lebanese Saj (sanwich) business

[Abyss513]

Greetings from the Middle East, Dubai-UAE,

Lebanese cousin is a popular cousin and canbe found in a lot of western cities, more info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_cuisine , also from what little research I have done I believe few restaurant are available in Singapore itself, can anyone give me their opinion if they have tried it?

The Lebanese Saj is a type of flat bread used to make sandwiches; recently it has modernized the Lebanese cousin by introducing fast food concept into it, changing some of the popular dishes into fast food sandwiches and it has proved very popular with the younger generations in the Middle East and has started to catch on in different countries.

Now I would like to open in SG since it has less competition and this gives me more reason to visit as its one of my favorite countries to spend vacation at.

Now I have two choices,

A) Open a restaurant in SG, preferably somewhere close to business district with lots of companies who usualy like to order takeaways, then approach an investment companie to help me expand the business and open franchises over seas in eastern Asia.

B) Directly approach an investment company or investors with experience in the F&B industry.

Both options are viable but option B will be less time consuming for me, since I wouldn’t need to handle all the paper work, i rember reading the history of Pastamania http://www.pastamania.com/about.php?show=3 , this is my goal.

The plan is to start somewhere around December 2011 maybe visit some food exhibitions and show case the products and have something open within the first quarter of 2012.

Can any one provide some advise?

What exhibitions are best approached, dates, procedures to apply?

What F&B investment companies to approach

Government procedures.

Companies that can do market research, promotions.

Any one interested in the F&B industries or knows someone who is, glad to make new friendships.

General idea of startup cost, rents, insurances etc.

Agents who can answer general inquiries and can connect me in the F&B industries.

I myself have opened two business (gaming network café and Catering restaurant) in my home country and now want to mess around outside.

Thanks for reading, PM or comment, looking forward for advises.

[taxico]

i have close friends who are extremely successful in F&B businesses, direct to individual consumers and corporate customers, through both restaurants/shops and factories.

i also know them and others who have failed in various food-related ventures in singapore.

rental is sky high in/around areas with high human traffic. licenses are a pain to obtain.

finding suitably qualified employees will be difficult. singaporeans don't like working in F&B.

here in singapore's multi-ethnic food paradise, it's possible to make good money, but it's no walk in the park.

[ksl]

We are in the F&B the last 6 years, import and distribution we also attend all major exhibitions and selected events, based on our experience.

To have a static shop, would take some real effort on marketing & advertising to survive. I'm open to sample the products first before making any real opinion, I do have experience with eating Middle east foods, some have great potential. Though I am disappointed in some of the kebabs presentation in Singapore, which lack original flavours.

A static location is out of the question until the food has been through exhibition sampling for the first couple of years, I've seen too many novelty fast food sandwiches die out through a lack of creativity and taste at the local food exhibitions. We attend them all, and are well connected with organisers. Your franchise idea is a long term goal, and I'm pretty sure you will have difficulty finding investors, for an untested product in Singapore unless you can deliver a win win scenario. There is little chance an investor would risk his money on a high risk product, without full sampling data in the Country to be penetrated
I'd be interested to hear more!

[Abyss513]

Money isnt really an issue here, but what are the rents like per sqm, employees are also not an issue as they will be most likely trained and sent from my side of the world, though not sure if they will get work permits or not, have to find that out myself.
Do you guys order home deliveries more or like to walk to restaurant.
Also what are the chances i might find an investment company interested in my product, even if i put 70% of the funds, i say that cause like you mentioned licenses are a pain, a company can manage all that work, they know the market and can advise me accordingly and open franchise over seas.
Have you tried Lebanese food before?

[Abyss513]

We are in the F&B the last 6 years, import and distribution we also attend all major exhibitions and selected events, based on our experience.

To have a static shop, would take some real effort on marketing & advertising to survive. I'm open to sample the products first before making any real opinion, I do have experience with eating Middle east foods, some have great potential. Though I am disappointed in some of the kebabs presentation in Singapore, which lack original flavours.

