It seems like every time you turn around, there’s a new
restaurant going into a neighborhood in Dubai.
As this cosmopolitan city continues to reinvent itself, all sorts of chains and independent
restaurants are targeting customers in the area, from Jumeirah Beach to
Business Bay and all around the city, with
renowned chefs and established restaurateurs sinking a lot of money and effort
into serving customers.
But how do these restaurants get their start? How do
investors decide whether to make a go of a new bistro or high-end ethnic
restaurant in a neighborhood?
In a July article on Zawya, a local consultant has weighed
in on the process by which restaurants make these moves.
“It is all about managing the expectations,”
Abdul Kader Saadi, managing director at Glee Hospitality Solutions, a company that helps to develop restaurant concepts in the Middle East, said. “By
trying to understand the customers well – be it the objectives, the vision, the
mission and the needs of the client or the investor. It is important to know
what kind of concept the market is seeking, whether the client aims to have one
outlet or multiple outlets within the time frame. Also, it is very vital to
understand what kind of outlet the client prefers.”
Saadi explained the process of looking at data in the market,
and doing profound market research on a restaurant concept, type of cuisine and a location and target market.
“Designing a space for the customer and consultant along
with our designer is an extremely personal and exhilarating part.” Saadi said
of the restaurant design process. “Designs create the ambience that customers
at times come to experience along with food.”
All the way down to the menu, Saadi said, there is a
deliberate plan to make sure a restaurant business is built on solid ground.
“Owners, investors and bankers want to know you have a
proactive plan to grow your business,” Saadi said. “You can’t rely on instant popularity and
simple word-of-mouth marketing. While passionate belief in the
concept is the driving force that can turn a dream into reality, this passion
must be balanced with reality when it comes to creating a sound business plan.”
According to Ken Spahn, president of Restaurant
Placement Group, a Boca Raton, Florida restaurant and hospitality recruiting and
consulting firm, much of the process of site selection is intuitive, although
there are general business formulas, as well as local laws and regulations.
Spahn has worked in-house and consulted for numerous restaurant and hospitality
operators, real estate developers and national restaurant tenants. He has also
published hundreds of restaurant articles, four nationally recognized Law
Review articles, and numerous industry articles.
“A lot of the process is feeling it out by the
market,” Spahn told the Gulf News Journal, “Where is there a missing
niche? Is there a demand for (a certain concept) right now? Can we introduce a
new concept to the market, and create a demand for something previously
unknown? Is the market already saturated?”
Calling restaurant site selection “the $10
million question,” Spahn said the site selection process involves numerous
parameters, including local demographics, competitive structure, vehicle traffic
counts, pedestrian traffic counts, accessibility, visibility, parking,
exclusivity, and of course, rent or acquisition costs – as well as research on
nearby amenities and population counts. But in the end, it often comes
down to a passion for the business.
In foreign markets, Spahn said, there is usually a
local partner who has knowledge of the immediate area and local connections and who wants to get into the restaurant business, while the corporate franchisor provides
its already-proven business formula, systems, and SOPs (standard operating
procedures), as well as guidance and resources.
Also, Spahn said, restaurants that already have a
concept might choose to enter markets based on matching information on the
local area with their experience and what they’ve done in the past.
As Spahn notes, overall, a restaurant that has
the right concept and delivers the right level of quality and service can
compete well in a range of locations, “be it Dubuque or Dubai.”
