Eland Eats halts franchise operations for Rimini, Asia Moon brands

Eland Eats is restructuring its restaurant portfolio, suspending franchise operations for its Italian dining brand Rimini and Asian dining brand Asia Moon as growth at both concepts has slowed, while doubling down on its flagship brand Ashley Queens.

According to industry sources Friday, Eland Eats voluntarily withdrew last month the franchise disclosure document registrations for Rimini and Asia Moon. Registering such a document is a mandatory step for operating a franchise business in South Korea, and withdrawing it in effect means halting franchise operations.

Rimini currently operates about 30 stores in total, all but one of them company-owned. Asia Moon has just one location, a franchised outlet. Neither brand had shown signs of opening new franchise locations or expanding recently, leaving little practical reason to maintain franchise status. "Neither brand had plans to open additional franchise locations, so we did not proceed with registering or renewing the disclosure documents," an Eland Eats official said.

Beyond Asia Moon and Rimini, Eland Eats operates a broad portfolio of dining and cafe brands, including Ashley Queens, Jayeonbyeolgok, Roun Shabu Shabu, Pizza Mall, Teru, Bangung, The Cafe, Frangerie, Steakus, Lugo, Percheno and Deli by Ashley.

The company is not exiting the franchise business altogether. Eland Eats continues to run franchise operations across several dining and cafe brands — Bangung, Teru, Asia Moon, Steakus and Huwon on the dining side, and The Cafe and Lugo among its cafe concepts.

Earlier last year, Eland Eats explored selling off non-core brands with weaker business prospects. The company selected Samsung KPMG as its sale adviser and pursued buyers for six dining brands and three cafe brands.

An Eland Eats official said the sale plan is no longer a top priority. "It is not something we are actively pursuing with high urgency at this point," the official said, adding that brand operations and support for existing franchisees are continuing as normal. "We plan to assess the most appropriate direction for each brand by comprehensively reviewing market conditions, brand competitiveness and operational efficiency," the official added.

Eland Eats is aggressively expanding around Ashley Queens, its flagship buffet brand. The chain's annual sales last year are estimated at around 500 billion won (approximately $327 million). The company has grown the number of Ashley Queens stores from 59 in 2022 to 120, and this year is targeting annual sales of 800 billion won and a nationwide store count of more than 150.