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Rainforest Cafe Opens New Location in Cairo, Egypt (Press Release)
-- Chain Leader, 6/26/2008 4:39:00 PM
Houston - Rainforest Cafe announces the grand opening of its first Egypt location with partner Wataniya Restaurants. Mr. Zoaheir Garana, Egyptian Minister of Tourism, participated in the grand opening and ceremonial ribbon cutting.
The new restaurant is located on the fifth and sixth floors of CityStars Mall in Cairo, and can hold up to 550 diners.
"We are thrilled to bring the Rainforest Cafe to a dynamic international location like Cairo," said Tilman Fertitta, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Landry's Restaurants Inc. "It's a place that can be equally entertaining to parents, children or anyone looking for an energetic, fun atmosphere paired with delicious food and great service."
Whether guests pull up a chair next to frolicking monkeys or enter during a simulated thunder and lightning storm, they will be amazed and amused by the many surprises in store.
Visitors to the restaurant will be treated to a feast for the senses. This mind-blowing theme restaurant surrounds diners with the sights and sounds of a tropical rain forest - vine-wrapped trees, cascading waterfalls and lush foliage hanging from the ceiling.
Whimsical butterflies, trumpeting elephants, playful primates, snapping crocodiles, slithering snakes and other indigenous wildlife inhabit this 1,800 square meter authentic rain forest environment.
Beyond the state-of-the-art creatures and special effects, Rainforest Cafe is home to various live creatures. Giant-sized saltwater aquariums house more than 300 fish, representing more than 25 species from around the world. A full-time curator and staff of animal care specialists tend to these residents' every need. In addition to the live creatures, costumed characters visit the restaurant, adding fun and excitement to everyone's dining experience.
"Rainforest Cafe is so much more than a restaurant. Every meal is a sensory experience," said Director of Operations Sharif Wagdy. "I'm especially excited about a couple of new items we've added to bring international flair to the menu, the Luxor Lamb Chops and Congo Prawns are sure to be popular."
The menu offers plenty of choices to satisfy anyone's appetite while dining at Rainforest Cafe. The Awesome Appetizer Adventure, which is ideal for two or more, features a sampler of four of the favorite appetizer selections, including Chimi-Cha-Cha, Shrimp Dip Delight, Caribbean Chicken Tenders and Costal Calamari.
Dinner selections range from burgers to chicken, steak to seafood, including our BBQ Beef-Bacon Cheeseburger, a one-half-pound char-boiled burger topped with BBQ sauce, cheddar cheese and beef-bacon as well as fresh Sea Bass, charbroiled and served with a white butter sauce and fresh greens tossed in a citrus vinaigrette.
For journey's end, Rainforest Cafe creates signature sweets like the Sparkling Volcano, a giant rich chocolate brownie cake served warm with vanilla ice cream, fresh whipped cream, and caramel and chocolate sauces.
With two floors of food and fun, this location is well equipped for special events. Additionally, the Magic Mushroom Bar serves up the perfect space for dining and relaxation.
Moreover, Rainforest Cafe actually puts the earth-friendly theme into practice. Free educational tours help educate the public about the world's rain forests, threatened and endangered species, and conservation efforts to protect the planet's fragile ecosystems. These tours also are available for schools, businesses, charitable organizations and other groups. Tracy the Talking Tree - just one of the impressive animatronics who resides in the Rainforest Cafe Retail Village - educates and entertains guests with environmental messages every 30 seconds.
Rainforest Cafe also provides a unique shopping experience. The Retail Village, located on the restaurant's first level, offers a wild selection of souvenir T-shirts, hats and sweatshirts featuring Cha! Cha! the red-eyed tree frog and the rest of the "Wild Bunch"(r) animal characters. The store offers a wide variety of rainforest-themed items, from hanging monkeys and snakes to stretchy, squishy frogs and lizards. There is something special for everyone in the family.
Rainforest Cafe, a wholly owned subsidiary of Landry's Restaurants Inc., develops, owns and operates combination restaurant/retail facilities in a stimulating and entertaining rain forest theme. With the opening of the Cairo location, there are 36 Rainforest Cafe restaurants worldwide, 26 of which are domestic locations.
Rainforest Cafe Cairo is open 11 a.m. to 1 a.m., Monday through Sunday.
Landry's Restaurants, Inc. is one of the nation's largest and fastest growing casual-dining and entertainment companies. Publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, Landry's owns and operates various dining concepts, including Landry's Seafood House, The Crab House, Rainforest Cafe, Charley's Crab, Willie G's Seafood & Steak House, The Chart House and Saltgrass Steak House. Landry's also owns numerous properties including Downtown Aquarium complexes in Houston and Denver, Kemah Boardwalk, a magnificent 40-acre, family-oriented themed entertainment destination and the Golden Nugget hotel-casino properties in Las Vegas and Laughlin, Nevada.
Hey if anyone visits this place please give us a feedback. Thanks!!
Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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Wataniya Restaurants’ new concept café isthe company’s first in a line of investments in Egypt’s dining scene
By Tamer Hafez
Having a rainforest in the middle of a busy city is a somewhat illogical prospect. A rainforest means trees, wild animals and the kind of entertainment only Tarzan would fancy; not exactly what you expect from modern city life. The notion becomes even more absurd when the country in question is 96% desert.
Nevertheless, one of the latest additions to Cairo’s restaurant scene, the Rainforest Café, does bring rainforest to the urban jungle. Recently opened in CityStars, the café is the first in a string of concept restaurants Qatar-based Wataniya Restaurants is introducing to Egypt.
The Rainforest Café is not just a clever concept developed locally to attract clients. Rather, it is an international brand with a chain of 35 different outlets located from the United States to France and Japan. The café’s creators, American Landry Restaurants, license operators to use the Rainforest trademark across the world. Wataniya won the license for the Middle East, and the restaurant in Cairo is the first one in the region.
