Mark Myers, managing director of Restaurants of Jamaica, says he is tying down financing for a near $700 million expansion and remodelling of the KFC chain. - File

Susan Gordon, Business Reporter

Restaurants of Jamaica, the franchise holders of KFC, is investing millions of dollars to expand and remodel its stores, a dictate of the multinational parent which is trying to reshape its image worldwide and has carved out a new and contemporary design for the restaurant chain.

The Myers family, owners of the local KFC franchise for three and a half decades, is to invest an initial US$1 million (J$67.5 million) in the development of its first model branch in Jamaica, a new restaurant in Port Maria, St. Mary later this year to create what will become the flagship for its other 31 stores nationwide.

Mark Myers, ROJ managing director, said each of the existing stores would get US$300,000 makeovers, pushing up the investment to be made by another $632 million.

The overall investment will therefore round out at about $7.4 billion.

Such projects tend to be partially financed by the franchising corporation, but Myers told the Financial Gleaner that he was getting no assistance from the American fast food giant, and was looking at its financing options locally for the project's roll-out.

KFC is expected to convert all its existing 31 stores over a 10-year period.

"It's exciting," said Myers, speaking with the Financial Gleaner, as he wrapped up his monthly board meeting as president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce Tuesday.

"In the next couple of years you are going to see a change in the brand that I can only go back as far as my memory serves me is typical of the early 80s in the life of KFC."

The Myers family has held the KFC, formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken, franchise since the early 1970s, acquiring the Pizza Hut franchise two decades later. Both franchise brands are owned by Yum! Brands Inc.

Myers on Tuesday described the food service business as challenging but said he anticipated at least a 10 per cent increase in business in line with the experience of other KFC locations internationally.

The Port Maria store will take up 2,500 square feet of the 3,000 square footage that Myers has leased in a shopping centre developed by the Chung family almost across from the new controversial bridge.

"What is exciting about that location is that it is very central location and will be the first of the new worldwide concept in Jamaica," said Myers.

He said essentially the exterior of the stores would drop, but retain a little of, the quick service feel and take on a more upmarket look and retaining the high standard for customer service.

The concept for the interior will centre on the origin and mode of preparation of the Kentucky Fried Chicken, but witha 'casual dining' feel to it.

Myers said the new theme would be a better fit for KFC customers, noting that diners were increasingly demanding more sophisticated service.

"It will be a very noticeable difference. It's a little softer and more up market," said Myers, who indisputably operates the most successful restaurant and fast food chain in Jamaica.

"The exterior brings to fore the core colour of the brand. The Colonel himself will get a make over. He'll be a little younger looking dressed in an apron so you get the feel that he is in the kitchen which is the whole basis of the brand it's not that it is factory made but kitchen produced and cooked fresh."

Myers says the KFC products would have the same 'value pricing', but was not specific.

The Port Maria store will have a 5,000 square footage reservation for future expansion.

Seven of the existing stores to be converted will be done within five years. Myers did not name the locations.

"The rest will be done as our schedule allows," he said.

For now, Myers said is more immediate challenge is raising capital.

"As a franchisee, we have to fund all of this. Obviously we'll have to look for financing anywhere we can," he told the Financial Gleaner.

"There should be an actual return on investments," he said. "Some locations have seen a 10 per cent increase in activities and we are hoping to see that too."

At one the Jamaican KFC, in a country of 2.6 million, had some of the highest volumes in customer traffic in the global chain, and was ranked in the top five at one point.

Then came KFC China, in a country of 1.3 billion.

On the local scene, Myers said while new products such as rotisserie chicken did not give the KFC brand as much competition as it did other fast food outlet., he said his revenues are currently flat.

In fact, he used the term 'challenging' to describe the chicken business, theorising that consumers have less disposable income.

"We have our good years and our tough years," said Myers.

Nonetheless, he still holds KFC as the market leader in taste and concepts.

The Port Maria branch which will not have a drive-through, is to No. 32 in the chain, following the most recent addition being in Portland a year ago which was relatively the same size as the Port Maria store.

Thirty per cent of the chain, or about 10 stores, have drive-through facilities.

The five Pizza Hut outlets pushes the ROJ chain of fast food outlets to a combined 37 stores.

Five KFC stores were added between 1990 and 2000.

Myers said he intends to reach 40 stores within a short period.

KFC Port Maria will employ 40 persons, upping the nationwide complement to about 1,240 direct employees.

susan.gordon@gleanerjm.com