“The investment amounts to EUR1 million and entails buying and setting up the store,” the owner of Betty Ice told ZF. The building, located in the Lipscani area of Bucharest, covers 480 square meters and includes an underground level, a ground floor and a first floor. The ground floor will accommodate the ice cream parlor, and the upper floor will be dedicated to office space, according to Armenean.
This is not the businessman’s only investment of this kind. He opened two ice cream parlors last year, in the cities of Sibiu (where he invested EUR700,000) and Oradea.
This year he finalized investments in two other ice cream parlors in Brasov and Cluj. Apart from Bucharest, Armenean also targets Iasi, where he has already bought a space, which he will set up and open by the end of next year.
Betty Ice’s sales amounted to EUR19 million last year, up 8% against the preceding year, and the company posted profit of 4 million lei (around EUR1 million).
A more diverse commercial mix is starting to take shape in Bucharest’s historic downtown, after the restaurant, pub and cafe boom of the past few years, which are lately joined by apparel and shoe stores.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)