To some folks a dream dinner might be any decent food they can get for free. Dream Dinners is also a quickly rising food franchise business. It involves prepared menus and locations where people go to receive instruction in cooking them. It's one of those ideas that has people slapping their foreheads while exclaiming "why didn't I think of that"?

In the modern world people maintain full schedules. Work and school and a variety of other activities for family members mean it's harder than ever to eat well . Sure there are many quality frozen and ready made foods, but somehow it's never the same as a good home cooked meal. But doesn't something have to give when time is on a budget? That's where this franchise steps into the picture.

The program works like this. Patrons go in and select some or all of 14 meals from a menu. Number of servings determines cost of each meal. Now while still at the store, they cook. There are both private and public supervised cooking sessions. It's a little bit like a cooking show where the show gives the viewer the food then helps them prepare it along with the host.

It's not as costly as it sounds. The more people buy the more they save, so all 14 meals are about $3.50 per serving not counting sides and other items like salads. This can bring the cost per serving for a complete meal up to around the $5 mark, but for a busy working family it's not bad. That's a great deal for the food plus the cooking instruction.

This is a franchise business. It has its problems. It's not the food or menus or preparation, but rather the franchiseesSome of the franchisees aren't happy. Forbes Magazine profiled Dream Dinners in March 2008. The story didn't look good for the company. Franchisees flocked to this brand new idea. The business plan came into question when many of the franchises went out of business after a short time. The article detailed what was described as misrepresentations of the profit possible, and thus the overall valuation of franchises.

Business controversy aside, Dream Dinners is a wonderful concept that allows busy people living the 21st century fast-paced life a way to return to some of the home spun food value of the past decades.