What’s black and brown and read all over – and goes well with take-out, too?

It’s Coffee News, the one-page, two-sided publication that gives restaurant-goers and other readers tidbits that make them laugh, trivia questions that make them think and a public events calendar that helps them plan.

It’s also a franchise opportunity that lured Bangor resident Bill Buckley from the finance and insurance world, and that recently captured two national rankings from Entrepreneur magazine.

“It’s going to get even better in April,” Buckley said, referring to another recognition he expects.

Jean Daum, a Canadian woman who was looking for a business opportunity in her bedroom community of Charleswood, Manitoba, created Coffee News in 1988 after her first endeavor, a small-town newspaper, failed.

When she started her newspaper, Daum was motivated to economically revitalize Charleswood, which steadily was becoming a ghost town as shoppers headed to nearby Winnipeg instead. The paper became too costly to run as Daum said she was hit by postal charges on advertisements that were included in mailed newspapers.

In debt, Daum waited a couple of years before starting Coffee News. The idea for the publication came to her after she placed a lunch order and then sat back to wait for the food.

“Bored stiff, she resorted to reading the information on the sugar packet,” Buckley said. “Suddenly it dawned on her – restaurants were missing the boat by not providing patrons with something to read for a few minutes while waiting for the food. Jean capitalized on the convergence of trends in the way businesses advertise, the way people get their meals and their expectation of entertainment.”

Coffee News now is the leading restaurant publication in the world with circulation in 32 countries, according to Daum’s Web site, www.coffeenewsnet.com.

Buckley’s interest in Coffee News began in 1995. Initially he purchased a couple of franchises from Daum and ran them, but realized the financial potential if he bought the rights to all of the Coffee News franchises in the United States. He recently sold his local franchises to a Bangor-area businessman and now concentrates primarily on selling franchises nationwide as well as in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. All are under the corporate umbrella of Coffee News USA.

“We don’t ever tempt the Lord,” Buckley said. “We keep our fingers crossed and keep working away.”

Along with national franchise sales, Buckley provides education and franchisee support. He looks for entrepreneurs who are not afraid of hard work including advertising sales, customer service, distribution and compiling a weekly public events calendar.

Each franchisee agrees to maintain the integrity of the product so that a Coffee News picked up in Canada looks the same as one in Olympia, Wash., and like one in France. The franchisee attends a weeklong Coffee News training program, with the last one held at Lucerne Inn in January and the next one in April in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

The first franchise costs $4,000, and each additional franchise is $2,500, Buckley said. The gross revenue potential is up to $25,000 for the first franchise, $40,000 for the second and more for each additional franchise that’s owned, Buckley said.

Out of that money, franchisees pay for printing and distribution costs as well as weekly royalty fees for downloading the publication’s content from the Coffee News Web site.

For Buckley, there is the potential to sell 4,000 Coffee News franchises in the United States, each with a potential readership base of 10,000 people. Currently 250 franchises are operating nationwide, reaching 2.5 million weekly readers. In Maine, 13 franchise owners run 32 franchises.

Last year, Coffee News USA grossed $800,000 in sales and anticipates a 25- to 30-percent annual growth over the next few years as word gets out about the franchise opportunity.

In January, Entrepreneur magazine placed Coffee News No. 236 on its 26th annual Franchise 500 guide. It was rated at the top of a separate category on advertising services franchises. This month, Entrepreneur magazine rated Coffee News the 55th fastest growing franchise in the country.

“The article only lists the top 101 franchises in terms of growth but to be on the list is a great honor for us,” Buckley said.

The magazine’s Top 500 guide was posted on the MSN Internet home page in January and almost immediately the phones started ringing at Coffee News USA, Buckley said. Some of the calls came from South Africa and Beirut, Lebanon.

“We usually get five or 10 applications a day,” he said. “We were getting five to 10 applications an hour. It was crazy. We just about gave up.”

Buckley will not disclose what kind of national recognition Coffee News is expected to receive in April. Instead, he insists that his publication is not out to change the world, just offer a few minutes of levity in people’s lives.

“It does what it does,” he said. “It’s something to be fun and entertaining for people to read when they go into restaurants.”