{"id":1805,"date":"2025-11-25T10:33:43","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T10:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/?page_id=1805"},"modified":"2026-02-06T10:12:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T10:12:23","slug":"mohammad-al-madani","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/mohammad-al-madani\/","title":{"rendered":"From Tailor to Restaurant Empire: Mohammad Al Madani on Franchising &#038; Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; fullwidth=&#8221;on&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Hero Section&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; background_image=&#8221;https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/law-firm-27.jpg&#8221; parallax=&#8221;on&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;-100px||-32px||false|false&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;|||&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_fullwidth_header title=&#8221;episode #55&#8243; subhead=&#8221;How Mohammad Al Madani Built a 50-Store Restaurant Brand in the GCC&#8221; button_one_text=&#8221; Listen to this episode now&#8221; button_one_url=&#8221;#audio&#8221; content_max_width=&#8221;900px&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; title_font=&#8221;Poppins|600||on|||||&#8221; title_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; title_letter_spacing=&#8221;4px&#8221; title_line_height=&#8221;1.8em&#8221; content_font=&#8221;||||||||&#8221; content_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; subhead_font=&#8221;recoleta-bold|700|||||||&#8221; subhead_font_size=&#8221;50px&#8221; subhead_line_height=&#8221;1.4em&#8221; background_color=&#8221;#8300E9&#8243; background_color_gradient_start=&#8221;#090b9b&#8221; background_color_gradient_end=&#8221;rgba(166,0,237,0.72)&#8221; background_color_gradient_direction=&#8221;107deg&#8221; background_image=&#8221;https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Mohammad-Al-Madani-Banner.jpg&#8221; custom_button_one=&#8221;on&#8221; button_one_text_size=&#8221;14px&#8221; button_one_text_color=&#8221;#8300E9&#8243; button_one_bg_color=&#8221;#FFFFFF&#8221; button_one_border_width=&#8221;12px&#8221; button_one_border_color=&#8221;#ffffff&#8221; button_one_border_radius=&#8221;9px&#8221; button_one_letter_spacing=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_one_font=&#8221;Poppins|600||on|||||&#8221; button_one_icon=&#8221;&#x49;||divi||400&#8243; button_one_icon_color=&#8221;#8300E9&#8243; button_one_icon_placement=&#8221;left&#8221; button_one_on_hover=&#8221;off&#8221; button_one_custom_margin=&#8221;|||0px|false|false&#8221; custom_button_two=&#8221;on&#8221; button_two_text_size=&#8221;14px&#8221; button_two_text_color=&#8221;#29cb8b&#8221; button_two_bg_color=&#8221;#ffffff&#8221; button_two_border_width=&#8221;12px&#8221; button_two_border_color=&#8221;#ffffff&#8221; button_two_letter_spacing=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_two_font=&#8221;Poppins|600||on|||||&#8221; button_two_icon=&#8221;&#x24;||divi||400&#8243; custom_margin=&#8221;||38px|||&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;230px||8vw||false|false&#8221; custom_padding_tablet=&#8221;230px||18vw||false|false&#8221; custom_padding_phone=&#8221;50px||17vw||false|false&#8221; custom_padding_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; content_font_size_last_edited=&#8221;off|desktop&#8221; subhead_font_size_tablet=&#8221;40px&#8221; subhead_font_size_phone=&#8221;30px&#8221; subhead_font_size_last_edited=&#8221;on|desktop&#8221; background_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; background_image_tablet=&#8221;https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Mohammad-Al-Madani-Banner.jpg&#8221; background_image_phone=&#8221;https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Mohammad-Al-Madani-Banner-mobile.jpg&#8221; background_enable_image_tablet=&#8221;on&#8221; background_enable_image_phone=&#8221;on&#8221; button_one_letter_spacing_hover=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_two_letter_spacing_hover=&#8221;2px&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221; button_one_text_size__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_two_text_size__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_one_text_color__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_two_text_color__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_one_border_width__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_two_border_width__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_one_border_color__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_two_border_color__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_one_border_radius__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_two_border_radius__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_one_letter_spacing__hover_enabled=&#8221;on&#8221; button_one_letter_spacing__hover=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_two_letter_spacing__hover_enabled=&#8221;on&#8221; button_two_letter_spacing__hover=&#8221;2px&#8221; button_one_bg_color__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221; button_two_bg_color__hover_enabled=&#8221;off&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this episode, Ashish Tulsian speaks with Mohammad Al Madani about his journey from a 1940s tailoring shop serving Dubai\u2019s royal families to leading a 50+ store restaurant franchise portfolio in the GCC. He shares lessons on franchising, choosing the right locations, avoiding common mistakes, staying relevant with Gen Z, and more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/mqz66vODLas?si=3x2nCbYrLI6_YWyQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Youtube.png\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-355 alignnone size-thumbnail\" \/><\/a> \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/0uJfhNkvPbeIOhNyvook6p?si=1f0c73f2fd1a460e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Spotify-1.png\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-356 alignnone size-thumbnail\" \/><\/a> \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/how-mohammad-al-madani-built-a-50-store-restaurant\/id1649388502?i=1000738296165\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/apple-podcast.png\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-358 alignnone size-thumbnail\" \/><\/a> \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/0a73fe9e-112f-4ad3-ac57-44ae7a8d46e5\/episodes\/92fd9d2f-e11f-4e5e-ae3c-7fe77e485a82\/restrocast-how-mohammad-al-madani-built-a-50-store-restaurant-brand-in-the-gcc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Amazon-1.png\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-359 alignnone size-thumbnail\" \/><\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_fullwidth_header][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; custom_padding_last_edited=&#8221;on|desktop&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Contact Form Section&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; background_color=&#8221;#f1f5f9&#8243; max_width=&#8221;96%&#8221; module_alignment=&#8221;center&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;||100px|&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;||100px|&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;||100px|&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;80px||0vw||false|false&#8221; custom_padding_tablet=&#8221;80px||0vw||false|false&#8221; custom_padding_phone=&#8221;0px||||false|false&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_row column_structure=&#8221;1_2,1_2&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; width=&#8221;100%&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;1_2&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;|||15px|false|false&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #333333;\">ABOUT THE HOST<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=&#8221;#29cb8b&#8221; divider_weight=&#8221;3px&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;3.2&#8243; max_width=&#8221;50px&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_image src=&#8221;https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/THE-HOST-ASHISH-TULSIAN.png&#8221; title_text=&#8221;THE-HOST-ASHISH-TULSIAN&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; text_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;|||15px|false|false&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ashish is a serial entrepreneur and serves as the CEO &amp; <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Co- Founder of Restroworks.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He is one of the entrepreneurs who has mastered the art of bootstrapping startups to scale. Ashish is a prolific angel investor and mentors budding entrepreneurs and startups in Silicon Valley and India.