> wrote in message >.. .
> Sounds like you're going about things in the right way. Aside from the
> "threat" of McD that kind of looms over any small fast food business
> anywhere in the world, your more immediate concern is probably much more
> local. When your concept takes off, it's a virtual given that the
> competition will copy it. Any "intellectual property" protection you
> can get for yourself up front is just plain smart business.

Well, whaddya know... a friend of mine bought me a Brazilian gossip
magazine this week featuring this company: http://www.wraps.com.br/,
apparently a very well-financed operation that has opened five units
in the past year and a half around São Paulo. They're now expanding to
Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, and Belo Horizonte-- northward, instead of
down here. They've even copyrighted the word "wraps". But they charge
about three times what I'll be charging, probably due to their food
court locations. I hate food courts and will probably never open in
one-- they're so plastic and overpriced. Well, there are a lot more
people in SP with the spending power to drop R$25 on lunch; here
people could barely pay half that, because the only local industry is
tourism. There are three new malls being built here, and it wouldn't
surprise me to see a Wraps(R!) open in one or two of them, but that
won't have much to do with my downtown operation.

JMA