involved in their community, this is a really fun business because you’re talking about coffee, something that everybody knows and everybody loves. And it’s just a very easy conversation to have with people. and at the end of the day.

Pam (21:24.024)
Yeah.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (21:29.366)
I have not run into another product or service out there that comes remotely close to what we’re doing in terms of the quality and the service. There’s nothing like it. so it is something you can be proud of and be excited about. Like we have really good coffee and we have an amazing service. So

Pam (21:45.392)
What is the initial investment to become a franchise operator? An owner.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (21:52.183)
It starts around a hundred thousand all in for one territory. Yeah. I I think the range on the F D D is a hundred to one forty ish for one territory. You could do a few territories for probably a hundred and fifty to two hundred. yeah, and then

Pam (21:54.99)
Wow, not hungry. Mm-hmm.

Pam (22:01.465)
Okay.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (22:09.741)
Does that cost primarily include because you’re getting a machine?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (22:13.578)
Most of that cost is going to be your franchise fee for your protected territories. And you start with enough equipment for six accounts. So six coffee machines, six refrigerators. That cost about 20 to 25,000, depending which machines you go with. So it’s your franchise fee, six machines, a little bit of marketing budget, a little bit of work and capital. That’s pretty much it. You’re ready to rock and roll.

Pam (22:38.106)
Nice. Do you guys get into an item nineteen? Do you have any numbers in your F D D for financial performance representation?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (22:47.426)
We do, we do. So we have probably the most transparent item nineteen I’ve ever seen. We show the full PL for every single franchisee, and every single franchisee is profitable. so I mean, I thought that was pretty amazing. It doesn’t take very many machines, it could be literally two or three machines to get to, you know, cash flow positive. So you could have a profitable business on your hands very, very quickly with this model.

The average franchisee in 2025 brought in about 215,000 in sales. And 85,000 of that was their net operating income. So the average net operating income was 85,000. That’s a 40%, 40% net margin. As you guys know, usually 10%, 15% is great. 40% was the average from last year. Our top performer last year came in at

Pam (23:31.104)
Mm. Mm. Right.

I’ve heard of.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (23:43.137)
Almost 52% net operating income. He did just over half a million in sales and about 260K net. And he ended the year with 67 machines that year. He started with 47. He ended with 67. So he placed 20 new machines that year. If you talk to him this year, I think he he’s gonna hit like 100 machines by, I think he said he’s gonna hit 100 machines by August or September. So he’s absolutely crushing it.

Pam (23:52.848)
Very nice.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (24:12.61)
We’re having a great year. we’re getting busier and busier. so again, I think it’s really good time to kind of get in.

Pam (24:20.8)
You just hit on something there that I think people that are considering business ownership sometimes don’t think through. And that is sometimes they get hyper focused on the gross revenue versus the net, right? Like I’ll take, you know, a $250,000 business with low overhead and 40 to 50% net, right? over a, you know,

A five hundred thousand dollar revenue producing high overhead where I’m only getting a fifteen percent net. You know, it’s just i they have to it I’m glad you brought that up because I I do think that it’s a good way to look at the numbers is not only just to look at the gross revenue, but yeah, the

Shari Currie Skjoldager (24:59.114)
huh.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (25:09.846)
Yeah, no, I mean I think that’s in franchising, I think that’s a kind of a an issue is everybody just talks about revenue, you know, nobody talks about profitability and margins. And at the end of the day, you could, you know, I I I know there’s businesses out there that make millions of dollars in in revenue or sales and they’re not making money, you know, because there is so much overhead. And the problem with those types of businesses are it’s a lot of risk to take on because if something goes wrong, if you have a bad month, a bad quarter, a bad year.

Pam (25:13.349)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (25:17.38)
Yes. Yes.

Pam (25:28.6)
Uh-huh.

