Should your business be in Dubai? And if so, when?
This piece was originally shared on LinkedIn in response to recurring conversations with founders and leadership teams around this topic.
I’m publishing it here as part of an ongoing body of thinking around restaurant strategy, market entry, and operational decision-making.
I hear this question constantly.
Sites move quickly, decision windows are short, and competitors announce openings.
The market's momentum creates a sense that if you don't act now, you'll miss the ‘gold rush’.
What stands out in the strongest operators is how they respond to that pressure.
They slow the conversation down and test the idea properly:
- What could the same capital build closer to home?
- Who runs the new site, and what gets pulled from the existing business?
- How long does a Dubai site take to pay back once learning curves are factored in?
A single site rarely makes sense for most. The question becomes whether there's real potential to scale across the region.
If they do decide to move forward, it’s with the right local partner, a structure that protects brand standards and thresholds that make long-term commercial sense - number of sites, payback timeline, opportunity to expand into verticals.
The underlying challenge is rarely strategy itself, but how early decisions constrain execution later.