A static location is out of the question until the food has been through exhibition sampling for the first couple of years, I've seen too many novelty fast food sandwiches die out through a lack of creativity and taste at the local food exhibitions. We attend them all, and are well connected with organisers. Your franchise idea is a long term goal, and I'm pretty sure you will have difficulty finding investors, for an untested product in Singapore unless you can deliver a win win scenario. There is little chance an investor would risk his money on a high risk product, without full sampling data in the Country to be penetrated
I'd be interested to hear more!

since i cant pm you, here's my email,
and yea i understand that without bringing in a win win scenario its gonna be a long term project, but i am sure with the funds we are bringing to the table from our side, we can speed up the process a bit. email me so we can discus further.

[ksl]

Money isnt really an issue here, but what are the rents like per sqm, employees are also not an issue as they will be most likely trained and sent from my side of the world, though not sure if they will get work permits or not, have to find that out myself.
Do you guys order home deliveries more or like to walk to restaurant.
Also what are the chances i might find an investment company interested in my product, even if i put 70% of the funds, i say that cause like you mentioned licenses are a pain, a company can manage all that work, they know the market and can advise me accordingly and open franchise over seas.
Have you tried Lebanese food before?

We have a new factory unit in FoodXchange woodlands which is the new F&B area, we also have factory in Bedok, our kitchens are not utilised in woodlands at the moment and we have been thinking of renting it out, as we are more into import, distribution and branding. The Kitchens are all HCCP certified for food & Beverage.

No idea on rents for restaurant, but exhibition rents for a 4 X 2 will set you back 5K for 3 days. That is a single space area sorry my mistake. rental in shopping malls vary from 200 to 450 per day, depending on traffic for a push cart which is about 1.5 mtr by 1m, which the kebabs are sold on. A kebab is $5.

The best area for your food would be around Arab st where most of the tourists visit or the clubbing area, which will be very very expensive. I can find out the rental rates, and contact you by email later. You can PM after 5 posts by the way! I would delete your email as you will get lots of spam sent. I have copied it. There are viral robots that harvest the email addresses.

[Abyss513]

Money isnt really an issue here, but what are the rents like per sqm, employees are also not an issue as they will be most likely trained and sent from my side of the world, though not sure if they will get work permits or not, have to find that out myself.
Do you guys order home deliveries more or like to walk to restaurant.
Also what are the chances i might find an investment company interested in my product, even if i put 70% of the funds, i say that cause like you mentioned licenses are a pain, a company can manage all that work, they know the market and can advise me accordingly and open franchise over seas.
Have you tried Lebanese food before?

We have a new factory unit in FoodXchange woodlands which is the new F&B area, we also have factory in Bedok, our kitchens are not utilised in woodlands at the moment and we have been thinking of renting it out, as we are more into import, distribution and branding. The Kitchens are all HCCP certified for food & Beverage.

No idea on rents for restaurant, but exhibition rents for a 4 X 2 will set you back 5K for 3 days. That is a single space area sorry my mistake. rental in shopping malls vary from 200 to 450 per day, depending on traffic for a push cart which is about 1.5 mtr by 1m, which the kebabs are sold on. A kebab is $5.

The best area for your food would be around Arab st where most of the tourists visit or the clubbing area, which will be very very expensive. I can find out the rental rates, and contact you by email later. You can PM after 5 posts by the way! I would delete your email as you will get lots of spam sent. I have copied it. There are viral robots that harvest the email addresses.

so far as much as i expected so we looking at 200k a year rent in a mall, that if their inst a waiting list their as well, decorations, license, workers and their insurance and training, equipment, advertisement, branding and at least one month worth of free samples, we looking at around 600k starting am i right?
450k from our side wont be a problem, but who will handle all this , that's my only issue, since i don't speak the language and don't feel like chasing around to get licensing approvals etc etc.
how many exhibitions are done a year? the prestigious ones.
the food is seriously one of a kind, did you ever visit Dubai, UAE?
once things get rolling i don't mind flying people in and sending samples.

[sundaymorningstaple]

since i don't speak the language and don't feel like chasing around to get licensing approvals etc etc.

Your written English is fine. Are you saying you don't speak English? English is the language of Government here so as long as you speak some English you'll be fine.

[Abyss513]

since i don't speak the language and don't feel like chasing around to get licensing approvals etc etc.

