Article content
A London-based Middle Eastern restaurant, one of Canada’s fastest-growing food chains, has broken ground on two new locations south of the border.
Tahini’s Restaurants, with 50 outlets across Canada, will open soon in Chicago and New Jersey as it moves into the U.S. market, said founder and chief executive Omar Hamam, who considers the U.S. the next logical step in his company’s evolution.
Article content
“We’re excited, very excited. The U.S. is a different beast,” said Hamam, who has kept London as Tahini’s head office. “From London, we’re making a difference.
“We want to make sure the model works for the U.S. and we will tweak it if we need to. We want to make sure we connect with U.S. customers, that we’re up to their needs and standards. Once we know it works, we will grow.”
It is all part of the chain’s rapid growth, which has it planning to add another 50 outlets through 2025 and ’26, Hamam added.
“Our growth is aggressive, but the work has been done over the last 15 years,” he said. “We’ve done our research, we built the system, made the food and worked the marketing to build this model that is sustainable.”
But Hamam also is competing in a market that he is quick to admit is saturated – perhaps not with other chains, but shawarma restaurants, many of them pretty good, and small mom-and-pop operations.
“I was a mom and pop when I started. There are a lot of them but what we have done is differentiate ourselves. We have traditional cuisine like shawarma but we also have fusion,” he said, referring to offerings from butter chicken, jerk chicken and gyros wraps and bowls, to shawarma poutine and crispy chicken.
Article content
“Look at the demographics of Canada and it’s very diverse. We needed a diverse menu,” Hamam added. “It’s about separating ourselves from everyone else. People want good, but they want something different, too.”
Recommended from Editorial
In a recent article, industry website Retail Insider identified Tahini’s as one of Canada’s fast-growing food chains.
And a Canadian Franchise Association report said “quick service” restaurants in 2023 had 825 million visitors, a 28 per cent increase year-over-year, underscoring the fast-food segment’s growth.
There are now five Tahini restaurants in London. It recently opened outlets in Alberta and B.C. and has signed agreements to add stores in eastern Canada in 2025. It opened its 50th store, on Edmonton’s Gateway Boulevard, this month.
“It sounds like a lot, but we’re not in one location, these are far apart so we don’t cannibalize our own stores,” Hamam said. “We still have a lot of opportunities.”
Tahini’s has been in business since 2012. As for how a business only 12 years old can achieve this growth, the restaurants are franchises purchased for $500,000, paying royalties and contributing to a marketing fund.
He tracks sales and they are up across the country, Hamam adds. “We speak with our franchisees weekly. We work with them.”
Haman, who was born in Windsor, spent much of his youth travelling and living in Egypt, his parents’ homeland, where his father worked as an engineer.
He studied business at the University of Manitoba, and moved to London, where his sister lives, in 2005.
Share this article in your social network
