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Company History
Company History


Hotbrands International originally began operations as a small proprietorship in May 1992 with Fillings, serving specialty salads and sandwiches in the food court of BurJuman Shopping Centre in Dubai, UAE.

The shopping centre industry in the UAE was at a very nascent stage at that time. The initial struggle was testing but the rapidly growing shopping centre culture in the UAE and tighter controls on overall operations resulted in steady success. The realization of the growing potential of this industry lead the owners to open two more concepts in the same food court: Shamiana® serving Tandoori and Indian Cuisine in 1993 and Sala Thai® serving authentic Thai food in 1994.

By the end of 1995, while the owners consolidated all three existing concepts, the launch of the biggest shopping centre in the Middle East, Deira City Centre, provided the opportunity to replicate the most popular concepts, Shamiana and Fillings. In 1996 the company achieved impressive annual sales of over $1 million (USD).

The growth has been exponential. In October 2001, we opened our first venture outside the UAE at Muscat City Centre in the neighbouring country of Sultanate of Oman where, in addition to Shamiana, we added the new concepts Magic Wok®, serving Chinese cuisine, and Santino’s®, serving Italian pizzas and pastas, in 2001 and 2002 respectively.

 


Since then there have been several milestones over a relatively short period of time. Currently we have over 60 stores operating in malls throughout the Middle East and India. May 2005 saw the opening of Sugoi!™ Japanese Cuisine (QSR format) in Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai, along with the Shamiana and then Santino’. With the opening of the Mall of the Emirates in September 2005, Magic Wok and Shamiana stores were opened, followed by the Shamiana and Samtomps at Al Kout Mall in Kuwait.

Our first casual dining restaurant, Santino’s Bistro Italiano™, opened at Jawharat A’Shati complex in Muscat, Oman in June 2005 and Haru (Japanese Cuisine) open at Green Community West in Dubai.

The newly-created company has been structured to facilitate the development of our operations internationally. This will include the opening of the International Training and Development Centre and test kitchens, as well as new recruiting offices and support centres.

Other brands developed are Da Shi Dai (Chinese Cusine) and Pane Caldo (Italian Cusine) both casual dining restaurants which opened in UpTown Mirdif in June 2007 and Da Shi Dai will open it's second restaurant at Jumeirah Beach Residence in mid May 2008. In the same month,HBI is also due to open Momotaro, its first liquor licensed, fine dining japanese restaurant at Souq Al Bahar, Downtown Burj Dubai.
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