“The considerable plus of going abroad for a restaurant chain comes from the culture side of clients, oriented toward consumption. At the same time, we’re speaking of a consumer with a significantly higher purchasing power,” says Dragos Petrescu, founder of restaurant group City Grill, the most powerful Romanian name on this market.
The company with 20 restaurants and around 1,000 employees plans to expand in Vienna, Austria, in 2022 or 2023. This would be the first step outside Romania.
The first local business that has strongly bet on foreign expansion is SaladBox network, which now has around 15 countries on its own map. In full pandemic, 5 to Go and DAbo Doner also opened units abroad, on markets such as France of Great Britain.
Other players such as Spartan or City Grill are also mulling foreign markets, but the pandemic direction is also playing a part in final decisions.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)