BinHendi's big plans

BinHendi Hospitality has revealed that discussions are underway for franchising its own-brand Japengo Café concept — and that the group’s other home-grown brands will follow.

In an exclusive interview with Caterer Middle East, group president Mohi-Din BinHendi explained: “I do not believe in getting franchises from outside. I have some brands from outside, to compete with my competitors in, say, the fast food or coffee shop business.

“But our core business is to create our own brands, like Japengo, Havana, Bella Donna, Duck King — they’re our inventions, our babies.

“And there are a couple of other restaurants on the drawing board which will come up soon,” he added.

“But Japengo is our first restaurant chain for which we have developed a franchise map — we hope to franchise it all over the world.

“The rest of our outlets will also be franchised eventually. Then we’ll go to places where we cannot operate ourselves.”

BinHendi said the group had been “bombarded with requests regarding franchising Japengo from all over the world”.

“We’ve had requests from Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi — there are a lot of people interested,” he noted.

“We’re taking our time; we want to go into partnership with people who really understand the business and really care about doing a good job.”

Asked to detail what he was looking for in a franchise partner, BinHendi said he wanted “people with know-how, not just money”.

“People need to be able to run the business as well as affords it,” he pointed out.

“You see a lot of people with lots of money who like to imitate others and get into the restaurant business, but it’s not that easy. You need the knowledge and experience too.”