Petrescu, who owns such restaurants as City Grill, Caru’ cu Bere and Hanu’ Berarilor, will continue to focus on Bucharest and especially the Old Town, where he owns five eateries, which make him the largest operator in the area.
“Our sales so far have grown compared with the same time of last year. Overall growth in the first five months is 12%, and the like-for-like growth is 8%,” Petrescu said.
If the business continues to increase at the same pace, by the end of the year the sales could exceed EUR20 million compared with EUR18.5 million in 2011.
He says the growth in the first five months comes from the rise in the average bill (4% to 6%) and the number of customers (3% to 4%), as well as from the expansion of the group (3% to 4%).
Last year Petrescu opened a second Hanu’ Berarilor in a Pache Protopescu area (around a boulevard connecting the city center to the east side), a City Cafe in the Otopeni Airport and a second Backwerk bakery in the Magheru Boulevard area.
“This upward trend will continue over the coming months. After two or three years of decline we’re talking about an increase in the transaction average and a slight rise in the number of customers,” Petrescu says.
He believes the restaurant, coffee shop and bar market will not go down this year or in the years to come. Only one thing can threaten this and that is the international factor, he adds. If Romania’s economy remains relatively stable, if the leu does not severely fluctuate and if the euro zone does not experience uncontrollable slippages, the market will continue to grow.
Petrescu is the largest Romanian owner of restaurants; he has built a business from the scratch that reached EUR18.5 million in revenue last year, and ranked third on the market after McDonald’s (which entered the market directly and has more than 60 restaurants) and KFC (a brand introduced as a franchise by businessman Gabriel Popoviciu). He also one of the first people to have sensed the potential of the Old Town, which generates more than EUR150 million to EUR200 million in revenue a year with its almost 150 bars, restaurants or coffee shops.
It has already been a few years since businesspeople started to realize what potential the area had, which had been avoided until then. Dragos Petrescu is among the first to have opened a restaurant in the area.
In 2005 he started in an area with many dilapidated buildings, unpaved streets and only few clubs in operation that already had a tradition. He now owns the City Grill restaurant, the Caru’ cu Bere and Hanu’ Berarilor beerhouses in the area, as well as the Buongiorno restaurant, which replaced the Sport Bar cafeteria and Bundetot shawarma place. A Backwerk bakery is also nearby. Tens of entrepreneurs followed, in an attempt to cash in on the fastest-growing area of the last few years.
Petrescu has recently closed Sport Bar and Bundetot in the Old Town in order to focus on restaurants, beerhouses and coffee shops and on the brands he owns. A Dristor Kebap store, which is probably the best-known competitor on the market segment where Bundetot operated, opened near the former shawarma place of Petrescu a while ago.
The entrepreneur has invested EUR750,000 in remodeling and opening of new locations since the beginning of the year and the 2012 plans will not stop here. They include the remodeling of the City Grill in the Old Town and opening at least one such restaurant in Bucharest, because the investor does not want to go other cities for the next three years. The new City Grill will also not be opened in an office building but in a street front location.
Petrescu says he is also looking at acquisition targets, because several locations with potential are up for sale now. He will not provide any names but says he is also looking at the Old Town, where he believes there is room for more such businesses.
The entrepreneur’s plans include remodeling all the stores of the group, the construction of an organic farm and of a logistics platform.
The idea of a logistics platform came to him after a recent trip to Turkey where he found out that any network of at least seven restaurants has its own logistics platform, he said. The organic farm is a project he first announced last year. The first step towards it was introducing an organic menu in his restaurants, which includes eight products.
“The organic menu has reached 5% of the group’s sales. This is a surprising development and a sign of prosperity and stability. Three years ago I wouldn’t have dared take this step. We launched the 19.9 lei (EUR4.5) menu (adjusted to the crisis i.e.) back then, which we’re still offering it because it’s already emblematic.”
The top earner of Petrescu’s group is Caru’ cu Bere, which generates about EUR5 million in sales a year, according to the data ZF has, and is one of the best such businesses in Romania.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)