There’s a new fast food game in town – Popeyes. The American phenomenon has been taking bites out of the market share over the dominant trio of McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King in recent decades. But now it’s taking on the Central European market via franchise holder Rex Concepts, which plans to start by opening restaurants in Prague and Warsaw. Rex Concepts is the investment vehicle of McWin Capital Partners, which itself was co-founded by former CEO of AmRest Holdings Henry McGovern. (Amrest operates KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks Burger King and other franchise restaurants around Central Europe to this day). The first 2-level restaurant should open on Wenceslas Square by the end of August, according to Hospodářské noviny. Another is reportedly planned for the Máj building on Narodní třída, currently under reconstruction.
Rex Concepts chairman Olgierd Danielewicz says he opens to open around 600 restaurants over the next 10 years in the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania. “Burgers and chicken are very strong categories, yet still significantly underpenetrated,” Danielewicz told the Franchise Times. He’s referring to the fact that whereas in the USA, there are 42 McDonald’s restaurants per million people, in CE, there are just 12 per million. “Those numbers, that shows to me a big white space,” he claims.
Danielewicz says the €525 million McWin Restaurant Fund acquired BK SEE Poland S.A., which the FT described as a 20-unit Burger King franchisee for Poland.
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