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=&#8221;1_2&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;|||15px|false|false&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #333333;\">ABOUT THE GUEST<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=&#8221;#29cb8b&#8221; divider_weight=&#8221;3px&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;3.2&#8243; max_width=&#8221;50px&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_image src=&#8221;https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/About-Mohammad-Al-Madani-8.png&#8221; alt=&#8221;David Bloom&#8221; title_text=&#8221;About Mohammad Al Madani-8&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;-20px||||false|false&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px||0px||false|false&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; text_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; min_height=&#8221;105.6px&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;|15px||15px|false|true&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px|||||&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mohammad Al Madani is the Chairman &amp; CEO of Al Madani Group, a seasoned entrepreneur with four decades across engineering, retail, F&amp;B, and franchising. A petroleum engineering graduate from the University of Tulsa, he built successful ventures across global brands like Levi\u2019s and Charley\u2019s. A Certified Franchise Executive and cultural advocate, he continues to champion innovation, heritage, and entrepreneurship across the UAE and beyond.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; width=&#8221;100%&#8221; max_width=&#8221;100%&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;5%|||&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;5%|||&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;18%||||false|false&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px|0px||0px|false|false&#8221; use_custom_width=&#8221;on&#8221; width_unit=&#8221;off&#8221; custom_width_percent=&#8221;100%&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;3.25&#8243; custom_padding=&#8221;|||&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221; custom_padding__hover=&#8221;|||&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; text_font=&#8221;Raleway|800|||||||&#8221; text_font_size=&#8221;21vw&#8221; text_line_height=&#8221;0.8em&#8221; header_font=&#8221;||||||||&#8221; text_orientation=&#8221;right&#8221; background_layout=&#8221;dark&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;-64px||-5.5vw|||&#8221; custom_margin_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; custom_margin_phone=&#8221;||-8vw|&#8221; custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|desktop&#8221; animation_style=&#8221;slide&#8221; animation_direction=&#8221;bottom&#8221; animation_intensity_slide=&#8221;10%&#8221; animation_starting_opacity=&#8221;100%&#8221; text_font_size_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; text_font_size_phone=&#8221;&#8221; text_font_size_last_edited=&#8221;on|tablet&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>Speakers<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; custom_padding_last_edited=&#8221;off|desktop&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Information Section&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; background_color=&#8221;#FFFFFF&#8221; max_width=&#8221;100%&#8221; module_alignment=&#8221;right&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px|0px|3px|0px|false|false&#8221; custom_padding_tablet=&#8221;||120px|&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; width_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; width_phone=&#8221;96%&#8221; width_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px|||||&#8221; link_option_url=&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=%22buzzsprout-player-12521774%22><\/div>\n<p><script src=%22https:\/\/www.buzzsprout.com\/2042325\/12521774-rise-to-the-top-the-story-of-wow-bao-s-geoff-alexander.js?container_id=buzzsprout-player-12521774&#038;player=small%22 type=%22text\/javascript%22 charset=%22utf-8%22><\/script>&#8221; sticky_position=&#8221;top&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; link_option_url=&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=%22buzzsprout-player-12521774%22><\/div>\n<p><script src=%22https:\/\/www.buzzsprout.com\/2042325\/12521774-rise-to-the-top-the-story-of-wow-bao-s-geoff-alexander.js?container_id=buzzsprout-player-12521774&#038;player=small%22 type=%22text\/javascript%22 charset=%22utf-8%22><\/script>&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; sticky_position=&#8221;top&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h1 id=\"audio\">Episode #55<\/h1>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/www.buzzsprout.com\/2042325\/episodes\/18249916-how-mohammad-al-madani-built-a-50-store-restaurant-brand-in-the-gcc.js?container_id=buzzsprout-player-18249916&#038;player=small\" type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; custom_padding_last_edited=&#8221;off|desktop&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Information Section&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; max_width=&#8221;100%&#8221; module_alignment=&#8221;right&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;14px|0px|54px|0px|false|false&#8221; custom_padding_tablet=&#8221;||120px|&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; width_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; width_phone=&#8221;96%&#8221; width_last_edited=&#8221;on|phone&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px|||||&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_tabs active_tab_background_color=&#8221;#8300E9&#8243; inactive_tab_background_color=&#8221;#B3B3B3&#8243; active_tab_text_color=&#8221;#FFFFFF&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; tab_text_color=&#8221;#FFFFFF&#8221; tab_font=&#8221;Poppins||||||||&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;0px||0px||true|false&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px||0px||true|false&#8221; border_width_all=&#8221;0px&#8221; border_color_all=&#8221;#D6D6D6&#8243; border_style_all=&#8221;none&#8221; locked=&#8221;off&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_tab title=&#8221;Description &#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; body_text_color=&#8221;#6B6B6B&#8221; body_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; body_line_height=&#8221;1.8em&#8221; tab_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; tab_letter_spacing=&#8221;1px&#8221; tab_line_height=&#8221;2.3em&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;40px||40px||true|false&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this episode, Ashish Tulsian sits down with Mohammad Al Madani, Chairman of the Al Madani Group, to explore his journey. Growing up inside his father\u2019s tailoring shop in the 1940s, Al Madani learned customer service the traditional way, by watching his father stitch kanduras for Dubai\u2019s earliest rulers, business families, and community leaders. These lessons in humility, discipline, and genuine hospitality shaped the foundation of his business philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From running one of the UAE\u2019s most iconic tailoring brands to opening 40 retail stores and eventually building a 50+ store restaurant portfolio with Charley\u2019s Philly Steaks, his career reflects constant reinvention. In this conversation, he shares the realities of entering F&amp;B without prior experience, why his first standalone restaurant failed, what most franchisees get wrong, and how to choose locations that actually work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He also talks about staying relevant for Gen Z, bringing new global concepts into the GCC, and why people, not systems, drive long-term success. Packed with practical lessons and timeless wisdom, this episode is a must-listen for anyone in restaurants, franchising, or entrepreneurship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Find us online:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian-<\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ashishtulsian\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Mohammad Al Madani- <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/mohammad-almadani-5a932930\/?originalSubdomain=ae\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_tab][et_pb_tab title=&#8221;Transcript&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; body_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; tab_font_size=&#8221;18px&#8221; tab_letter_spacing=&#8221;1px&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;40px||40px||true|false&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Ashish Tulsian: <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, Mr. Al Madani, Thank you for agreeing to do this. Welcome to Restrocast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you for having me. It&#8217;s an invitation, really.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Honor is all ours. I, however much I want to talk about, you know, your current restaurant business and current brands and, you know, what&#8217;s happening in the future, we will start with the start. We&#8217;ll start with the past.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I want to know all about your growing up years, you know, here and the fact that your family has a history which is, you know, deeply intertwined with the history of this land. And I want to know what&#8217;s the history? Where do you come from?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course, I will tell you the long journey. It started with my father. I mean, he&#8217;s at the age of 97 at his home now. But three years ago, before the COVID, he would not stop going to his store. So there is no retirement here. So there&#8217;s nothing called retirement. They don&#8217;t understand retirement, actually, in our family. So I grew up. I used to go to my father&#8217;s shop, taking my homework also with me. You know, it&#8217;s a tailoring shop, a famous tailoring shop. And BBC had an interview with him in 2005, and they called him the Royal Tailor. So you can watch that on BBC. And I used to, I grew up with him, you know, at his shop.