The pictures of holiday hams and cold-cut sandwiches are the same, as is the entire menu board — with a few notable exceptions.

The "Heavenly Original" sandwich — ham and Havarti cheese on a croissant — is now the "The Famous Original." And the "Heavenly Cookie Platter" is now the "Delicious Cookie Platter."

All references to the Heavenly Ham franchise have been erased, covered up and taken down from Rob Wesolich's store off of Olive Boulevard in Creve Coeur.

After running it as a Heavenly Ham store for 17 years, Wesolich found himself in a quagmire. He was one of the last remaining stores in a dying franchise.

So when the corporate franchise owner agreed to release him from his franchisee obligations, he re-opened earlier this year as an independent store named B's Honey Glazed Market. A temporary white banner with the new name now covers up the old "Heavenly Ham" sign above the store.

The food he sells today is nearly identical. He was allowed to keep his suppliers and most of his recipes as long as he made small tweaks, such as changing a couple of ingredients in his chicken salad.

"I'm glad I'm still here," Wesolich said as he sat inside his store on a recent day. "I kind of got the short end of the stick, but I'm trying to make a go of it."

At one point, there were five Heavenly Ham stores in Missouri — and roughly 200 nationwide. But in 2002, Heavenly Ham was bought by its main competitor — the older and more established HoneyBaked Ham Co.

After the acquisition, HoneyBaked suspended — and eventually stopped — the opening of new Heavenly Ham stores as it researched the relative strength of the two chains, said Maggie DeCan, the company's senior vice president of store operations.

The results were pretty clear: "HoneyBaked had a much stronger brand awareness," she said.

So the company decided to focus on growing the HoneyBaked brand and began allowing many Heavenly Ham franchises to convert to HoneyBaked stores.

However, a handful of Heavenly Ham stores — including two remaining stores in the St. Louis region — were not allowed to convert because they were too close to corporate HoneyBaked stores. HoneyBaked has more than 400 stores nationwide, including six in the St. Louis metro area.

"That was the nail in the coffin," Wesolich said. "As a franchisee in a brand of only a handful of stores, my market value plummeted to zero."

The last remaining Heavenly Ham store in Missouri closed its doors in Sunset Hills last month. Tom Bangert, who owned that franchise for 10 years, decided not to renew his contract when it came up in June.

"There are fewer and fewer Heavenly Hams," he said. "It doesn't make sense to have a franchise with less than 20 stores remaining."

And he said he received an agreeable settlement with HoneyBaked when he closed.

A Heavenly Ham store in St. Peters closed in 2005. And stores in Cape Girardeau and Columbia, Mo., were recently converted to HoneyBaked Hams.

As the number of Heavenly Ham stores began to dwindle, Wesolich said, there was less corporate support with marketing and fewer field visits. And he began to see some supplies dry up, such as the Heavenly Ham foil he used to wrap the sandwiches.

"I thought at least if I have my own store, then I'm free of royalties," he said.

In response, DeCan said that HoneyBaked had honored its agreements with Heavenly Ham franchisees and continued to support those stores.

"When you buy a franchise, part of what you're hoping to buy is brand value," said Eric Riess, who specializes in franchising law at St. Louis-based Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale. "So if the locations start shrinking, a lot of what you thought you were buying starts to disappear."

Many people — including Wesolich — have been drawn to franchises because they know that there is a proven track record and that it has a better chance of success than starting a new, independent business. But with more than 6,000 franchise concepts out there, some are bound to fail, Riess said.

Most growing franchise systems will get purchased at some point — many by a competitor, he said. And when they do, the new owner sometimes keeps the rival brand alive. Other times it makes more sense to convert them.

"It's often simpler to run if it's all under one system," he said.

When Wesolich opened his business with a partner in 1992, it was the first Heavenly Ham store in Missouri.

But the recession has been especially tough on his business. And with pharmaceutical companies cutting back on catered lunches to doctor's offices, his sales began to nose-dive a few years ago.

So he put the store up for sale in 2007 for $220,000. He took it on and off the market for the next couple of years. But he couldn't find a buyer, even after dropping the price to as low as $90,000.

"When someone researches it and sees (Heavenly Ham) is not expanding and that it's been purchased by a competitor, it's not too attractive," he said.

With the help of his friends who invested in his business, he re-opened the store as B's Honey Glazed Market in February. The new start has not been easy.

Many of his customers were used to ordering lunches for business meetings through the Heavenly Ham website. But when they don't find him there anymore, they assume he has closed, he said. So he and his employees have been looking up old customers to let them know the business still exists and have been offering free food and discounts as incentives,

It's been slowly working. Although sales plummeted by 35 to 40 percent in the first month after he went independent, business has begun to build back up.

Sales are up nearly 20 percent this month, compared with June, he said.

"Even though I've been here for 17 years, it's like I'm starting from scratch," he said.