Pam (25:34.34)
Yes.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (25:39.213)
whatever, you know, you’re losing money. You’re going backwards if you’re not going forwards with most of those businesses. And that’s what I love about Break Coffee is it’s this kind of low risk, low investment. It’s very equipment heavy. So at the end of the day, you can sell your equipment back, you can sell your territories, but you have this very high margin opportunity. And and because of the recurring revenue nature of it, you’re building a steady stream of

Predictable recurring revenue with every machine you place. And the other thing I didn’t mention yet is that we have very high retention. Depending who you ask, they’ll probably tell you it’s over 90% retention. What that means is with the with the recurring revenue and the high retention is you could build this over three years or five years or whatever, get to 25 machines, 50 machines, 100 machines, whatever your goal is. And then you could kind of step away. And it becomes

Pam (26:08.208)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (26:25.754)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (26:35.468)
I I’m not going to say a fully passive business. I don’t think there’s such a thing, but I would say it’s a pretty semi-passive business at that point where you can put in maybe just a few hours a week to manage that. You have a couple of people servicing machines for you and you’re managing that in a few hours a week. And those machines are making you money in your sleep. you know, that our goal as franchisees is we want to make our money back on the equipment within like a year or so. So you invest in this equipment, you try to get paid back within 12 months, 14 months, something like that.

Pam (26:58.884)
Okay.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (27:04.844)
And then that machine makes you money for years and years to come. we have machines that have been out there, I think over 10 years. I saw one personally had been out there over seven or eight years. it had over 50,000 cups of coffee on it. We charge usually a dollar a cup on average. If you think about that, you know, somebody invested maybe 3,500 bucks or something like that, three or four grand on that equipment seven or eight years ago. They’ve made they they would have made over 50k back on that.

Pam (27:22.48)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (27:34.124)
at a dollar a cup, like it’s a pretty good return on your investment. It’s a great return on your time because you can hire somebody to go and clean that machine for you. So it’s a great model.

Pam (27:37.773)
Mm-hmm.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (27:37.891)
Mm.

Pam (27:42.778)
Sure. Does the so is is there an average lifespan of of the equipment?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (27:50.569)
you know, like I said, we’ve had machines that have been out there over ten years. Part of the reason why we like to go in every week or every other week to service the equipment is for preventative maintenance as well. We take really good care of the equipment so that it lasts a long time. These these machines are workhorses. most little issues you you’ll have out in the field, you can fix it yourself. Anything you can’t fix yourself, you send it back to the manufacturer and they’ll fix it for you.

Pam (27:50.991)
You know.

Mm. Okay.

Pam (28:00.337)
Sure.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (28:17.74)
You know, so yeah, they’ll they’ll last you a really long time in our service agreement. It’s kinda like a car from what I understand, where it’s like you can always kinda fix it, you can always get pieces for it and parts for it and fix it. so yeah, they’ll last a while.

Pam (28:30.882)
I’m assuming since it’s equipment-based, you get the 179.org tax advantages as well.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (28:40.214)
Yes, you do. so as you probably know, a hundred percent bonus depreciation is back now as well. So this is this coffee, these coffee machines and the refrigerators, everything is section one seventy-nine. It’s also eligible for the 100% bonus depreciation. So you can accelerate your depreciation that first year that you purchase the equipment. so you can, you know, that you can actually use that to offset your W-2 income if you have a full time job. you know.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (28:46.991)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (29:06.924)
Essentially getting these big tax refunds every year if you have a good CPA. so that’s a nice advantage. You could ride off your vehicle, home office. anywhere you go, you could be talking about break coffee because we have so many target customers. So it’s definitely a great, I think, model for the tax advantages.

Pam (29:23.056)
Fabulous. And I guess before we kind of go to our final question here, any anything else you would like to add that we didn’t cover? I feel like we’ve covered a lot, but I I don’t wanna what didn’t I ask that I should be asking?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (29:37.256)
No, I think we did cover quite a bit. Just no, just to kind of like recap. It’s, you know, I would say it’s very low risk, low investment, low overhead, remote kind of work from home, high margin, recurring revenue, no employees required, you know. And and it’s funny, I was gonna bring up the tax advantages, but you had beaten me to it. But something I like to compare it to is real estate. It’s like owning rental properties, but it’s way less risky.