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How old is that tailoring business? And why did BBC stay?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<ol start=\"75\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It&#8217;s in 1940s, late, mid 1940s. Because, again, there was no record of the time of the, you know, that there was no Dubai municipality. There was no license.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Correct.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He opened the shop. That&#8217;s it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1940s.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, 45, 40, around that time, I would say, mid 1940s. He started this tailoring shop. He became famous. You know, most of the tailors around him were elderly people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So he was the first young tailor there, sitting there. And all the locals who used to come, and he would receive them with smiles, which was unique, you know. And all the time, always the owner has to be hard and has to be tough, even with the customers, you know.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we learn now about the customer service, how to greet. And he used to greet his customers, get up, stand, and, you know, receive them. And that interaction with the customers, I saw it myself, you know, when people come and they&#8217;re very angry because the, you know, the kandura is shorter or a little bit alteration. So they tell me that. They said, you were so angry. But when we came and saw your father with a smile, we changed our course.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We started laughing. We started to have tea with them, coffee with them. So that&#8217;s how I used to sit and take the measurement. I would record the measurement, and my father would take the tape and take the measurement of all the locals. Now, who were there? His, of course, Sheikh Rashid was one of his customers. Wow. You know, peace be upon his soul. So he was serving Sheikh Rashid, all his children at that time, Sheikh Mohammed, Sheikh Maktoum, Sheikh Hamdan, all they were children at that age, you know, 60 years, 70 years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So he used to serve all the family and also the most of the, you know, the local the trade people and businessmen, Majid al-Futaim, Abdullah al-Futaim, al-Ghurair, all the al-Ghurair family, al-Futaim family, name it. Anybody from the, you know, Dubai businessmen now, they all stitch their kandura from their childhood till now, second or third generation. Wow. It&#8217;s the third generation that they&#8217;re coming to our stores. Now, of course, we have more branches and expanded in shopping malls and outside in the high street. Still that old store, which my father started it, still there in the Atras area. Almost we celebrated 75 years last year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My goodness, that is phenomenal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, so I grew up in a place where I saw the people and how the customer services learned naturally, organically, without going to any school for leaving the business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And you learned the trade, I mean, ropes of the trade and the business while being, you know, I mean, it was your second school.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was, the school was back of our shop in Arras area. Al-Ahmadiyya school was also one of the old elementary schools in Dubai. So I used to go there and 10 minutes, five minutes, I could walk to my father&#8217;s shop. So they left me, of course, then you go have a lunch and after lunch, there&#8217;s people used to take a rest and then they come back to work from four. So they&#8217;re open from four till eight, morning from eight to one, about 1pm. So that&#8217;s how I learned the business from my father, you know, to be very good to the customer, serve the customer, do the greeting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We used to do even delivery of the eat time because of so much rush and you could not complete everybody&#8217;s, you know, kandura. So after midnight, when he finished it, he put it in the bag and we used to go. I used to walk with him along, you know, the houses, you know, all his customers, the houses of his customers. And he would just throw the kandura because the wall was not that high at that time, you know, it&#8217;s very short so you can throw. So morning when they wake up for the eat, they have their new kandura.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh wow, so you have literally seen this land, you know, getting built up from\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first paved street on the Naif, I witnessed this, I saw it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There was only track for Land Rover. Jeep Land Rover is the only cars that can, you drive in the desert and it was almost like a desert. And so the first paved, I think it was 63, 64, you know, I saw it. Dubai, I think it&#8217;s Al-Bakr family that built now the Jabal Ali Hotel, the same family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh wow, I mean, this was just a port, right? Was it a port city or what was it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A natural port, the creek itself, you know, it was like a natural port. Of course, not the big ship. They used to be tugged, they bring the, from the ship will stay away from the, because it&#8217;s not that deep.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That&#8217;s why Sheikh Rashid came up with deepening the creek and buried, you know, reclaimed land. He said there&#8217;s in front of our shop, actually, my father used to say that the seawater will come up to the, his machine, his sewing machine. So then they reclaimed that land and they made it, you know, a street there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So as you see now, it&#8217;s almost used to be in the middle of the creek. So the creek was deepened. That&#8217;s why then the other ships started coming inside.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So did you join your, did you join the tailoring business? What were your business years like?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, my first, I think when the customer used to come to my father from Jumeirah, they say Sheikh there, my father used to be called Sheikh because his father was an Imam. So they called him Sheikh Abdul Rahman. So they said, Sheikh, we cannot come anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now it&#8217;s too far and it&#8217;s congested here. Open us a branch. He said, okay, my son will open a branch in Al Diyafa. So then my first business was in tailoring in 1992. I set my own tailoring shop. And then I also expanded into shopping malls and high street. And we have about seven branches of my own besides my father. Father has another five.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So how many, how many stores does that business operate today?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">About 35 stores now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All different brands. We call it Al Madani tailoring. Then it&#8217;s Al Watani, which is my father started Al Khayat Al Watani, which means national tailor. And then I made it also Thawb Al Watani, which means national dress. And then we have also Bayt Al Madani, the house of Al Madani tailoring, which I started it in Burj Umar. That was solely for my father, but I helped it out him to open in the shopping mall. First shopping mall, the first tailoring in the shopping mall was Bayt Al Madani.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And that was Burj Umar?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<ol start=\"1992\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> That was for my father. But then I made my own in the Al Diyafa.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And that was Burj Umar? But what was the first mall?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first mall was Burj Umar.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And how did you, how did you venture into restaurants? Why did that happen?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From, from tailoring, textile, I went to the retail fashion. So my first in 96 was Levi&#8217;s and Dockers and Hankton, all from American brands. And then we started in Deira City Center in 97, first store. It was Levi&#8217;s, it was Dockers and Hankton. Three stores, always, whenever we go to any shopping malls, those are the three stores that we open. So we got into the retail and fashion business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We still had Kundura, the tailoring. So it was like a sister company in a very similar business. And so we grew up, but we had about like 40 stores in the shopping malls in the whole UAE.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Abu Dhabi Mall, Marina Mall, that was the first two shopping malls started in Abu Dhabi. We were the first one to be there. Mall of Emirates, of course, when they built it in 2005, we had.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Okay, now we go back to the story of the restaurant business. When I was signing for Levi&#8217;s, Dockers, Hankton with the MAF in the Mall of Emirates, it was a blueprint. They said, Mohammed, don&#8217;t you have any F&amp;B concept?