Your written English is fine. Are you saying you don't speak English? English is the language of Government here so as long as you speak some English you'll be fine.

Perfect, i do speak English fluently.

[taxico]

so far as much as i expected so we looking at 200k a year rent in a mall...

...450k from our side wont be a problem...

16k a month for rent? i'm not sure about that...

as for bringing your own staff in; i think you might want to poke around this forum for a feel of the ease/difficulty.

if you have extremely deep pockets, you can probably make it.

a recent poster boy is the owner of chain of thai restaurants who was financed by his billionaire father-in-law and milked his in-law's connections/know-how for years (a little known fact) until his chain finally became successful and profitable enough to be sold to a thai F&B conglomerate.

...then (and only then did) he and his wife started branching out into other types of businesses.

good luck!

[Abyss513]

so far as much as i expected so we looking at 200k a year rent in a mall...

...450k from our side wont be a problem...

16k a month for rent? i'm not sure about that...

as for bringing your own staff in; i think you might want to poke around this forum for a feel of the ease/difficulty.

if you have extremely deep pockets, you can probably make it.

a recent poster boy is the owner of chain of thai restaurants who was financed by his billionaire father-in-law and milked his in-law's connections/know-how for years (a little known fact) until his chain finally became successful and profitable enough to be sold to a thai F&B conglomerate.

...then (and only then did) he and his wife started branching out into other types of businesses.

good luck!

Are you saying 200k is low or high as rent in a mall? i have experienced prices up too 400k a year for 100sqm.
nice story, as they say money makes money.

[jeovana]

Greetings from the Middle East, Dubai-UAE,

Lebanese cousin is a popular cousin and canbe found in a lot of western cities, more info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_cuisine , also from what little research I have done I believe few restaurant are available in Singapore itself, can anyone give me their opinion if they have tried it?

The Lebanese Saj is a type of flat bread used to make sandwiches; recently it has modernized the Lebanese cousin by introducing fast food concept into it, changing some of the popular dishes into fast food sandwiches and it has proved very popular with the younger generations in the Middle East and has started to catch on in different countries.

Now I would like to open in SG since it has less competition and this gives me more reason to visit as its one of my favorite countries to spend vacation at.

Now I have two choices,

A) Open a restaurant in SG, preferably somewhere close to business district with lots of companies who usualy like to order takeaways, then approach an investment companie to help me expand the business and open franchises over seas in eastern Asia.

B) Directly approach an investment company or investors with experience in the F&B industry.

Both options are viable but option B will be less time consuming for me, since I wouldn’t need to handle all the paper work, i rember reading the history of Pastamania http://www.pastamania.com/about.php?show=3 , this is my goal.

The plan is to start somewhere around December 2011 maybe visit some food exhibitions and show case the products and have something open within the first quarter of 2012.

Can any one provide some advise?

What exhibitions are best approached, dates, procedures to apply?

What F&B investment companies to approach

Government procedures.

Companies that can do market research, promotions.

Any one interested in the F&B industries or knows someone who is, glad to make new friendships.

General idea of startup cost, rents, insurances etc.

Agents who can answer general inquiries and can connect me in the F&B industries.

I myself have opened two business (gaming network café and Catering restaurant) in my home country and now want to mess around outside.

Thanks for reading, PM or comment, looking forward for advises.

Hey there,

Do let me know more in details about what you have in mind. I am not just keen but am able to help, have the experience, resources, knowledge and connections having started my own businesses and having previously worked in he F&B for around 8 years.

You may contact me at judefy@gmail.com or 92483399

[sundaymorningstaple]

......but at the moment I'm between positions, e.g., unemployed, and am clutching at straws. That's why I have made the same posts to other threads as well, I'm not particular, just desperate.........

[Abyss513]

you lost me man

[thismyvoice]

Rental is very expensive in Singapore. Have not been hunting recently, but below are the going rates a few years back.

I understand that 2-3 years back it cost about $25 psf for shops in basement of shopping malls (Vivo City). It is expensive because you get 7 day crowd.

Shops at Metro station, about $20psf depending on location.

Shops at Central Business District, about $12-$15psf since you only get customers 5 days a week, mostly during lunch time.

Some landlord will also insist on a percentage of your sales.