Pan India Food Solutions, the company that runs India’s largest chain of fine dining restaurants and the India franchise of The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf cafes has put expansion of its food courts business under the Spoon and Food Talk brands on hold. The company wants to focus on the higher margin restaurant and premium ice cream parlour business run through Gelato.
The company had earlier scaled down its food court portfolio from 15 to just five and now after further rationalisation has put these on hold.
K S Narayanan, CEO of Pan India Food Solutions said, “Our model of having very experienced chefs and the low bill value at the food courts relative to our restaurants does not present an optimal environment for our costs structure. We will continue the existing food courts but do not plan to expand this format as this is not our focus area.”
The company that has Rs 150 crore in sales wants to focus on its restaurants that serve north Indian, Chinese and Italian food for future expansion even as it plans to start franchising its restaurants to grow faster. “We will focus on formats such as Spaghetti Kitchen, Copper Chimney, Bombay Blue, Noodle Bar along with Gelato, our Italian frozen desert brand,” added Narayanan.
The company expects to grow revenues by 20-30 per cent per annum over the next two years driven by growing sales at existing outlets and new outlets of its premium restaurants, such as Spaghetti Kitchen. “We have seen a same store sales growth of around 6-7 per cent this year,” said Narayanan. He said they have been able to increase their sales by interesting premium offerings and new meal combinations. The company has recently introduced iPad-based feedback services wherein customers could put in their complaints and reviews. Narayanan said the company has not seen any slowdown since out-of-food eating has been on the rise. “The eating out habit is only increasing in frequency so we are poised to grow our business significantly,” added Narayanan.
“We want to offer greater customisation across all our formats to customers to help build a closer connect with them. In Noodle Bar you make your own combination of ingredients and sauces for a dish while in Bombay Blue you can make your own pizza. Similarly in some dishes at Spaghetti Kitchen the chef makes the dish at your table on a trolley allowing you to customise it for your palate,” he added.