Jamal Hirani buys Bombay Bicycle Club
Asian entrepreneur Jamal Hirani, whose Gourmet Restaurants group owns the Tiffinbites chain, has just extended his Indian restaurant empire by buying the Bombay Bicycle Club in £4.4m deal.
Hirani sees huge potential in the Bombay Bicycle Club and plans to extend the three-chain restaurant to between 100-200 locations throughout Britain.
“Bombay Bicycle Club is the Indian Domino’s Pizza – there’s a big opportunity,” he says.
Hirani, formerly a buyer at Marks & Spencer, opened his first Tiffinbites on Soho’s Wardour Street in 2003, having spent six months researching the market – sitting in cafés, noting what time customers came in, what they bought and how much they spent.
Within three weeks of opening his first restaurant, he was turning a profit.