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With their ready-made physical locations seemingly ready to take advantage of the publics' taste for lattes and cappucinos, you'd think McDonald's Corp. (MCD) entry into the market would be a no-brainer. Yet it's not quite as simple as it sounds, as some of their franchisees are rebelling against the idea.

"There's a real groundswell of resistance among the franchisees about this," said Richard Adams, a consultant for McDonald's franchise owners. He says the chances of it taking off are at about 50-50.

That's amazing when you think of the potential The problem is the $100,000 investment that will have to be made to cover the costs of new equipment and renovation.

Some are concerned the resultant business won't be enough to get a good return on investment for years, in spite of the large margins associated with selling the coffee beverages.

McDonald's projects that yearly business for the investment and effort for the franchisees should come in at around $125,000 per store. That would include other beverages and bottled drinks that would be added to the store as well.

Talking to analysts, McDonald's USA president Don Thompson said concerning the initiative that "We want to move from beverages as an accompaniment to being a beverage destination."

The drip coffee that has been compared very favorably with Starbucks (SBUX) offering, has performed well from Consumer Reports testers earlier in the year, while also selling well. That has encouraged the company to expand quickly in the area.

Another motivator for McDonald's has been seeing the resurgence of Dunkin' Donuts stores, which, according to them, credits its strong growth on its line of coffee drinks it added in 2003 to their product line.

While McDonalds will take some customers from Starbucks, in reality we'll probably see their entry into the market as increasing the overall market size, rather than a battle over a decreasing number of customers. Although with Starbucks having its first decrease in customer same-store visitors in the U.S. this quarter, it could cause them pressure in the U.S. market.

The overall market in the U.S. is expected to grow at a 4 percent clip through 2011, standing at about $12 billion yearly at this time.

Of course the first step by McDonalds must be to win over their franchisees before they can offer it across their store network. They're hoping to roll it out by 2009 across the U.S.