Top 20 Restaurants Owners See RON1B Revenue Together

The restaurant market is heavily fragmented in Romania and there is little data available. Most of the more than 17,000 competitors see revenues lower than RON1 million.

“We operate four restaurants in our International hotel chain, three in Sinaia and one in Bucharest. Next month we will take all three brands – Tirol, Cucina Sofia and Panoramic to Iasi, too,” says Adrian Fuchs, food manager of Corex C&B, which operates restaurants only inside its four-star hotels.

C&B is among the twenty largest restaurant operators, with revenues of RON21.8 million last year, almost three times as much as in 2011.

This is the only top twenty company that operates restaurants inside hotels in Romania. Usually the revenue of the restaurants in four and five star hotels in this country is registered by the same company as the hotel and the shops in its shopping gallery, where applicable. Moreover, their operators do not reveal information about the restaurants’ share of revenue.

Corex C&B is battling both international brands like McDonald’s, KFC and PizzaHut and local brands like La Mama and City Grill in the top twenty. Still, behind most businesses in this industry is most often a Romanian entrepreneur, regardless of whether the brand is local or international.

McDonald’s is the only brand with a direct presence on the market, while the rest came as franchises.

The ranking also includes entrepreneurs Handrea Darius Onut, Farmache Cristian Aurelian and Farmache Liliana who operate the NordSee franchise, one of the largest restaurant chains in Europe specializing in fish and seafood.

The ranking ZF compiled includes companies in the restaurant business as shown by their NACE codes.

Therefore some companies whose core business is something else like Riomatex, which makes most of its revenue from a bakery business in the Brasov area was included among the top twenty. Only 10% of its RON22.5 million revenue comes from restaurants, its officials say.

One company in the ranking is a military caterer, Ro-Armycatering, which serves 40 military units in Romania in 2013, two more than in 2012, according to its website. It posted more than RON30 million revenue last year.

There are also restaurants operated by companies whose NACE is different, such as ‘Bars and other beverage serving activities’. Companies that did not publish their 2012 results, such as Spring Time, which posted more than RON49 million sales in 2011, were not included.

The restaurant inside IKEA, though one of the biggest in the country with its EUR4 million revenue, according to ZF data, was left out, as well, because its figures are consolidated with those of the furniture store.

(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)

Note: According to the information previously provided by officials of Trotter Management, the restaurants are managed by several companies, whose total revenue reached EUR16 million in 2012                             

Sources: Trade Registry, Finance Ministry, ZF