The pandemic brought challenges for restaurateurs, but it also left lessons for Grupo Gigante, which operates the Toks and Panda Express restaurants, and which now has a recipe to kick-start the recovery from the strongest crisis that the sector has faced.
In recent years, the also owner of Beer Factory increased its commitment to premium restaurants and brought the Shake Shack hamburger chain to Mexico in 2019, a brand with which it now has four stores in Mexico City and one more in the State of Mexico. A year later, it added the taquerias El Farolito to its portfolio, thereby strengthening its position in this segment.
Juan Carlos Alverde, CEO of Grupo Restaurantero Gigante, explains that the integration of El Farolito was difficult at the beginning due to mobility limitations, which prevented the teams from getting together. Now, it has 10 units, given that one of the franchises closed, it will open another one in the capital of the country in a few days and it has four franchise contracts ready, although there is no set date for the opening.
The group dedicated itself, above all, to strengthening home deliveries with four dark kitchens of this brand, which were installed inside Toks restaurants.
“We have plans for El Farolito, which had stopped growing, we remodeled the brand and started with certain changes. We began to work on the subject of recipes, we moved the commissary for sauces and began to sell by kilos and a half kilos of pastor or carnitas, in addition to penetrating other markets, ”says Alverde.
The taco chain faces other brands that have gained ground, such as El Califa or El Fogoncito, but for the Grupo Gigante restaurant director, this competition “will be interesting.” However, Shake Shack wants the crown of hamburger chains, while the plan under which the company acquired the brand remains in force: to open 30 units in 10 years.
“In the hamburger segment we are going to be able to consider ourselves as leaders, not in geographic dispersion or by number of units, because we do not pretend to have the size of the competition, but we are going to lead that niche,” he points out.
Last year, Shake Shack had a 1% stake in the group’s operations, which also includes businesses from specialty retail stores such as Office Depot and Petco. Panda Express ‘share was also 1% and Toks’ 10%, according to the company’s annual report data.
Toks closes restaurants
Toks celebrates 50 years in the market and, as part of the company’s actions to face the crisis caused by COVID-19, it lowered the curtain of 18 restaurants, to stay with 192 units. This number of stores is below the 198 that the chain had in 2016.
Although it maintained a pace of openings, now it only plans to open a store in Gran Terraza Coapa at the end of 2021. Alverde affirms that the investments will continue in the coming years, given that they maintain the current contracts for the openings, which will be resumed once improve the economy and in accordance with the evolution of the pandemic.
For now, see a recovery on the purchase receipt. “In 2020 we did a market analysis to understand consumers and be a more profitable chain. We understood that we had lagged behind in the market and, from 2021, everything we had learned we applied in our units. What we did was give the same experience to everyone and that added a lot of value to us, ”he declares.
Alverde believes that after the crisis, now it is time to see the future to walk towards recovery with an eye on the recovery of the country and take advantage of the opportunities that were left with the closures of other chains.
The manager considers that it would have been appropriate for the industry to have had deferred payments on some operating expenses, such as the payment of electricity or taxes, to avoid the closure of restaurants that failed to survive COVID-19 and to fill the tables again. An incentive, he points out, would be to allow diners to deduct restaurant bills, in line with those sought by the National Chamber of the Restaurant and Seasoned Food Industry (Canirac) to reactivate the sector.
In the first quarter of the year, Grupo Gigante reduced its revenues by 15.3% to 6,634 million pesos, compared to the same period of the previous year, according to the data of the financial statement sent to the Mexican Stock Exchange (BVM).
“We need to be accompanied by the hand of the government, so that the capacity can be released, because it is very important that we have that capacity to receive more clients so that an important growth in the sales issue is noticed”, he declares.
