RESTAURANT Associates Ltd, the Kingston-based franchise operator of quick-service restaurants Burger King, Popeyes, Little Caesars and Krispy Kreme, plans to open at least five new outlets in Jamaica during 2025. The company plans to introduce more Jamaican flavours to its menu. Expansion into the English-speaking Caribbean is also on the cards, as the company builds on its 40-year legacy.

The company is launching expansion plans to also capitalise on Jamaicans increasingly opting to dine out. Meanwhile, Restaurant Associates will also start investing in new technology for its restaurants to navigate Jamaica’s tightening labour market, which has led to recruitment challenges for many businesses.

Richard Lake, chairman of Restaurant Associates Ltd, and Lisa Lake, CEO, outlined the company’s plans in a wide-ranging interview, as they reflect on 40 years in business and cast an eye on the next 40 years.

A 40-year legacy

Richard, a developer-turned-restaurateur, who has been with the company since inception in 1984, looks back with some pride on how an idea from his mother, Lois Sherwood, to introduce Burger King in Jamaica has blossomed into a thriving business with “over 100 restaurants across three markets and four brands currently.”

“Well, we’re happy with our progress and achievements to date, but we do feel that we have more to accomplish,” Richard told the Jamaica Observer as he reflected on the journey. Restaurant Associates operates in Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados.

Richard shared that his mother came across the principals of Burger King sometime in the early 1980s and decided that it would be a good idea to bring the company to Jamaica, 31 years after the first Burger King restaurant was opened in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, in Florida.

“Well, at the time, KFC was the only operating international franchise here. We had our popular local brands, such as Tastee, and we thought the introduction of a burger brand would be a positive thing,” Richard noted.

His family, which is a big player “in the land development business”, was at the time developing a site in Ocho Rios, St Ann, for a shopping centre, and thought locating the first Burger King restaurant in Jamaica there would pay dividends. Construction started in September of that year, and by December 17, 1984, it was finished and opened to the public.

Customers instantly accepted the new restaurant.

“People drove from Kingston, from Montego Bay, from all over the island just to go there to have a burger,” Richard recalled.

At the time, the only other burger chain restaurant in Jamaica was one called King Burger which predated Burger King, operating from 1978 but has since closed.

Richard found the construction specifications required for the burger business to be an eye opener.

“They even specified how the dirt should be treated in the planter boxes,” he said of the stringent procedures he had to follow to fulfil the requirements of operating a Burger King franchise as set out by Restaurant Brands International, Burger King’s owner.

“All the materials and equipment had to be specified and come from approved sources. You couldn’t just buy any and everything and put it in the store. As a contractor, I’ve never seen a more detailed breakdown of specifications of a building. Because at that time, we got the specifications from overseas.”

He said everything in the restaurant was specified to maintain the integrity of the brand because the owners want to ensure that a burger from Burger King in Jamaica, London, New York or Türkiye is the same.

“The big problem at the time, obviously because of those specifications, opening a store was very expensive. It’s a lot of capital and we had relatively high interest rates at the time. So the entry cost to get into the business was high.”

He said that cost can be anywhere from US$2.5 million to US$3 million covering the cost to acquire land, building the restaurant and equipping it.

Those costs in the beginning was shared with the now-defunct Jamaica Mutual Life Society, an insurance company which counts National Hero George William Gordon among its co-founder. Mutual Life, as it was affectionately called, was sold to Guardian Life in 1998 after facing severe financial issues in the 1990s.

“At the time we had Mutual Life as a partner because of the high capital input, we looked for a partner. They were 20 per cent shareholders in the business. We subsequently bought them out. We bought out their interest, but they were a partner and they were building a shopping centre by Odeon Avenue [in Half-Way-Tree]. And we put the second store there. And at that time, back then, that store had the highest sales outside of North America.”

That second store was open in 1986, two years after the first store in Ocho Rios. Richard said the sales at that store reached “about US$5 million per year”.

Three years later in 1989, Richard took over the business completely. He said it was not all smooth sailing, but his pride was hard to hide as he recounted the early days of operating Burger King in Jamaica.

“Well, we’re proud of the fact that a lot of our staff who started with us, several of them have remained with us for the 40 years. In fact, our director of operations now, started as a crew member back in Ocho Rios. That is one of our greatest achievements,” he beamed.

Innovation and Technology

“We’ve also been very innovative. The international brands tend to want to hold you within a very tight, restrictive operation. So, for example, when we started, for several years, we were the first operation worldwide to offer burgers for breakfast. It wasn’t allowed, they’re very restrictive. And we started selling it for breakfast.”

But, how Burger King’s parent company came to adopt this Jamaican innovation, selling burgers as a breakfast item worldwide, had much to do with the actions of one customer.

