How is it predatory? For $10k you get a complete Chick-fil-A restaurant, without having to pay for any of the building or start-up costs. Sure, that means corporate will take a much bigger cut of your sales/profits, but that seems fair, since they're taking on most of the risk. I mean... it's $10k. Tell me where else you can start a restaurant from scratch for only $10k and retain 50% of the profits? As someone who has invested in a (non-franchise) restaurant before, this is potentially pretty attractive, if you want to run a franchise.

Even for a more "traditional" franchise, where the franchisee is responsible for all the start-up costs, even $50k is small peanuts compared to the full cost to bring the restaurant up from scratch. Calling that "predatory" feels like a gross exaggeration.