As Wataniya officially commenced operations at the Rainforest Café in May, Business Today Egypt took the chance to find out from Chief Operations Officer Sherif Wagdy whether this opening should be considered an alert to competitors that there is a new type of competition in the restaurant sector.
Always a Bit of Room
As with almost all markets, there is always some space in which to squeeze a new niche. “This market is very hungry for food and beverage,” says Wagdy. “Obviously tourism is getting stronger by the day, which means that not an insignificant portion of the foreign clientele feels comfortable when seeing a brand they already know from their hometown. Also there is a gap between five-star hotel restaurants and casual, stand-alone diners in terms of quality of food, service and experience.”
The company has a strategy for filling the gap, says Wagdy. “We aim at combining the best of both worlds: We will offer similar, if not better quality service and food than five-star hotel restaurants, while maintaining the casual nature of a stand-alone restaurant [or] diner.” The unique nature of the restaurant makes it a draw. “Rainforest Café is an experience and a destination. You wake up and decide to go to Rainforest,” says Wagdy.
The effort to make the restaurant look as much like as a rainforest as the inside of a building can, is evident. This is perhaps something else that is missing from the local dining scene: A concept restaurant that adheres so well to its theme.
This is not just another marketing idea to make the restaurant stand out either. It is a fully-fledged, ‘partly-artificial’ rainforest with several huge saltwater fish tanks, animatronics and sound effects that would normally be found in only, well, a rainforest. The animals move around every 15 minutes and a thunderstorm passes every 30, making the restaurant a riveting experience for kids, if not necessarily a romantic evening out.
The Rainforest Café further adds to its customers’ experience — and its revenues — by having a themed store nearby that sells Rainforest branded products ranging from simple T-shirts to mugs and stationary. It is clear that the café is making its best effort to live up to Wagdy’s claim that; “Rainforest will suite anyone from the age of three to the age of 103.”
Making the Right Choices
CityStars mall has proven successful in attracting the most expensive retail brands since its 2006 opening. This made it a natural choice for the first Rainforest Café. “CityStars sees almost 70,000 visitors on a daily basis from all walks of life,” explains Wagdy. “All of them come to shop or just walk about and enjoy the experience. So it is an ideal place for us to be, especially since we position ourselves as a destination much like CityStars.”
The property upon which Rainforest is located is almost 1,800 square meters with a capacity for 550 diners. It cost Wataniya $11 million (LE 58.85 million).
Hiring was a big concern for such a large restaurant — over 300 positions needed to be filled. “It is critical to our success that we choose the right people,” says Wagdy. “The right people are not necessarily those with the most relevant experience, rather it is those with the most relevant attitude.”
Wagdy does not believe in hiring foreigners as head chefs or restaurant managers, because, he says, “hospitality is a natural part of the Egyptian community; it just needs the right environment to shine.”
Restaurant suppliers were another big issue, as the quality of supplies directly affects the output of any restaurant. “We don’t import any components, all is provided by local distributors,” says Wagdy. “Our sauces and dressings are all made in-house, so we don’t risk our secrets being leaked and ensure 100% quality every time.” To this he adds; “what I didn’t expect to find is just how proactive the suppliers are, and their willingness to cooperate with us. Accordingly we are seeking to establish a partnership with them to ensure consistent supply of the raw material we need.”
A major part of the Rainforest Café experience is the animatronics and the wild interior decor that sets it apart from other restaurants. “We contracted the Cunningham Group for the architecture, as they have previously designed several Rainforest Cafés,” says Wagdy. “Then when it came to execution, we hired a local company called Euroegypt and sent them to the US to see the Rainforest Cafés there and get suitable training, to come and execute the designs created by the Cunningham Group,” he says. “We had to use US expertise at this stage because we are still at the beginning of the learning curve. Accordingly the more we learn, the more we are able to use local talent.”
More Concepts Coming
As a local saying goes, “you will never lose money if you open a food shop, no matter what it is.” This is the inspiration behind the future plans of Wataniya: “We are not allowed to open two Rainforest Cafés in the same city, accordingly we plan to have another one in Sharm El-Sheikh. Also, we are looking at Luxor and Alexandria,” says Wagdy. “Other plans include looking at opening other concepts throughout the capital including a T-Rex Café, Aquarium Restaurant [whose walls will be a single continuous aquarium and could have sharks and other rare fish], Grotto, Vic and Antony’s and Classic Grill.”
Altogether, five more concept restaurants will be open within the coming year throughout Cairo. According to Wagdy, “the concepts will span everything from fine dining to casual cafés. Our next 12-month budget will be anywhere from $10 million to $20 million [LE 53.5 million to 107 million].” bt
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Me cheeky and Miss Shram went to the city stars one the other day and its great. mmmmm garlic mash. Sophie loved the tunder and lightening until she fell asleep on cheekys knee. We plan to go back tomorrow
Posts: 1710 | From: we come in peace | Registered: Mar 2008
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Thunder, lightning, rainforest, animal figures...sounds like restaurant Planet Africa in Heliopolis.
Posts: 758 | From: Finland | Registered: Jun 2006
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Wow, who would have thought they would open one in Cairo. I've been to the one in Overland Park, KS many times... great place to take kids, a little on the expensive side however.
We'll have to visit City Stars soon Posts: 409 | From: Betelgeuse | Registered: Oct 2005
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FP, there is a list on the back of places that have the cafes.. I would love to see others as they were't typical global hotspots that have them... I would love to go to KS...
got my itchy feet
Posts: 11097 | From: Cairo | Registered: May 2008
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got my itchy feet
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