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have a food court we&#8217;re looking for. I said, yes, I do have. Because back when I used to go to America for buying the products for Levi&#8217;s, I met this guy who have Charley&#8217;s Philly Steak.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I said, this is unique, you know. But let me put it at the back burner, because now we are developing fashion and all this, so we don&#8217;t have time for F&amp;B. When the Mall of Emirates time came, so the leasing manager asked me, you don&#8217;t have any food?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I said, yes, I do. Then I called my friend in Columbus, Ohio. I said, is it still available, Charley&#8217;s Philly Steak? He said, yes. At that time, it used to be called Charley&#8217;s Grilled Sub. Then they changed it to Charley&#8217;s Philly Steak. Rebranded it. So I said, okay, I have a location for you. Location where? Mall of Emirates, where the ski dome is there. There&#8217;s going to be a ski slope there. So I said, excellent. So they gave me the right.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is 2005.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Actually, it was July 2004. 2005 is coming. But then, you know, as you know, most of the shopping malls, especially MAP, will do their homework at least a year or two before, you know, they sign all the locations and everything before they do the construction and all that. So they&#8217;re much ahead of everybody else.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So I said, okay, I have Charley&#8217;s Philly Steak. So we opened, I think it was September 2005. That was a food court. That was the first Charley&#8217;s Philly Steak. Then shopping malls start approaching us. Then it was Ibn Battuta Mall.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At that time, it used to be called Gardens Shopping Mall. They said, oh, we like Charley&#8217;s. Can you have it in our food court? I said, okay. Then we opened Ibn Battuta, Burj Jaman, Dara City Center. Whenever any shopping, Dubai Mall, of course.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And again, when it was on the blueprint and start, we booked for all our retail, Levi&#8217;s, Dockers, Hankton, and Charley&#8217;s Philly Steak. So besides Charley&#8217;s, also, I had the cafe in 2006. Got in touch with Without of Chelsea. This is a coffee and tea concept. Mainly, actually, tea concept from England. And I had-\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is it called?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Without of Chelsea. So it was coffee shop, it was food court concept, F&amp;B, and retail and fashion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I am, this is, you know, I think this is an obvious question, but that&#8217;s, you know, from tailoring, you went to ready-made retail, you know, which is generally, you know, most of the tailoring people or custom bespoke tailoring in the world, early, you know, did not catch the ready-made garments or apparel business that easily because they thought, huh, you know, who&#8217;s gonna, you know, buy the prestiged stuff we are going to, you know, we, our customers wanted, you know, to their taste.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Customized, yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And then from retail to you went straight in the restaurant, which may be occupying a similar space in the mall, but is absolutely a different business. How was that journey? Was it all easy or was bringing first Charley&#8217;s really, you know, made you aware that how difficult the restaurant business is?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I remember even Charley&#8217;s himself, when I went to get the sign of Charley&#8217;s Steak and F&amp;B, he said, Muhammad, you are, you know, of course we have to do our company profile and all that. He said, your experience is in tailoring, textile, fashion, you know, garments, apparel, but you don&#8217;t have experience in F&amp;B and restaurant business. I said, anyway, I was, my career, I said my profession was a petroleum engineer. Nothing to do with the garments or fashion or tailoring or textile. But I grew up in a business family and there&#8217;s nothing called that. I don&#8217;t know about this business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I&#8217;m going to learn it. And I really started from that year, reading about the F&amp;B business, about the finance, about how to build up the restaurants. Although as a franchising, that&#8217;s one of the beauty of the franchising. Now also I&#8217;m heading the UAE Franchising Association in Dubai and UAE. So I also used to go to the IFA, International Franchise Association in Las Vegas from 2011. So I learned all about franchising, about F&amp;B.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course, franchising doesn&#8217;t have to be only F&amp;B. It&#8217;s also all different sectors of business. So that was my challenge. Muhammad, this is a restaurant business. You don&#8217;t have experience. So of course, I had the right people when I came and we did some lesson. I mean, like we learned lessons, of course. We made mistakes. I think the first store before Mall of Emirates, we opened on the Diafa Street, like in the main, most of restaurants at that time on the high streets. But we found that no. This is a food court concept. You need the traffic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we shut down that store after we spend on the decoration and renovation and everything. One of also the factors that we were not aware of is the voltage of the power. The power from that building was not enough to, in the winter, we opened the stores. There was no need for the AC. But when the summer came, we turn on the AC. We can&#8217;t get it off. Oh, what is it? What&#8217;s the problem? Oh, there is not enough power, kilowatt. So this is what we learned that, okay, you have to see how much kilowatt you need for your restaurant before signing the lease or the contract. Make sure that there&#8217;s enough power there. If you don&#8217;t have a lot of, even shopping malls don&#8217;t have that because the plan wasn&#8217;t there that they would have that many, you know, food courts. They expanded it later on. Then they found that, oh, they don&#8217;t have enough power for the rest of the restaurant. Some of the restaurant has to shut down or they have to go on to Diwan and get permission.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That&#8217;s a long, it takes time also to get all the upgraded in the power and get all the approvals from municipality, from, you know, civil defense. It takes time. So this is one thing that we learned from our experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And what about the supply chain? And I always wonder that. I mean, today the world is more connected and life is relatively easier if you&#8217;re doing a global business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But I can&#8217;t imagine in 2005, how was the supply chain? And given that, you know, you were, I mean, I&#8217;m assuming that you were importing 100% of the stuff into UAE, you know, for food or most of the stuff, you know, for that matter. What were the learnings on that plane where you are now sourcing a ton of different raw materials? You have, you know, so many moving parts. Retail is easier that way. At least you have countered stuff and you know exactly what&#8217;s gonna sell. Restaurant is like, you know, 300 ingredients trying to make 30 dishes and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So again, because the franchising model helps a lot. Of course they had the supplier. I mean, the main supplier for the, you know, for the protein products.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was from one of the suppliers that was accredited by the American company, Charley&#8217;s, because they had Charley&#8217;s Filistik in the old American basis. And they already have a supply for the meat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, and they were already tested. Their manufacturing premises was in Jordan, actually. So it was easy for us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So it was coming to the Middle East anywhere.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The main supply is the protein and how it is with the recipe and everything was already done by the, you know, by our franchisor. So that was helpful. The rest, of course, the vegetables and all the other recipes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I had a good brand manager. So I had also experience in the market. He also was easy for him to get all the suppliers of the, you know, whether it&#8217;s bakery or there is, of course, bakeries was the main part of our sandwich.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And we also learned. We also go from one supplier to another, to third, till we found the best. It takes time, definitely. But we did all our homework.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So franchising, of course, I mean, you made a right point. I think franchising, I mean, the idea of franchising is that they should be able to give you the know-how and the, you know, and how to operate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And all the manuals are there. And training, of course, we send our brand manager, we send them first to America, where they had four, six weeks of training. So they learned all about the business, all about how to prepare the sandwich, the whole operation, the staff, how many staff you need for a store.