September the 5th, 2023 – It’s been four years since the first Split vegan restaurant, Pandora Greenbox plant-based food, opened its doors. It is now planning expansion through the franchise model.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes, it’s now been a couple of years since the first idea of expanding the business came to the minds of the owners of this popular Split vegan restaurant. The Pandora Greenbox plant-based food project took that idea a step further this past week, launching a franchise that it will offer to interested parties based here in Croatia and abroad.
Croatia is a nation of meat lovers, but the first Split vegan restaurant did very well among both locals and tourists alike. It has become a serious vegan restaurant with a recognisable interior that has already established itself as a strong brand and has acquired all the conditions for a franchise that they plan to present at the first major franchise fair in Zagreb at the end of September. They are already working on selling the franchise outside of the Republic of Croatia’s borders.
Owing to the sheer amount of interest shown by potential partners even before the official launch of the franchise, it’s deemed to be more than likely that we will soon see Pandora Greenbox restaurants open their doors in Zagreb, Šibenik, Zadar, Osijek and Rijeka. Outside of Croatia, we’ll also likely see those same doors open in Bratislava, thanks to a Slovak restaurateur who recently became very interested in this concept, according to owner Danijell Nikolla. In addition to this Split vegan restaurant, he also has two other restaurants in Split, Corto Maltese and Profesor Thrill, all in Obrov street.
A rapidly growing segment
“That’s how the idea of a franchise started, from guests who, in our first year of operation alone, often asked us if this restaurant existed in other cities. This is a seemingly unusual question, but it turned out that our concept has a lot of potential for a franchise, which we developed with the help of Andrija Čolak and his consulting firm, Colak Franchise Consulting Group. The process itself took some time, because we needed to complete the administration processes and get everything in order to be able to support the work of the Split restaurant and the educational team that will be made available to those who opt for the franchise,” explained Nikolla. He has outlined his plans, but he isn’t willing to reveal them before the realisation of the first franchises truly begins, but the potential for this project exists both elsewhere across Croatia and abroad.
“When we started out, there wasn’t a single vegan restaurant open in Split, now you have six or seven of them, it’s a fast-growing segment of hospitality that is in high demand both in Croatia and abroad. Franchise business in catering is also on the rise, so we believe that we’re on the right track with these plans of ours. We’re already seeing the interest of potential franchisers, but we’re only just getting started officially,” stated Nikolla.
Pandora Greenbox was opened back during the summer of 2019, just before the coronavirus pandemic struck the following spring. The very first Split vegan restaurant not only managed to survive that unprecedented global public health crisis, but also used that period to protect their brand, logo and interior design, and then to develop the franchise. It’s worth noting that the restaurant was named after Pandora, the love of Corto Maltese from the comics, and the “surname” Greenbox is a combination of the green colour of herbs and Pandora’s box from mythology. Pandora is the holder of the Gault & Millau award for the best bar in Croatia in 2022 and the BIG SEE Interior Design Award in 2021 for the best interior.
The menu carries great importance
As is customary, they offer a wide support package to their franchisees both during the start-up of the restaurant and later on, spanning all ten years of the contract period. As it is a very specific design, they even offer their own workmen for interior decoration, and of course staff training, from the cooks to the table service.
In order to meet the requirements, franchisers need to have a space of 60 to 200 square metres located in a nice and busy part of the city such as a business or tourist district, and the investment ranges from 150-300 thousand euros. Those figures are more or less similar to those required for any other restaurant, and the number of required staff is similar – 15-20 people currently work at Pandora in Split.
When it comes to other cities in the Republic of Croatia, exclusive franchises will be given per city, but in larger European cities this could also be distributed. An important condition is the menu, which is exclusively composed of foods of plant origin, including the milk put into the coffee. Nikolla himself is neither vegan nor vegetarian, but he admits that since working for Pandora he has altered his diet and claims that since doing so, he’s never looked better.