Richard tells the story.

“At the time, we had one of the Burger King inspectors inside the store. And he was complaining that we were selling burgers in the morning. And one of our patrons heard him and asked, ‘You’re from the States, you’re from Burger King?’ to which the man replied, ‘Yes.’ So the customer said, ‘Come with me,’ and took him outside. He pointed to the sign and asked, ‘What does that sign say?’ and the inspector answer, ‘Burger King’. The customer then said, ‘Well, you can’t talk say your name is Burger King and I want your burger at eight o’clock in the morning and you tell me you can’t sell me.’ Well, we laughed and we just insisted that we couldn’t have put it any better.”

Adding salt fish and bammy to the menu was another innovation in Jamaica, Richard said. Another first, for Burger King’s Jamaica franchise was the micro store.

“Our initial store at Manor Park [St Andrew] was only 400 square feet, and it was the smallest store in the Burger King network worldwide. And one of the [Burger King] people came, and said, they were looking for a smaller footprint, maybe 10 years ago. And the guy from Burger King who came and looked at our store, called the head office and said, we don’t have to look any further, they actually have it right here in Jamaica and we can replicate it worldwide.”

For that store, he gives credit to his brother-in-law, Frank Ventura.

After 40 years, Richard said he thinks Burger King has endeared itself to the country and feels it is now part of the culture.

Expansion Plans

The company opened its 32nd location in the island in December, at Angels in St Catherine.

Lisa, who a few years ago took over as CEO, said others are in the works for 2025.

“Right now we have at least three new Burger King restaurants planned for 2025. I think all in all, we will probably be looking upwards of five to six new restaurants next year, across all brands in Jamaica,” Lisa told Business Observer.

Most of the expansion will take place with more than one brand in a location.

“For two reasons. One, for convenience for the customer, just in the same way you’re going to a food court. Your son might want chicken and your daughter might want a burger or vice versa. So it’s better to be able to satisfy all their needs. Secondly, by design, location is perhaps the most important decision-making in the fast food business. And good locations are very expensive. So when you have more brands to write off that location on, it’s better,” Richard explained as he pointed out that a small piece of land to build a restaurant is going for between US$2 million and US$3 million.

Both say the newer brands in the Restaurant Associates portfolio, Popeyes, Little Caesars and Krispy Kreme, are growing at a faster rate than the established Burger King brand and added that they are “watching hot spots” to see if there were still opportunities for Burger King as well as our other brands to expand into them.

In addition to that, she said the company will expand into a fourth market in the region.

“I can’t disclose exactly where yet, but I can say that it’s an English-speaking Caribbean country,” was all she would say about the further expansion.

Enhancing Customer Experience

“We’re also going to be introducing a lot more technology into the restaurants to improve the speed of service. We would love to add more local flavour to some of the menus. And we see the market as ever increasing. Fewer and fewer people are cooking at home, and the reality of it is that it’s very difficult to be as cost-effective preparing as good a meal at the prices we can afford to deliver it. So we’re expecting to continue to deliver to Jamaica good quality food at the lowest possible prices,” she added.

While the company hasn’t disclosed the new Jamaican flavours, they already offer a jerk sauce, and have found that Jamaicans enjoy pineapples on their burgers.

But, while those plans are being made, the company is planning to revolutionise the quick service restaurant model again in Jamaica, with the introduction of more technology, which, they hope, will improve both customer and employee experience in the store.

“One main area where we feel that we can serve our people better is in speed of service. Obviously that has become even more of a challenge in the very tight labour market where many of our stores have been understaffed. Many of our team members are working the jobs of multiple people because of the tightness in the labour market, and we need to find ways to adjust our business to deal with the changes that we’re observing in the labour market. So we will introduce more technology both in the back of the house to process the meals more efficiently. We’ll also be introducing electronic kiosks so that instead of going to a cashier, our guests can be able to manage the order themselves to also improve on the speed of service.”

Burger King is globally introducing digital order kiosks, allowing customers to order and pay in-restaurant using large touchscreens. The company believes this technology benefits both staff and customers, while also driving sales by suggesting add-ons, enabling order customisation, and promoting popular items based on real-time factors like time of day, season, and weather. The company says the kiosks will allow staff to focus more on preparing meals quickly, and also plans to enhance the drive-thru experience.

“We’ll also be refreshing the look of many of our restaurants. Some of the iconic ones being, for example, Barbican, will get a completely new look this year. New Kingston, obviously, after the very tragic gas explosion, there we’ve decided to do a complete facelift on that restaurant, not just reopen it for business, but have it be a completely new environment for both our customers and our team members.”