So I’ve decided to slow down our growth to a more manageable level, at least until I’m more comfortable with the way we do things. We will continue to fill our “pipeline” for store openings in the second half of 2010 but for the first half of 2010 I want to slow things down. The Board of Directors and I decided to pull the plug on our new Otacuschez store at KAUST. While it presents a great long-term opportunity, a combination of a strict opening deadline imposed by the University’s management and a still-tiny student body made the economics of this location less attractive and it was one of the first store openings to knock off our 2010 expansion plan. Instead, we decided to invest the money in expanding Burger Joint’s Khobar location by almost tripling the seating area, expanding the kitchen and adding an area specifically for delivery. It will provide a faster and higher “bang for the buck” (aka ROI) than a store in KAUST and the execution will be easier and better than a store far away from our head base. It’s always hard to slow down if you’re ambitious, but it’s the right thing to do now. Slower growth for us means more-profitable and better-manageable growth. And, hopefully in the second half of 2010, we can go back a slightly faster growth rate with a focus on Riyadh and Bahrain–where we already started looking for locations.
