PanChai at Harrods

I drove down to Birmingham over the weekend to attend a franchise exhibition at the NEC and met up with Eddie Lim, the owner of PanChai (SEE THE WEBSITE HERE).

PanChai, set up at a cost of about RM7 million, is located in Harrods (SEE THE WEBSITE HERE) that sees about 17 million customers a year and sells pan-Malaysian food such as satay, rendang, nasi goreng, nasi lemak, Hainanese chicken rice, char kway teow, etc.

PanChai, which has now been operating for one and a half years, was voted the best concessionaire and beat the Gavin’s, Corrigans, Bentleys, and other bigger brand name restaurants and is the first Malaysian chain to be inducted into the British Franchise Association.

PanChai offers three levels of franchises — fine dining concept, casual concept and quick service restaurant concept. The lowest concept will cost you about RM500,000 with it going up to more than a million for the fine dining concept depending on which city in the UK you plan to operate.

It looks like Malaysians are now emerging as the most aggressive overseas investors in the UK with many Malaysian groups investing billions in that country.