And it cash flows exponentially better. it’s like you know, you own all these machines and you have kind of like long-term renters out there that are paying you monthly to use to use them, and you just have to maintain it, you know, send somebody in to to to maintain the equipment. so it’s a great way to kind of build up this, you know, portfolio over time. You get these nice tax write-offs, you get this great cash flow. but it’s much lower risk, right? With a rental property.

If you can’t find renters, kind of screwed, right? And if you know, if anything ever happens, plumbing, a roof, for I mean, you’re going thousands and thousands of dollars for anything that happens. With this, it’s like the worst case scenario. Somebody cancels, it’s like, all right, thanks for paying off my machine, and you go and you put it somewhere else, and it can just keep making you money. or if it breaks and you can’t fix it, it’s like I think 400 or 500 bucks to send it back to the manufacturer and they’ll fix it for you. That’s like the worst case scenario.

So I’ll take that bet.

Pam (31:09.21)
Right. Nice.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (31:10.755)
Much lower overhead, much lower cost of entry over real estate. and it’s mobile. All right. Well, this has been great spags. This really informative. I it was good information you shared. what we like to do is, you know, to wrap up our podcast, we always like to leave our our listeners with just one final question that we’d like to see if you could answer for us. So in closing, what tip would you give to budding entrepreneurs?

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (31:15.021)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (31:42.232)
So I I think this is kind of like maybe obvious, and I’m sure everybody says this, but talk to franchisees and don’t be shy. I think like people have opportunities to meet franchisees, and there’s sometimes there’s group calls, like we do group validation where every week you get to meet a different franchisee, they hang out for an hour. And you know, I notice some candidates will really take advantage of those opportunities and they come with lots of really great questions, and some people not so much. And

Maybe they’re maybe they’re shy, maybe they’re a little earlier in the process. But take advantage of those opportunities. Don’t be shy. Ask questions. And not just while you’re evaluating the opportunity, but even after. Even after you sign your franchise agreement, you pay your franchise fee, you’re a franchisee now. Reach out to the top performing franchisees. Ask them how they’re doing what they’re doing. Learn from them. Make friends with everybody. Because I tell everybody with this system in particular.

Pam (32:30.244)
Yes.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (32:41.153)
Like we have a great support team, but those franchisees, they’ve been doing this a a while and there’s a lot to learn from them. Like learn from their mistakes so you don’t have to make those same mistakes. so just yeah, reach out to your your fellow franchisees, don’t be shy. And you know, think about like the day in the life and is it something that, you know, you really can see yourself doing and and look at your other responsibilities. You know, for a side hustle, for example, you know, if you have a job where

You’re working Monday through Friday and you’re grinding 60, 70 hours a week, and you can’t take a couple hours, you know, during the day to go take care of your business, franchising might not be the right fit for you, you know. But if you can carve out a half a day here, a few hours there during the week, Monday through Friday, I think this is a a great opportunity to kind of build a business on the side and eventually get away from that corporate

Pam (33:32.538)
Nice. Well, I I I I would agree with that. Those are all great tips. And one thing I just want to, I guess, highlight that you said one of the greatest advantages of being part of a franchise system is having fellow business owners and getting that peer exchange. That is just one of the many advantages of franchise ownership. And totally agree with you on that front.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (33:33.731)
I like it.

Pam (33:59.402)
Specs, thanks for being a guest on the show. It was great to have you.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (34:03.064)
Yeah.

Anthony Spagnola – Break Coffe (34:03.137)
Thank you guys. It was great seeing you guys.

Pam (34:05.102)
Yes, absolutely. And we’re just gonna say to our listeners, if you are considering franchise ownership, reach out and request a free franchise sisters discovery call. we also would like to send you an ebook, top 10 questions to consider before investing in a franchise.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (34:22.433)
Our mission is to help you navigate the franchise selection process through our client-centric align-wise methodology and to put you in a position to make an informed decision with the help of our investigate before you invest toolkit.

Pam (34:37.274)
Thanks for tuning in. Fist bump. Cheep.

Shari Currie Skjoldager (34:39.235)
So thanks, Fags.

Pam (34:44.657)
Thank you.