Rosinter Adds Pelmeni To Sushi and Burgers
By Maria Levitov
Источник: The St. PetersburgTimes
MOSCOW — Rosinter Restaurants, which operates dozens of sushi and burger joints around Moscow, is going back to basics.
On Thursday the holding opened its first 1-2-3 Cafe, which offers Russian staples like dumplings and pancakes, in a bid to take a bigger bite
out of the city’s booming restaurant market.
Rosinter has opened the eatery on Komsomolsky Prospekt in southwestern Moscow as a pilot project and later plans to sell the brand as a franchise.
Rosinter, which runs the American Bar & Grill and Planeta Sushi restau-rants, is targeting young, affluent Muscovites hungry for affordable home-style cooking. The average bill at 1-2-3 Cafe should not exceed $12 to $14, the company said.
Demand for casual, inexpensive restaurants is soaring as Muscovites find themselves with more disposable income.
“As long as incomes continue to grow, people will go to their neighborhood eateries, provided that these places are nicely decorated and have good food,” said Andrei Petrakov, managing director of Restcon restaurant consultancy.
Muscovites’ incomes grew 24.8 percent in the first nine months of the year, according to Moscow City Hall statistics, well above the city’s inflation rate of 12.7 percent over the same period.
1-2-3 Cafe will be entering a market of Eastern Slavic fare already occupied by popular chains such as Yolki Palki and Korchma Taras Bulba, which dishes up Ukrainian specialties. But Petrakov said that there are still not enough inexpensive restaurants in Moscow.
In the mid-1990s, Moscow’s City Hall made a loudly trumpeted foray into the restaurant business with its Russkoye Bistro fast-food chain.
The project, billed as Russia’s answer to McDonald’s, failed to live up to those high expectations.
However, market watchers say that Rosin-ter’s new project has a chance of success.
Russians’ swelling wallets will help the fast food market grow 20 percent this year from an estimated $750 million in 2004, according to Delta Private Equity Partners.
U.S.-based Delta holds a blocking stake in Moscow’s Prime sandwich chain, which expects to open some 40 new locations in Moscow over the next year.
Rosinter plans to open another pilot 1-2-3 Cafe in northeastern Moscow before launching the chain as a franchise in 2007. The holding already owns the omnipresent Rostik’s KFC fried chicken brand. Of Rosinter’s 211 eateries in the former Soviet Union, 119 are in Moscow.
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