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And, you know, the schedules of all the staff, all they learned from the franchisor. So that&#8217;s why I say the franchising model is excellent. If you want to, if you don&#8217;t have an experience in something, go for franchising. Because this cookbook, as I said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But what are the, I mean, people also lose a lot of money as franchisees. And, you know, there is, there are mixed reactions in the world about franchising while it&#8217;s an extremely powerful, you know, way to grow the business for the brand and as well as a powerful way for a new entrant to, you know, ride on a successful product. But as a franchisee, what is it that you believe that people, like, where do they go wrong?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They try to cut corners and they try to save money. They think that, okay, if I, you know, if the portion is one gram, you know, I&#8217;ll make it 550 milligram or try to cut on that cost. I save money and that&#8217;s where the mistakes happens.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And if the franchisor also, the master franchisee, like our case, we don&#8217;t, you know, strictly watch them and supervise them and stop them from doing those mistakes, then franchisees can make a lot of losses. And locations, location, location, location is the number one. So many franchises come to us. We have this location, you know, they have a very good rent and we said, no, we know, we learned our business. You need the traffic, you need so many transactions where they, you know, looking at that mall or that area, you will not have enough transaction to cover your costs and pay our royalties and pay the American also. So that sometimes the franchisees make a mistake, try to cut costs and cut corner and not follow the strict manuals and not have a right location.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sometimes franchisees insist, no, it&#8217;s mine. I say, okay, you take that undertaking, that&#8217;s not our responsibility. And later on they find that, okay, that location was not the right. So sometimes the franchisees try to cut corners and try to save and not follow the terms and, you know, the specifications of the franchisor and that&#8217;s when they start.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What does your estate look like right now in the restaurant space? How many restaurants do you have? How many stores? How many brands?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have, now we have UAE, Oman, Saudi, Qatar and then Djibouti, you won&#8217;t believe it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Djibouti?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Djibouti, yes. Just the recent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, recent, okay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s a recent one. So we have all the international franchisor, they gave us the master franchisee to develop the whole region. But we have to get their approval like, okay, somebody comes from Djibouti, said I have this location, so we have to take, we do all the due diligence, then we approach America that, you know, he&#8217;s the right franchisee, then they give approval.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So this is for Charley&#8217;s? For Charley&#8217;s, yeah. So how many stores do you run for Charley&#8217;s now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have about 50 stores.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">5-0? 5-0, yes. And how many of your own and franchisee?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have 10 of our own.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beautiful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rest are franchised.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beautiful, beautiful. So you keep, so you&#8217;re also glued into the business, it&#8217;s not all franchisee that you lose touch with the reality.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, that was with the condition of the franchisor also, like you have to have your own stores, you cannot just franchise everything, then you definitely lose the touch and use that. So you need to be in the business yourself. That&#8217;s the secret of the success.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And what do you feel as a master franchisee, you are practically the owner of the brand for the region, you&#8217;re practically responsible for the brand, for the franchisees, for, you know, a lot of their pain and their happiness. What have you learned, you know, to do better? Or what have you learned that you follow today, in the last 20 years of building this, you know, estate?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that we sometimes get caught in the, you know, by some of these promotional items and some of these discounts, they come to you and they say, okay, give us this discount, give us that discount, and you have hundreds of platforms here in Dubai and UAE. Correct. Where, you know, you lose your shares.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And we learned the hard way that those promotions after promotions, discount after discounts, is not the right way to, you know, market your brand. We learned how the difficult way, so we stopped most of those discounts and promotions, and especially with the aggregator, because now with the aggregator, you&#8217;re already paying a commission. And plus the commission, which takes out of your, you know, bottom line, then you have to give another 30, another 20% to be on the top of the list, or, you know, or you do the weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Analyzing, analyzing cost.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think you can do it for some time, like for a week or two, but for the whole year to have continuously discounts after discounts, that&#8217;s also a draw, you damage your brand even, because then this is a cheap brand, like, you know, so you have to have your status. Yes, you do promotion in certain seasons, certain time, along with there is a big discount in the whole, you know, the mega discount, the super discount that they do in the shopping malls, you know, festival season, that you have to participate. I mean, I agree, but not on every single platform.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Banks can give you discounts and name it. I mean, there is so many, I don&#8217;t want to name those companies, but there are so many companies there to, you know, for the marketing purpose, they will, you know, attract you to their promotions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I mean, but I hear, you know, from franchisors all the time that, I mean, and I&#8217;m talking about especially your relationship as a master franchisee, the franchisee that you are signing up, you are the franchisor for them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, that&#8217;s right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And generally in the franchise or franchisee relationship, one thing that I always hear from a lot of franchisors or especially the ones who stopped doing franchising and said, okay, I&#8217;m going to only open company-owned stores. They always say that signing up a franchisee is like, you know, having a business partner with, you know, business partner on table, though it, from an outside perspective or legally, it may look like it is their business and you&#8217;re only a consultant to them or you&#8217;re a supervisor or auditor to them, but in reality, they have a lot of expectations from you and it becomes a very, very difficult relationship. What&#8217;s, how has it been for you and what are the rules to, you know, keep it nice?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think they&#8217;re a good relationship. You have to keep your communication with a higher level, you know, not just a brand manager level. Okay, they go for the operation, but as a franchisor, as the owner of the master franchisee, I have a relationship with all my franchisees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have a regular meeting, get together, dinner parties, lunch, you know, and we, whenever we have, you know, the visitor, even the owner himself, Mr. Charlie Shen came to Dubai so many times, so we invite all of them and they have this open dialogue. If they have anything, complain about us, also they have the freedom to talk to the owner himself. So, when they saw that open book, there&#8217;s, you know, transparency.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That is amazing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That transparency that you keep with the franchisees, I mean, we do help them and a lot of franchisees, they lost the location, okay, because there was a revamping of that area and they say, you know, Charlie doesn&#8217;t exist anymore, because they see, they treat them as one single, but then we interfere, we go and support that franchisee that, you know, now you move to a better location, you move the food court from one area to another, that incident happened, and they lost opportunity in the new development area.