From the filings
Software purchasing authority at Comic Book Café is not publicly documented in the 2024 Franchise Disclosure Document. The FDD lists no headquarters executives and does not mandate any specific technology systems, leaving the decision-maker level unknown. The total number of franchised and company-owned units is also not disclosed, making the addressable market difficult to quantify without further research.
For software vendors selling into US franchise brands.
Franchisor behaviours
18 requirements the franchisor states in this filing, each in its own words; 1 explicit no; 15 questions the text does not settle, which is not a no.
Accounting
Must the franchisee submit periodic financial statements (monthly, quarterly or annual) to the franchisor?
YesFranchise agreement
Submit to Franchisor, monthly, quarterly, and/or annual financial reports including balance sheets, cash flow statements, profit and loss statements, and other reports as required by Franchisor.
How the franchisor buys
Is there a franchisee advisory council, association or committee?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisee shall participate, at Franchisee’s sole expense, in local, regional and national franchise advisory committees or councils if established or sanctioned by Franchisor.
Does the franchisor reserve the right to change designated suppliers or systems at any time?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisor may, during the term of this Agreement, require Franchisee to modify, enhance and/or replace all or any part of Franchisee’s communication and information system at Franchisee’s expense
Does the franchisor charge a fee to evaluate a proposed supplier?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisor may charge a reasonable fee for inspection, review, and approval of suppliers.
Can a franchisee propose a new supplier for the franchisor's approval?
YesFranchise agreement
If Franchisee desires to purchase any items from an unapproved supplier, Franchisee shall submit to Franchisor a written request for such approval or shall request the supplier itself to do so.
Communications
Does the franchisor own or control the business telephone numbers, or take them over when the agreement ends?
YesFranchise agreement
At the option of Franchisor, assign to Franchisor or Franchisor’s designee all of Franchisee’s rights, title and interest in and to any and all (i) telephone numbers of Franchisee’s franchise and all related Yellow Pages,
Franchise management
Must the franchisee participate in a customer-satisfaction or net-promoter survey program?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisor may require that Franchisee furnishes its customers with an evaluation form specified by the Franchisor pre- addressed to the Franchisor.
Does the franchisor conduct periodic inspections, audits or evaluations of the franchised business?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisor or its designated agents have the right, at any reasonable time and without prior notice, to (i) inspect the Franchised Business; (ii) observe Franchise Owner and its employees during the performance of work; (iii) confer with the Franchise Owner and its employees; (iv) contact and interview customers and…
Can the franchisor change the operations manual and brand standards unilaterally?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisor shall have the right to add to or otherwise modify the Operating Manual from time to time to reflect changes in any of the System Standards, provided that no such addition or modification shall alter Franchisee’s fundamental status and rights under this Agreement.
Must the franchisor approve the franchisee's site or location before opening?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisee shall solely operate the Franchised Business from a real property space that is approved by and meets Franchisor’s then site requirements (Site) and is identified in Exhibit 2 to this Agreement.
Marketing
Is the franchisee prohibited from operating its own website or social media accounts, or required to use pages the franchisor provides?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisee shall not establish a separate Website or Social Media account or page without Franchisor’s prior written approval.
Is the franchisee required to spend a minimum amount on local advertising or marketing, as a percentage of sales or a fixed amount?
YesFranchise agreement
It is required that Franchisee spends at least 1% of Gross Revenues for Local Advertising to generate public interest and awareness of the Franchised Business and to adequately penetrate the market for Franchisee’s products and services within Franchisee’s trading area.
Must the franchisee participate in a regional advertising cooperative when one exists?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisee shall take appropriate steps to establish and participate in a Cooperative if required to do so by Franchisor.
Payments
Are royalties and other fees collected by automatic bank debit (ACH or electronic funds transfer) from the franchisee's account?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisee agrees to remit fees and any other amounts due to Franchisor hereunder via electronic funds transfer or other means as Franchisor may stipulate.
