Turkish bagel operator Simit Sarayi is understood to be in talks on securing its first UK site in central London.
The company, which currently operates across c150 sites in Turkey and other units in the US, the Netherlands, Germany, Egypt, Kuwait, Belgium, Cyprus and Saudi Arabia, is believed to be close to taking a unit on Oxford Street, in the West One Shopping scheme.
The group opened its first store in 2002 and it now has over 200 mostly franchised branches, and revenues – excluding franchisees’ sales – of c$85m (£50.7m).
Earlier this year, Simit Sarayi chief executive Abdullah Kavukçu said: “We receive 800 franchise proposals every month, on average, most of which come from abroad. We plan to open new restaurants in the UK, US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Jordan in 2014 and aim to have 560 restaurants abroad in total by 2018.”
