Before you fall in love with that exciting new franchise concept, it pays to familiarize yourself with franchise regulations and see whether your new squeeze is cheating on you.
For instance, the FTC prohibits promises of success or profits in franchise marketing materials.  However, the Solera Distributors franchise website is filled with illegal earnings claims promising franchisee success & profitability.  Solera Distributors claims:
…Franchisees should be able to support their basic living requirements for 4-6 months while building the foundation of their business.  Franchisees will work in a defined territory.  The potential of each territory will allow the franchisee the opportunity to …read more

The contents of two bankrupt Cork & Olive wine stores are up for auction.
See them here:  Bay Area Auction Services
Read more about the Cork & Olive WINE STORE FRANCHISE woes here:
Cork & Olive Franchise
CORK & OLIVE: Michael Probst Forms New Corporation

CORK & OLIVE: Oldsmar Store Reopens; C&O Coming to Ocala?

CORK & OLIVE: New Ownership & Franchise Rumors

CORK & OLIVE: The Probst Method of Guilt Avoidance
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH CORK & OLIVE?  SHARE A COMMENT BELOW.
Image:  Bay Area Auctions

Despite the recent plunge into bankruptcy that left his Cork & Olive wine store franchise chain in turmoil, his newly-launched Cork & Olive franchisees stranded without the promised support, and employees without jobs or paychecks, C&O founder Michael Probst is launching his next entrepreneurial venture: Mergers & Acquisition Corp.
The story is here:  CORK & OLIVE: Michael Probst Forms New Corporation
The whole story is here:  CORK & OLIVE BLOGLIOGRAPHY
What do you think?  Share a comment below.
Related posts:  CORK & OLIVE: Ex-Employee Has no Sympathy for Franchisees, CORK & OLIVE: Overview & Blogliography,  CORK & OLIVE: The Probst Method of Guilt Avoidance, …read more

(FranchisePick.Com)  According to the Bradenton Herald, the owners of the fledgling Cork & Olive franchised wine shops left stranded by their bankrupt franchisor are taking matters into their own hands. 
A consortium of nine franchise owners around the Tampa Bay area are exercising their trademark rights to the Cork & Olive name and will continue to grow the brand.  The abandoned franchisees have reportedly formed a wine-buying cooperative they believe will enable them to maintain their moderately priced wines that average $13 to $16 a bottle.
According to the Sarasota franchise managing partner Rick Munroe, four Orlando-area Cork & Olive …read more

(FranchisePick.com Franchise Blog)  $2.5 million in internal debt for a 4 year old retailer… financed by franchisees?  How many corks did founder Michael Probst buy?  How many olives?  Are we talking solid gold corks?  Diamond-encrusted olives?  And where are they now? 
According to the Orlando Business Journal:
Cork & Olive store closures blamed on financing issues
The bloom is gone at Estate Wine Group Inc., known as Cork & Olive: Company executives shuttered its seven corporate stores last week.
The retailer was founded in 2004 and grew to 16 stores from Clearwater to Orlando, including franchisees. Now, they are left to fend …read more

(FranchisePick.Com)  Headline:  Cork & Olive Franchise & Why I Love the Tampa Bay Tribune.  Alternative headlines:  Cork & Olive Franchise:  Daze of Whine & Closes; Cork & Olive: ‘You should’ve seen the monkey trying to put the cork back in!”
Some call bloggers “Citizen Journalists,” a term that conjures up images of, say, a freckle-faced Norman Rockwell boy with plastic fireman’s helmet and “Honorary Fire Chief” badge,  a snoopy old Neighborhood Watch coot perched in an apartment window with police scanner and binoculars, or the innocuous bystander/extra whose television career amounts to the single line:  “He went that way, Batman!”
In …read more

(FranchisePick.Com)  Related stories:  Cork & Olive Wine Franchisor Folds; Franchisees Scramble to Survive, Cork & Olive Franchise Corp. Collapse: What’s the REAL Story?, What REALLY Uncorked Cork & Olive Franchise Corp? (Unhappy Franchisee), Cork & Olive Wine Shop Franchise Owners Left High & Dry (Unhappy Franchisee)
Cork & Olive, the Tampa-based wine bar franchisor that shuttered its headquarters and eight company-owned stores last week, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a Hillsborough court yesterday.
The filing follows last week’s  lay-off off 40 Cork & Olive workers.  The closing left the owners of nine franchised locations, and the owners of other franchises …read more

(FranchisePick.Com) Yesterday, UnhappyFranchisee.com reported that the Cork & Olive Franchise Corp. had folded, that the eight company stores had closed, 40 employees had been abruptly laid off and the Cork & Olive franchisees, including one who opened just a week earlier, abandoned by their franchisor Michael Probst.
According to the post on UnhappyFranchisee.com (Cork & Olive Wine Shop Franchise Owners Left High & Dry), Cork & Olive franchisor claimed he shut down after  a New York hedge fund that was going to invest about $3-million in the company insisted it take on controlling interest. Probst refused.   He shut down …read more