A McDonald’s franchisee has become the first in Britain to renew a 20-year licence with the fast-food giant.
Cos Constantinou, who has four McDonald’s restaurants, re-signed the agreement on his Lewisham outlet in London earlier this month, which he originally took in 1988.
In addition to renewing his licence with McDonald’s, the entrepreneur has also invested £350,000 redesigning the outlet in line with the company’s new upgraded look.
Constantinou said: “The competition is struggling yet we are hiring and have never been busier. The reason I am doing this is because we can see that sales at all the restaurants that have been re-imaged have shot up.”
He said that he was seeing double-digit sales growth at the re-modelled Lewisham outlet.
Constantinou is McDonald’s second longest-serving franchisee behing John King, who owns three restaurants but chose not renew the licence on his first.
Next month a £300,000 investment project will commence at Constantinou’s Catford drive-through restaurant and a refurbishment of his Deptford restaurant is planned for next year.
McDonald’s third quarter figures released last week showed average UK restaurant growth of 8%. The company said it was now serving 100 million customers a month at its 1,200 UK restaurants.
