Island Grill to add two new stores by Feb
Restaurant chain, Island Grill will add two new locations by February 2010 as a strategy to grow recession affected revenues.
“We can’t roll over and die, we keep expanding so that when things turn we will be positioned,” Thalia Lyn, principal of the 17-outlet Jamaica based chain told the Business Observer.
The stores will be in Clock Tower Plaza, Kingston and the other in the island of Barbados, however, Lyn declined to divulge capital outlay and only stated that “it would be done within budget”.
“What we are doing in Clock Tower is putting in an express. We won’t have the full range of products but have our core products,” she expects that the location will have high volume due to its proximity to Half-Way-Tree. “It would cut down on the rental costs and everything.”
The store in Barbados will be the second store in that island following the December 10, 2007 opening at the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) which was the result of a partnership with Goddard Enterprises Limited (GEL).
Lyn also wants to open a Cayman Islands outlet but has “not found the right location”. She said that choosing the right location in a developed economy is necessary to ensure high volume in order to offset hard currency rent and staff costs.
The concept of Island Grill remains the same for Barbados — offering jerk chicken, roast jerk fish (trout fillet), tropical barbecue chicken, curried and fricassee chicken, the popular Yabba, rice and peas, pumpkin rice, festival and jerk chicken salad, as well as some new Barbadian delights like jerk flying fish fillet, jerk pork and macaroni pie.