The largest independent franchise group in Central and Eastern Europe, AmRest Holdings SE, has opened its first restaurant in Austria.
The specialist based in Poland has been building a portfolio with international brands since 1993 using strong brands such as KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut and Starbucks. The new KFC in CITYPARK Graz is to be followed by further openings.
After almost 25 years of growth in Europe and beyond, AmRest is now also entering the Austrian market. Libor Hubík KFC Brand President has the following to say about entry into the Alpine republic: “We see great potential in Austria and are naturally very happy about the positive results achieved by our first restaurant in Graz. These show that our decision to come to Austria was right. Our plan – as one of the operators in the country – is to establish ourselves with further openings at various locations.”
AmRest would now also like to introduce its know-how in Austria. The location of the first KFC restaurant in Styria was of course deliberately chosen. In the future, the commercial group would like to spread investment with KFC and in doing so, has its eye on cities with a population of over 50,000, shopping malls and transport hubs. In this respect, investment in Austria is certainly a challenge because the competition is great, as are the expectations of the people there as regards quality, price and service
CITYPARK Manager Waldemar Zelinka from Graz already sees partnership with AmRest as a big plus: “We are happy with the results to date. Sales have been excellent and there really is a lot of interest on the part of customers. Essential for success are the quality of the products and the service provided by the team since the opening day. ”
For the future, AmRest sees great potential in Austria for drive-through concepts. It also sees potential in food courts, collections of restaurants under one roof with a common customer area and in-line restaurants should also come into play. As an experienced business, AmRest is able in this respect to utilize on a wealth of established concepts which will be adapted for Austria.
