HS Turku When Heidi’s Bier Bar appears in the city, the storm is about to begin – This is how the aggressive Danish chain is taking over the best restaurant properties piece by piece.

For evening dining Rekom Group, a specialist Danish company, has grabbed several restaurant premises in the Parade Square in the center of Turku.

Now Rekom Group has bought the restaurant Font and the nightclub Auppon Kauppatori from Kauppiaskatu. The news first Turun Sanomat.

Rekom already has three restaurants in Turku: Heidi’s Bier Bar, Rabalder Bar and the recently opened Proud Mary. All of them are located right in the heart of the city.

Country Manager of Rekom Group Finland Mickey Lahtinen according to the company is deliberately looking for key locations.

“Turku has succeeded reasonably well.”

Heidi’s Bier Bar, Rabalder and Proud Mary are chain restaurants.

When Rekom Group enters a new city, Heidi’s Bier Bar, which is the company’s flagship concept, is usually the first to open. There are more than 20 such restaurants in Denmark, Norway, Finland and the United Kingdom.

When the city has Heidi’s, you may be followed by other Rekom restaurant brands.

“In Finland, for example, the distances are reasonably long. If there is one office there and another here, it will be more difficult to manage and run them, ”says Lahtinen.

If there are many restaurants in the same locality, “synergies will be achieved and operations will be more efficient”. Rekom Group wants to focus on big cities. In Finland, the company has restaurants in Helsinki, Turku, Tampere, Pori, Jyväskylä and Oulu.

In total, Rekom has more than 200 restaurants, about half of which are in Denmark. The company also operates in Norway and the UK.

In total, the company has about a hundred different restaurant brands, but not all of them have spread across national borders yet. From the large number, the most functional concepts are chosen to start conquering new markets. So far, the company has seven international brands. Currently, five of them have spread to Finland.

Travel and restaurant services CEO of Mara ry Timo Lappi does not want to comment in any way on Rekom Group ‘s operations, but he opens up the benefits of chain restaurants in general.

According to him, a chain model in which several restaurants are similar to each other is by no means unusual in the restaurant industry, for example, all fast food and cafe chains operate in the same way.

Lapland says that there has been a lot of growth in the restaurant industry in Finland over the past ten to fifteen years.

“The growth of individual entrepreneurs – that they run several restaurants – has become quite common. And certainly the trend will continue, ”says Lapland.

A company can only have one business idea that they develop.

“Or the company has a wide portfolio of different restaurants: there may be social restaurants, pubs, food restaurants, and so on,” he says.

The chain may own all the restaurants itself, or some of the outlets may be run by franchisees.

Lapland says that the key advantage is related to procurement.

“In the restaurant industry, the cost of purchasing food is high, and the bigger the buyer, the more savings are made on food and alcohol purchases.”

Several restaurants act as “outriggers”.

“The decentralized restaurant portfolio also withstands crises in different ways. ”

According to Lapland, there are also benefits related to personnel. One restaurant may only offer part-time work. If a company has multiple restaurants, one employee can work in multiple restaurants in the same company, thus creating full-time jobs.

“It has such a economies of scale that entrepreneurs have also noticed. That is why it is now common in Finland for an individual entrepreneur or family to have several restaurants. ”

Recomilla There are already five different restaurant brands in Finland: Heidi’s Bier Bar, Butchers, Lola Club, Rabalder Bar and Proud Mary Pub. There are six Heidi’s Bier Bars in Finland, only one other.

Heidi’s Bier Bar is a combination of an après ski bar and a nightclub, a Proud Mary pub and a nightclub. Butchers is a hybrid of a cocktail bar and a nightclub. Rabalder Bar is a pub, Lola’s purely nightclub. The biggest differences are in the target groups – Heidi’s, for example, is aimed at a younger crowd than Proud Mary.

Mikki Lahtinen reveals that a Scandinavian beer restaurant will be on the premises of Font in Turku and a nightclub on the premises of Aalto. New restaurants will open during the summer. Both restaurant brands are new in Finland.

When a new space is found, how is the concept selected?

“Yes, of course, it starts with the location and the environment. Where it is located, what it is close to, and what kind of space it is in itself, ”says Lahtinen.

There are several hotels near Font and Aalto. The fact that there are tourists nearby has influenced the choice.

“It is important to take into account that there are a lot of occasional walkers in the environment and to tailor the concept accordingly. That we can serve the widest possible number of people. ”

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