[matrix]

While I'm proud to see the cafe my sister manages get held up as an example to be exported elsewhere, I'm skeptical. The fact is, when scaling up a food or beverage franchise, food quality takes a distant back seat to consistency, supply chain management, leveraging economy of scale, and all kinds of unglamorous factors like that. The truth is, on average, people don't care as much about quality as you might think they do. Starbucks, McDonald's, Chill's, Olive Garden... the examples of mediocre, but consistent winners go on.

[liedra]

Who says anything about scaling up a franchise? It sounds like they're talking about a few small cafes rather than a new Starbucks. They're already doing that in Melbourne, so I don't see why it's particularly different.