Dubai: Burger Joint, a New York-based burger restaurant chain, is looking to open two stores in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the next year-and-a-half, according to the company’s top executive.
The retailer is considering stand-alone stores and stores in shopping malls.
“There’s plenty of demand in Dubai, so the plan is to expand here and then go to other countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),” Steven Pipes, president of The Jack Parker Corporation, which owns Burger Joint, told Gulf News in an interview on Monday.
Burger Joint currently has two stores in the Middle East, one in Dubai’s City Walk and the other in Nation Towers in Abu Dhabi. But it is looking to enter Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt in the coming years.
Pipes said that the company is considering to open a new restaurant concept in the UAE, but did not provide additional details.
The UAE has seen the entry of a number of burger restaurant chains in recent years such as Shake Shack, Steak n Shake and Elevation Burger, creating competition in the market.
Pipes says there is still a big market for burgers in the UAE.
“The market is big for [burgers]. I think in general the UAE has the ability to grow in terms of concepts but there will be people that will fail because the expansion is so rapid. The restaurant business is difficult. Margins are not that big. You have to be well capitalised to be successful,” Pipes said.
The company’s revenue in the US grew by around 6.5 per cent in the first eight months of the year compared to the same period in 2013, he said.
