Burger King is set to open its fourth outlet in Kenya. The new branch will be in Nairobi’s Thika Road Mall, also home to Carrefour’s 7,000m² hypermarket and Kenyan coffee shop chains Artcaffé and Java House.
Burger King is expanding in Kenya with its fourth store, in the upmarket Thika Road Mall in Nairobi. Burger King’s franchisee, NAS Airport Services (a division of Swiss catering and logistics giant Servair) already has outlets in Nairobi’s NextGen, The Hub, and Two Rivers malls.
The new outlet means that Burger King has one more outlet than US burger chain Hardee’s, which has outlets in Two Rivers Mall, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Westlands Mall. The move comes months after continued speculation in the Kenyan media that McDonald’s will open in Kenya. McDonald’s denies it has plans to open in Kenya.
Burger King is already present in Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and Côte d’Ivoire. It opened its first outlet in Ghana in May 2018, in the Accra Mall, also operated by Servair.
Fast food franchises are seeing considerable expansion activity at the moment in Kenya: Subway, which has 12 outlets in Nairobi, has put adverts in the Nairobi press looking for locations in CBD, Upper Hill, Lavington and Mombasa Road. Meanwhile KFC, which has 17 branches in Kenya, announced plans in June 2018 to open a further four outlets in Nairobi, at Lavington, Buru Buru, Village Market and Eastlands.
KFC is unusual in that it already has branches outside Nairobi – in Eldoret, Kisumu, Mombasa and Nakuru. East African franchisee Kuku Foods Africa, which operates KFC’s 31 branches across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania is also set to open its first store in Rwanda in 2018.
As we have previously noted, burger restaurants in Kenya have had to be measured in the pace at which they expand. One of the main strategic questions is whether it is worth opting for more expensive space in high end malls, or going for standalone/forecourt space. Burger King has opted for the safer locations inside malls. KFC, by contrast, has increasingly sought out drive thru/standalone/forecourt locations.
Burger King’s largest competitor is runaway domestic success story Java House, which is backed by Abraaj Group. Although nominally a coffee shop chain it also serves a varied menu of hot food, including burgers. Java House has more than 60 outlets in East Africa, most of which are in Kenya. It has 41 branches in Nairobi alone.
