By Dennise Williams, Staff ReporterTHE JUICI Patties restaurant chain has leased the building
formerly housing a McDonald's fast food restaurant at the intersection of Molynes Road and Washington Boulevard.
At a cost of $15 million,
Juici Patties franchise owners,
Elite Restaurants Limited, will
renovate the building owned by Texaco International adjoining the gas station.
"We are currently in the final stages of renovating the building. It did suffer some damage from Hurricane Ivan, mainly parts
of the roof were blown off, and we are working on that now. Juici Patties Molynes Road is scheduled to open early in November," said Susan Simes, general manager of Elite Restaurants Ltd.
FOURTH LOCATION FOR ELITE
The Molynes Road locale
represents the 47th Juici Patties store and the fourth location for Elite. They currently operate Juici Patties Port Henderson, Portmore Town Centre and Duhaney Park. According to Ms. Simes, "This opening is part of the bigger expansion of Juici Beef Limited, which is carrying out its mandate of having the largest Jamaican fast food
franchise in the island."
What is unique about the Molynes Road location is that it would be the first Juici Patties drive-through in the Kingston area and Elite is taking full advantage of that. "We are expecting a wide cross-section of Jamaicans to converge on the location. Molynes Road is ideal for us because we think that this is a path most Jamaicans will cross whether doing business in Kingston or heading out to rural Jamaica," said Ms. Simes. Additionally, "We also think that this location will receive heavy traffic during the breakfast hour."
The renovated restaurant will seat 75 persons and will feature over 15 different patties and loaves. The store will also feature Juici Fried Chicken as a new menu offering. To tap into the late night weekend traffic, the Molynes Road restaurant will be open until midnight on Fridays and 1:00 a.m. on Saturdays.
RENTAL
The former tenant, McDonald's, closed its doors and boarded up its windows on August 31, 2003. Since then, the building remained vacant. Wednesday Business understands that rental for such properties starts at a base rate,
not including maintenance and security, of $400 per square foot per annum. The property is about 4,500 square feet.
Sources close to the fast food industry believed that McDonald's Molynes Road buckled under the competition from Pete's Patties an establishment in the area for over 20 years and the cannibalisation of its own customer base from the McDonald's restaurant located in the Duhany Park Shopping Centre. During the latter part of 2003, the chain embarked on a retrenchment exercise as the first franchise holder in Jamaica, Patricia Isaacs-Green, sold her 50 per cent interest in the franchise back to the United States-based McDonald's Corporation.
Currently, there are three McDonald's restaurants in Kingston and four locations in rural Jamaica.
Mrs. Issacs-Green is now
proprietor of the Kaiteur
Foods restaurant in the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston, and JamRock restaurant in New Kingston.
