The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

IHOP’s local franchisee says he will decide on two further New Providence locations “pretty shortly”, adding: “This is the launch of the Caribbean, not just the launch of The Bahamas.”

Burton Rodgers, president of Caribbean Dining, reaffirmed to Tribune Business just days before yesterday’s first restaurant opening at the Mall at Marathon that his ambitions for the pancake-led chain stretch beyond this nation’s borders and into the wider English-speaking region.

“We’re still aiming to open two more locations this year. We haven’t deviated from that,” he said. “We’re still on schedule to open two more locations. Finding the right location is the first thing we’re going to do. We’re looking at downtown, we’re looking at the western area of the island, and looking at the southern area of the island. We’ll make a decision pretty shortly, and for the third one we’ll make a decision on that at the same time. That’s the plan.”

Mr Rodgers told this newspaper that IHOP’s first Bahamas restaurant will start with 120 employees and the workforce will build from there. He explained that the Mall at Marathon opening had been delayed by about two months from the original February 2023 date because “we weren’t finished; we weren’t ready to open. We were not ready on our part from a construction standpoint”.

IHOP will operate from the site that previously housed the Bennigan’s and Outback Steakhouse brands, and it had to outfit the building according to its needs and specifications. Mr Rodgers said work teams encountered some “unexpected glitches” that they overcame with help from the Mall at Marathon’s management and Board, as well as IHOP’s brand owner and franchisor, Dine Brands International, which also controls the rights to the Applebee’s name.

Describing Dine Brands as “awesome”, with a team of its executives working with Caribbean Dining “daily for the last seven to eight months”, the Bahamian entrepreneur added: “This is a journey that started in 2018 and 2019. COVID sort of shut it down but here we are opening. The partnership with them made it much easier than expected.”

Mr Rodgers said the IHOP Bahamian franchise’s workforce could quickly reach between 400-600 employees between the first three New Providence restaurants depending on how quickly it adopts the brand’s 24-hour business model. The Bahamas’ tourism-based economy, with its shift-based work, provides a potential 24-hour customer base with those night workers looking to eat early morning once they get off.

“The plan is to eventually go 24 hours,” he confirmed. “It’s a 24-hour brand. We will gauge that over a few weeks. We have to iron out all the kinks and make sure we offer consistency and a great product. It’s not a morning restaurant; it’s a 24-hour restaurant. When we do that, because of how our working hours work in The Bahamas from a labour standpoint, we will have to bring on more employees so the numbers are going to increase, I’d say, to between 400 and 600 when all the stores are built-out.”

Confirming that Caribbean Dining is also “definitely for sure looking at Grand Bahama” as a possible IHOP restaurant site, Mr Rodgers declined to provide a dollar figure for how much the company has invested at the Mall at Marathon or will do across its first three locations. “I don’t have a final figure right now because we’re still spending money,” he added. “There’s no such thing as a budget when you’re building a restaurant.

“This is the launch of the Caribbean. This is not the launch of The Bahamas. I’m definitely in the Caribbean. The plan is to build-out two more locations here, and once that is done we will look beyond The Bahamas to the Caribbean. Once the three in Nassau are done, we will go to the rest of the Caribbean.”

Mr Rodgers previously told this newspaper that Caribbean Dining’s franchise agreement calls for it to open a total of 16 IHOP restaurants across the English-speaking Caribbean excluding the US Virgin Islands.

Counting on strong brand recognition from Bahamians who have become familiar with IHOP on their travels to the US and wider world, he added: “It’s where generations of Bahamians have visited on their travels throughout the US and having an opportunity to bring the same brand here in The Bahamas.

“The real work begins now we have opened. It’s about having that consistency, making sure every day that we provide 100 percent, keeping staff motivated to provide the best possible service. Coming from the hospitality industry that’s all I know.”

Mr Rodgers said the initial IHOP job fair, held in partnership with the Department of Labour, had helped create a database of potential hires who “at any second can be called up” as needed. They will be contacted as the chain’s second and third New Providence locations progress.

Speaking at yesterday’s opening, he added: “This has been a tedious five years. COVID slowed it down a bit. But now we’re here. This actually, especially for The Bahamas, because I know for years everybody’s been talking about this, and getting the franchise and, you know, many days I thought that this day would not come, all the difficulties in getting here to this moment. But we’re here, April 4 is real. IHOP is real.”

William Urrego, Dine Brands Global’s regional vice-president of franchise operations, added that IHOP has more than 1,700 restaurants spread across the US and in nations such as Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Peru, Ecuador, the UAE and Egypt.

He added: “We are here to provide jobs, to push the economy in The Bahamas. By opening this restaurant, just one, we have generated over 100 direct jobs and more than 350 indirect jobs, which is fantastic.”

“We’ve been waiting for this moment for quite a while and, unfortunately, because of the pandemic we had to delay, but it’s really exciting to be here in the community of Nassau and we’re looking to open more restaurants in the future. So it’s a really exciting moment for us. This is the first one right here in The Bahamas in the English-speaking Caribbean islands. So we’re going to be starting here in The Bahamas and continue expansion throughout the Caribbean.”