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, we stood by them and we went and fight with them without any, you know, any reward or anything. Correct. Didn&#8217;t have any financial, except to keep the franchisee, you know, making money and continuing his business without interruption. Sometimes, a lot of times also we negotiate on their behalf, on the rentals. A lot of times they come, they say they increase the rent by 20, 30 percent. We go as if it is our own story, you know, but not your story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I said, this is our franchisee, it&#8217;s our partner, you know, you can&#8217;t, you increase it on us five or seven percent, you have to treat them also the same. So, that, when they see the franchisee that the franchisor or the master franchisee is standing by up supporting them all the way, then their, you know, their relationship is different. They look at us, look up to us to solve their problems.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, that&#8217;s how you can keep the franchisees happy. And we have franchises for almost 10 years. We renewed their contract, you know, every 10 years as a F&amp;B franchising, you know, it&#8217;s a 10-year term. So, we have been, so many of the franchises already renewed their second term. That means they are happy with us and we also, you know, happy with them because of that relationship. We keep very good challenges there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mistakes happen, but we try to solve it and, you know, sometimes even the franchises themselves, there are two, three partners, they&#8217;re having, you know, issues. We try to solve them, the relationship between them also. It happened so many times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah. So, you truly treat this as your own business and their business as your responsibility. Now, I think what you said about transparency is paramount, I think. That&#8217;s bang on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I always tell them, your success is our success. Your failure is our failure. So, we&#8217;re not going to let you fail.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And that&#8217;s when they, not by wars, when they see the action that when we defended their store, when they supported them in negotiating with the renters, or even sometimes negotiating with the renovation, because a lot of times the shopping malls, they want everything brand new from core and shell and, you know, destroy everything and demolish everything. We try to stand by them and try to defend them and, okay, do the renovation, yes, but you don&#8217;t have to break the whole store, you know. Sometimes the shopping malls became very strict about it, we tried to help them and try to negotiate and compromise between the two sides.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That is amazing. Yeah, speaks volumes. In the current food world, and I think restaurant businesses, I think has just gone crazy in the last 10 years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I think it is going crazier year on year. And by crazy, I mean, Gen Z as a customer, I think is confusing every large brand that had its ears, right? I can, I don&#8217;t know I should name this or not, but like brands like Domino&#8217;s, McDonald&#8217;s, Pizza Hut, KFC, like I&#8217;m talking about some of the largest brands in the world. I think they&#8217;re in trouble. Because millennials and generation, you know, your generation, my generation still has a lot of growing up nostalgia around these brands, right? I still see Domino&#8217;s, I may not think of them as the best pizza on the planet, but I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s a bad pizza.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I can still go to Domino&#8217;s, you know, if I want. But Gen Z has no connection, people who are born after 2000 or 2005, I don&#8217;t think they have a connection with any of these brands, they just don&#8217;t know, you know, these brands at all. The food habits are different, they&#8217;re more experimental, they&#8217;re trying to eat everything.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every brand is right now struggling to figure out their balance in, you know, from the new, for the new gen. Given that you run a brand that also comes with its own legacy, how do you keep yourself, you know, updated, both on the business side and your own opinion on what&#8217;s the food trend? Like, how much room do you have for that innovation? Do you do that? And how do you keep up with it? That how&#8217;s the, what&#8217;s the new channel of marketing? How to attract more people to the store? What do you do? How do you do that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have a loyalty program, which is within application where, you know, Gen Z, a lot of them are part of that. And our social media and marketing is also up to date. So we also follow the Gen Z, whatever they like, you know, from these bloggers that they also close to them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We do invite those bloggers and to our stores and they talk about Charley&#8217;s Philly Steak. We have also limited time offer things like every season. We came up when things came up about the vegetable, vegetarian, some, you know, burger.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So we came up with a very similar, you know, we have brown bread, you know, one of the healthy thing that we also did in Charley&#8217;s is not white bread. Yes, white bread is there, but you have choice of brown bread, healthy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But isn&#8217;t it crazy that you&#8217;re having a Philly cheese steak, but with the brown bread?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes. And I always buy, I never eat the white bread. I was the one who actually before the America, America didn&#8217;t have the brown bread.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I started it here in 2007. We have the first.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So you&#8217;re saying now Charley&#8217;s in America has brown bread?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now they have it. But initially they didn&#8217;t have white bread. I didn&#8217;t have the brown bread. So I started it here in UAE. So limited time offer where we had some time also for, you know, with the lettuce, you can have the meat and we did that also in some promotion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The lettuce sandwich?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, lettuce sandwich. We did try that. So we tried to adopt and have the promotional items or limited time offer as you said, to attract all the different customers, you know, liking and especially with the new generation, we have these application and the loyalty program and which is, you know, tailored to the need of the new generation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Did you ever think about bringing more brands here? Do you have like, do you have more brands or do you, have you ever thought about in this?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was in the Indian lettuce franchising exhibition.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In India?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In New Delhi.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh wow, when?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was last May.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ah, okay. The Indian franchise India?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, franchise India.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Okay, wow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And there I signed with the four Vietnamese brands in cafe, tea, and health, different type of franchising.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Four Vietnamese brands? Yes. Were showcasing in Indian franchising show?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And you signed it up for UAE?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I signed with them, master franchising for GCC.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh wow, that is amazing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And these are, these are all Vietnamese?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vietnamese and also like they have, they have in India.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But may not the brand or is it still under wraps?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, no, they have a stores already and they opened in New Delhi.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is the brand called?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s three brands actually. Three o&#8217;clock, because that&#8217;s a time. Now also that is very tied to the new generation. They have it in the, and around the colleges. I think, I don&#8217;t know, they told me about three o&#8217;clock where they go for the coffee after, you know, they have their fun. So, they called it three o&#8217;clock.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That&#8217;s a cafe?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That&#8217;s a cafe. And the other one is for the coffee and it&#8217;s called three, I forgot because it&#8217;s just me and him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, I&#8217;m just curious. I mean, because I may not, I may not know the brands, but I&#8217;m just, I&#8217;m just curious because.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s a coffee concept, a tea concept and a health concept. The health concept is amazing. I really liked it because they take care of the pregnant woman, care for love or love for care.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wow. Oh, so they have a pregnancy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From pregnancy to the even birth, they take care of the even the child for the first three months or six months until they go to the nursery and they even teach them how to swim.