People
Does the franchisor require minimum staffing levels or specific roles?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisee shall maintain a competent, conscientious, trained staff (who shall have been adequately trained per Franchisor Standards) in numbers sufficient to service customers promptly and properly, including at least a trained manager (or other trained supervisory employee in accordance with the Operating Manual)…
Point of sale
Does the franchisor have independent access to the data in the franchisee's POS or computer system?
YesFranchise agreement
permit Franchisor to access Franchisee’s communication and information system at all times via modem or other means specified by Franchisor from time to time.
Training
Can the franchisor charge the franchisee for additional, refresher or remedial training?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisor reserves the right to charge a fee for a refresher, remedial, and additional training it provides.
Is attendance at an annual convention or conference mandatory for the franchisee?
YesFranchise agreement
Franchisor may require Franchisee (or if Franchisee is other than an individual, the Designated Manager) to attend a regional or national meeting of Comic Book Café franchisees at a location within the United States designated by Franchisor.
Comic Book Café operates in the retail non-food segment, but the 2024 Franchise Disclosure Document leaves many traditional vendor evaluation metrics blank. The total number of units—both franchised and company-owned—is not disclosed, so the addressable unit count is unknown. No average unit volume (AUV) is provided, and year-over-year unit growth is not stated. For a software vendor, this means the scale of the opportunity cannot be sized from the FDD alone. The brand appears to be independently owned, with no parent company on file, and no operator footprint is mapped in our corpus. This lack of public data makes Comic Book Café a research-intensive target, where direct engagement may be the only path to understanding the potential deal size.
The 2024 FDD does not list any headquarters executives in Item 1, so the software buying center is entirely unknown. There is no named CIO, VP of IT, or operations lead who would typically evaluate or approve technology purchases. Without a clear decision-maker level—whether HQ-driven, multi-unit operator-led, or mixed—vendors must assume that identifying the right contact requires outbound prospecting. The absence of a franchisor mandate for technology also suggests that, if units exist, purchasing authority may be decentralized. This is a blank-slate scenario: no known buyer, no known hierarchy.
Comic Book Café’s 2024 FDD does not mandate or recommend any specific technology systems. There are no named POS providers, no required back-office platforms, and no preferred vendor lists captured in the disclosure. This means the current tech stack across any operating locations is not publicly documented. For a software vendor, this represents either a greenfield opportunity—where no legacy system lock-in exists—or a signal that the franchise system is too small or nascent to have formalized its technology requirements. Either way, the FDD provides no concrete starting point for a product pitch.
The FDD contains no extract for Item 8, which typically outlines procurement restrictions and designated suppliers. Without this, the procurement model—whether open, approved-supplier, or designated-supplier—is not known. Similarly, Item 17, which covers renewal, termination, and transfer, yields no signal. The initial franchise term and royalty percentage are also not disclosed. This makes it impossible to estimate when contract windows might open or when franchisees might be evaluating new software. Vendors should treat Comic Book Café as an opportunistic, rather than calendar-driven, target.
The 2024 Comic Book Café FDD is embedded below for full reference. It was filed with state franchise regulators and serves as the primary legal document governing the franchise relationship. For software vendors, the key items to review are Item 1 (the franchisor and any parents/affiliates), Item 8 (restrictions on sources of products and services), Item 11 (franchisor’s obligations), and Item 17 (renewal, termination, transfer). In this case, many of those items contain no actionable data, underscoring the need for direct intelligence gathering. For a ranked target list of franchise systems with richer technology signals, FranCloud can help prioritize your outreach.
Questions vendors ask
Every number on this page traces back to this document. Read it in full, page by page. Buy the original PDF to download, search, and annotate it.
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FDD alert
We’ll email you the moment Comic Book Café files a new annual FDD, usually the freshest signal of a vendor change.
Operator footprint
No franchisee network yet. Comic Book Café’s latest FDD reports no franchised locations.
Related Retail non food brands
Primary franchise filings · updated June 2026. Every figure is source-traceable and QA-checked.