Sales at Island Grill’s most recent addition at New Brunswick Village in Spanish Town, St Catherine, continue to outpace the expectations of management, some four months after opening.

The 19th location in the restaurant chain had its official launch last week Wednesday after opening on Sunday, December 17 following a six-month delay. And, according to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tania Waldron-Gooden, revenues exceeded the company’s expectation in the same month of opening.

“It has surpassed what we had expected,” she told the Jamaica Observer, adding: “We had expected to breach budget in three months but immediately we breached the budget.”

After an investment of US$1.5 million from the Island Grill’s cash resources, the New Brunswick Village restaurant now spans 3,000 to 3,500 square feet and hires a complement of 41 staff members on three shifts. The store is today contributing 15 per cent to total revenue.

Waldron-Gooden said the company is now conducting market research on the restaurant’s exceptional performance since its December opening. Notwithstanding, based on her assumptions, this could be due to the store’s proximity to residential communities with a lot of young professionals demanding affordable Jamaican dinners.

When asked if she would credit the achievement of the sales targets to holiday spending, the CEO explained that this was the initial assumption and that the management expected a “downturn” in the months of January and February, but that did not happen.

“It’s actually a good problem but we want to find out what the right formulas were, so we’re doing some research around. Of course, we knew it would do well, but it has surpassed expectation and that’s why we’re doing a little more digging,” she reiterated.

With this boost, the company is now planning to add another location in the White River area of Ocho Rios, for which Island Grill has already allocated capital. Though Waldron-Gooden disclosed that the company intends on starting construction in the next 12 months, she said that there is no definite timeline for the opening of the pending location.

As with the New Brunswick Village restaurant, the quick-service restaurant chain will be working with a developer to complete the construction of the White River store. Though Waldron-Gooden did not identify who the developer is, she revealed that already they have received approvals from the authorities to begin work on the location.

Looking ahead, the Island Grill CEO outlined that the company continues to look for opportunities for new stores and has identified a couple but has not decided on any yet.

“At any given time we should have five in the pipeline… and for the ones in the pipeline, we have our financial partners on standby,” she informed the Business Observer.

For the upcoming projects, Island Grill will engage its financial partners for sophisticated debt financing like bonds and preference shares as against bank loans, which it has used to build the business in times past. Waldron-Gooden stated that there are no immediate plans to pursue private equity investments, but that the company is mulling a public offer on the Jamaica Stock Exchange in the medium to long term.

Additionally, she said that once the company understands why the New Brunswick Village location overshot its target, it will be replicating the same business model to opening new restaurants.

“The store model will take the same format going forward. It’s a Jamaican experience with a new-age package. So everybody who came [to the launch] last Wednesday was surprised at how it looked, and we want to continue that,” Waldron-Gooden explained.

In terms of expanding the company’s geographic footprint, the CEO said the company is open to having restaurants in the Caribbean region as well as returning to the US market to open a store. Waldron-Gooden pointed out that in this case the food establishment is doing its research and will conduct proper due diligence on its partners who should already have experience in the quick-service industry.

Island Grill previously operated two stores in Broward County, Florida in the US which it shuttered in December 2002, before opening a restaurant in Barbados. Founder and then-CEO Thalia Lyn told the Sun Sentinel at the time that the cost to the build a store in Jamaica was about one-third the cost of the US.

The CEO said that for the next five years the company aims to manage 30 locations.