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I can relate. I have a nine-month-old daughter. So, I think we have gone through pregnancy just now. So, I know it was difficult for my wife to eat almost anywhere, like without being very careful.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They tie their service mostly in the, whether in the hospitals or the clinics where they have the, for taking care of the pregnant woman. Every month they go for a visit. So, they take care of them while they&#8217;re waiting for the mother and they massage them and all that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, they also, they give them some training and especially if it&#8217;s the first child, first pregnant and they mentally, they prepare them also. So, it&#8217;s a very amazing concept.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That&#8217;s brilliant. So, you&#8217;re, that&#8217;s going to be the new brand. And you talked about the tea brand, the British tea brand. Did you expand that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The British tea brand, actually, it went into administration or bankruptcy in 2011. So, then we changed it actually to bagel bar and coffee house. Same stores, without of Chelsea, we opened, we moved it to bagel. Bagels also, it didn&#8217;t work out. The coffee is bagel and coffee. I think our customers were very limited, only the western.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Correct. Bagel is a very American.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even myself, when I first time I tried the bagel, I said, it&#8217;s not sweet. I thought it&#8217;s donuts, you know. They say, no, this is not donuts, Mohammad. This is our breakfast. So, we put cheese or put, you know, salmon and all different type of bagels.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I&#8217;m an old school bagel lover.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, you like bagel..<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, I love bagels I love a good bagel. I mean, US bagels.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bagels were imported actually from Ireland because the brand was Irish brand. So, we used to source the bagels. They couldn&#8217;t match the bagel from Ireland, actually.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let&#8217;s talk about your, you know, on your side, personally, what keeps you nourished? What keeps you enriched? What do you do for, you know, your learning? Is it books? Is it podcast? Is it something else? Meeting people? What do you do to learn, you know, on a day-to-day basis?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since I used to go, as I said, to IFA convention, I learned a lot there. How to take care of the business, how to, you know, the corporate, how to take care of the corporate. So, that was a big learning for me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, I used to, in my 14 hours of flight, I have all the business books with me. Read, learn, and strategies, planning, appraisals, and all those I learned from reading those books. How to plan and how to have mission and vision in your corporate. I started it in 2005, you know, I also used to go to courses, you know, in the schools and learn more about the F&amp;B business. Franchising, of course, was one of the things that made me more into the business. By heading the now UA franchising and trademark association, Tajamma, I attend most of the conferences. I do also speak at most of these conferences.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Awesome. So, I mean, there&#8217;s a UAE franchising association?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And this is about general franchising?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, everything related to franchising. So, they try to promote the UAE brands to go globally from local to global and also international brands coming two ways.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is the association called?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tajamma.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tajamma.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, in Arabic, Tajamma means gathering. So, to gather and we have also like&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And is it like a non-profit or is it like\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Non-profit, yeah. Approved by the UAE Ministry of Trade and Commerce. Yes, so it&#8217;s been accredited by the government, Ministry of&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know, as a business owner, you keep learning but you learn the most from your experiences. Books are books and advice can be just a guiding light.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These are the tools, as you said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But you still have to walk the path. How have you changed as a person in last I don&#8217;t know, 10 years, 20 years? What are the things that you recognize have changed in you over last two decades, three decades?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People. I think your assets are the people. You recognize the more you try to have that one-to-one relationship. You know, in my&#8230; Yes, and I do appraisal for my brand managers, for all my, you know, subordinates. But in my dialogue, it&#8217;s like one-to-one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s not like I&#8217;m your boss and you are my employee. So, that I learned, that we have that relationship. We have people who work for us for 10, 15, 20 years. We have farewell with them. Of course, at the end, they have to go forth, learn from our company, from our business. You can never stop people from growing. So, they want to do a different company. They want to diversify their experience. You help them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, that is what I learned, that, you know, people are your asset. You know, the more personal relationship you keep with them, you know, the more you, you know, they try to gain your trust. And I even, I&#8217;m not having any more fashion retail, but I&#8217;ve never passed by those stores. There&#8217;s employees, they wave to me, Mohamed, come, come. Take that brand back to, you know, we want to work with you. Because they find the difference, you know, in some corporate, you know, I don&#8217;t also blame the owners, you know, they have 200 brands and thousands of stores. It will be difficult to keep that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, at times, businesses become so less. Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, mine was different, not a big company. It&#8217;s a medium size, a family business type. I learned from my father how to treat your staff. My father never used to yell or to, you know, to the staff. They used to be right in front of him, actually. Because at time, the showroom and the tailors were the same. There was no workshop, because again, it was a small four or five tailors standing, sitting on the floor with their machines. And my father is the master who&#8217;s cutting the pieces, and then he&#8217;s distributing to the tailors. He also had a good tea and coffee, the correct tea every morning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have and they&#8217;re drinking with my father. So, that is the relationship I learned that you have to keep a good relationship with your staff.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Have you heard about this guy called Ram Charan? No. Ram Charan, so I&#8217;m going to, you know, definitely send you a book by him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He&#8217;s written a couple of them. Ram Charan is, he&#8217;s the consultant to almost 100 percent of Fortune 50 CEOs. Indian origin, Indian guy, you know, old, but in the US. He grew up in a state of UP in India. It&#8217;s called Uttar Pradesh. It&#8217;s a North Indian state, the most populous in the Texas of India, wild.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And he grew up in his father&#8217;s shoe shop in, you know, 40s, 50s. And, you know, what really strikes me about him is that whenever people ask him that, if you&#8217;re advising a Fortune 10 CEO, you know, where do you get the wisdom to advise a Fortune 10 company CEO? And he very simply, with a lot of simplicity, he will say, well, honestly, I have been actually advising all these people what I learned at my father&#8217;s shoe shop back in UP.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And he said, the principles are quite simple. You know, make sure that your customer is treated well. Make sure that your product is high integrity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You only promise what you sell and you sell, you know, what you promise. You care for your credibility, you know, and brand. Move fast, but don&#8217;t, you know, move fast at the cost of breaking your business. So he outlines a couple of, you know, these things, which, you know, I think in my own experience, personally, I think over the years, I started feeling that, you know, the insights to run a business or to lead a life are much simpler and not really that complex. The problem is the execution of it. You know, most of the advice, like, for example, you just said, you know, treat your employees well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now, this is a very simple advice, which is available in every self-help or business book. But I think to really do that, somebody has to, you know, work hard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How did you learn this? Yes, you know, keep it simple and straight. So that&#8217;s, if you take that principle, apply it to anything that you do, keep it simple, straight, that you will win.