The latest deal, the acquisition of CremCaffe by businessman Dragos Petrescu, is already the third sealed on this market in the past six months and is drawing attention to the challenges hospitality industry owners are facing, reads BUSINESS Magazin magazine.
"When we published a newspaper ad to recruit for the third restaurant of La Mama chain, more than 200 people queued up at the gate," recounts Daniel Mischie, manager of Trotter Prim, the company managing City Grill, City Cafe, Buongiorno and Caru cu Bere restaurant brands, employing almost 600 people. Now, when he needs employees for the new restaurants to be opened in City Grill network, Mischie publishes no ad as the company's human resources department is handling recruitment.
"Whereas several years ago they came to us as soon as we launched a signal, now we're going after them. (...)," says Daniel Mischie.
The personnel shortage is the biggest challenge of the ones making the survival of a restaurant on Bucharest's market ever more difficult. "We are also coping with customers' ever stricter demands, procurement costs and rents, and particularly with the human resources problem," says Mischie.
City Grill manager considers that amid these challenges restaurants surviving on the market of Bucharest and then of other cities will shortly fall into two categories: "They will be either family businesses (...) or large restaurant chains, backed by a strong coordination structure". Mischie considers this was the main reason why owners such as Miki Haiblum (owning two coffee shops in the centre of Bucharest, CremCaffe Expresso Bar and CremCaffe Royal) or Moni Meita (who owned two Casa di David restaurants and sold one of them) decided to sell a restaurant each or exit the market.
Miki Haiblum opened the first coffee shop in Romania in 2003, in the wake of 200,000-euro investments. The second one, in Piata Romana, was opened in 2006, in the wake of 300,000-euro investments.
Both Casa di David Downtown and the two CremCaffe coffee shops were acquired by businessman Dragos Petrescu, owner of City Grill restaurant chain.
He used the first acquisition to launch his new restaurant brand, Buongiorno, while the two CremCaffe shops will be used for the opening of a City Grill restaurant, in Romana and a City Cafe in Universitatii area.
With these two in his portfolio, Petrescu becomes the owner of the highest number of seats in the restaurants and coffee shops in downtown Bucharest.
While Petrescu bought everything put up for sale so far in downtown Bucharest, getting from 9 to 13 outlets in less than half a year, Tudor Niculescu, Turabo coffee shop owner, leapt from 21 to 30 coffee shops through an acquisition sealed in 2007.
Pentru alte știri, analize, articole și informații din business în timp real urmărește Ziarul Financiar pe WhatsApp Channels
