Last fall, I wrote about a panel discussion that I had participated in where the franchisor participants were seeing all sorts of "opportunity" in the potential for development of expanded and new units as a result of the increase in availability of real estate due to closures forced by the pandemic. See Franchise Relations in the Time of Pandemic, N.Y.L.J. (Nov. 13, 2020). As the pandemic begins to recede (or, at least in those places where vaccination rates are high, commerce is beginning to return in amounts sufficient to sustain thinking about increased development), many franchisors are seeking to push their existing franchisees to develop quickly, and to take advantage of the opportunity that exists with respect to these locations.

From the point of view of the franchisees, however, there are some counterbalancing forces in the economy that make this push one that starkly illustrates the difference between a franchisor's interest in driving overall topline sales of the system, and the franchisee's need to be concerned about the bottom-line profitability of each unit that is in operation.