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What&#8217;s keeping you anxious? What do you worry about?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As I said, I learned from my father, no retirement. I&#8217;m not thinking to retire from the business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, you know, the world is talking about work-life balance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, definitely. I have. Morning, two hours, I spend on cycling and walking. I cannot run anymore because of my knees, but I do walk on the Jumeirah Beach. And I go from my house on the canal. I&#8217;m very lucky to be in the canal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So on the cycling, I go to the beach and then do on that track about an hour of walking, an hour of cycling, going back and forth. So that keeps me active too, and young. And then I go back and go to the office. I&#8217;m there from 9, 10 till 6, till I came to the function today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, yes, yes, yes. No, I think I, and I was just kidding when I was talking about that work-life balance thing, because I think today work-life balance is being talked about in media a lot in a very stupid, like in the wrong light, because it almost tells young people not to work hard, which just confuses me. Because if you&#8217;re young, or if you&#8217;re trying to build a life for yourself, the only way is to, you know, work hard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Otherwise, I mean, you may earn less, but you&#8217;ll not have a great life. And that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s very, very important. And when I see people like you, who have no financial reason to, you know, work, but are working because you need to work, you need to, you need to have some accomplishment, something to look forward to in life every day. You know, that&#8217;s very inspiring.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I still also go to my stores. I know most of my staff, not everyone, but most of the supervisors and&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On both sides, the tailoring side and&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, so I go to the shopping malls and visit them and sometimes I do like a mystery shopping. I go on the back and see all the what&#8217;s happening backward the back kitchen how it is clean and organized and before the municipality comes and catches some of the expiry or drinks or all the products they have an expiry date and very we have of course our inventory system people who do a physical inventory and matches with the digital one.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How often do you do that this the surprise visits or visits in general how much time do you spend on the on the\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">you know at least two to three times a month I would say almost every week weekend like that and sometimes we do testing also I go and do the testing participate in the testing of some new products or this limited promotion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So LTOs you talked about which is limited time offers where you test new products are you saying that the R&amp;D for creating new products at Charley&#8217;s is also your responsibility and you do that here?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We do the customized one the local the international one comes from states then we have also the option like say rice is you know you have the Asian community here sometimes they don&#8217;t like the bread they want the the meat and with the rice so we have that product. There is a fish which is not in America, so we have the fish sandwich too<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">oh Philly okay Charley&#8217;s has fish here<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fish fillet we call it \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s not I mean in US they don&#8217;t have Fish.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, so we they of course we have to give approval we send the we tell them these are the products this is the recipe and we send all the details they approve for us so they are again whenever when you imagine that McDonald&#8217;s going to sell chicken you know yeah as a chicken wings or you know correct or other way KFC correct you ever imagine they&#8217;re going to send burgers so that the trend is there where they start accepting you know I remember going to UK once in the KFC they had this biryani\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yeah they have it in India as well\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">so then I learned that okay now they start changing their mind you need to you know customize to the local needs yes you have an international brand KFC McDonald&#8217;s Burger King but still they have to adopt you know like McArabia so they did it in McDonald&#8217;s so we do the same thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When a young aspiring restaurateur comes to you when somebody in the current generation comes to you and says you know I have a dream to you know start a restaurant or I&#8217;m planning to invest three million dollars of my family in you know the restaurant business what advice do you have for them?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course as I said the franchising model is the most easiest one so you don&#8217;t have to learn all the mistakes and all the challenges but I have seen now examples of even some of the locals coming up with their own brand and they are successful, Saddle Salt, yeah society somewhere you know Home Bakery all these are local brands that they started by the young new generation correct and they are successful they&#8217;re growing so if I see a young who has a brilliant idea or some concept that he really mastered it so a lot of them they do it at home first I mean Home Bakery I remember they used to have it at the you know the Suffolk Park they used to have every weekend during the winter pop up then and Home Bakery was there so they started it there from from house to then market.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think Salt also started in a food truck<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">yeah it was a food truck in the the kite beach you know that was the first yeah and still that truck is there you know<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">oh that&#8217;s there yeah I saw it like you know very very early on\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">so I&#8217;m seeing a good examples of the local brands homegrown brands actually going global Saddle is in the UK. Salt also out of UAE, Saudi and so many neighboring countries so I&#8217;m very proud of these youngsters who you know build up the brand here from Dubai.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well that is so good and I&#8217;m sure when they will see you taking their names you know they will love it as well yes thank you. Mr. Almadni this is a this is a fabulous chat thank you for agreeing to do this and I can tell you that I meet a lot of restaurant operators across the world you have been one of the most positive voices for the business for being a franchisee for being a master franchisee I haven&#8217;t heard a speck of negative element in your conversation about any stakeholder so I&#8217;m 101% sure that from your employees to your partners and your partners on both sides your franchisees and your franchisor I think all of them are quite fortunate that they have you know they&#8217;re working with you this is really fabulous it was extremely inspirational for me I&#8217;m sure people who watch it they&#8217;ll learn a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Al Madani:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you very much for having me and giving me the opportunities to reach through the podcast all the our friends our partners our associates and great to be here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Ashish Tulsian:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you, no no, pleasure is all ours thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_tab][\/et_pb_tabs][et_pb_code _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.8&#8243; 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He shares lessons on franchising, choosing the right locations, avoiding common mistakes, staying relevant with Gen Z, and more. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1815,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1805","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>From Tailor to Restaurant Empire: Mohammad Al Madani on Franchising &amp; Growth - Restrocast<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how Mohammad Al Madani built a 50+ store restaurant franchise across the GCC, from location strategy to franchising fundamentals.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/restroworks.com\/restrocast\/mohammad-al-madani\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From Tailor to Restaurant Empire: Mohammad Al Madani on Franchising &amp; 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