Aggregating F&B outfit Deliveroo brought a lifeline to businesses operating during the coronavirus pandemic – and Samer Hamadeh, founder of Aegis Hospitality, revealed the service “saved” his Dubai-based restaurant Akiba Dori.
Delivery companies came under fire during the lockdown measures introduced across the UAE in March and April last year, with a reluctance to reduce fees and commission rates, to support local restaurants.
But Hamadeh told Arabian Business, his trendy Akiba Dori restaurant, in Dubai Design District (d3), which is styled like the backstreet alleyways of Tokyo, wouldn’t be here today without Deliveroo.
He said: “They saved us during the lockdown because they were paying us our revenue weekly instead of once-a-month as they did before, so we had quicker access to our cash, which was amazing.
“They hired more riders to keep up with demand. They pushed us to create more virtual brands that we could push, which we did successfully. They onboarded a lot of people that I guarantee would have died without people like Deliveroo or Zomato or Talabat. They onboarded a lot of brands that weren’t delivering before, that never wanted to deliver before.
Samer Hamadeh, founder of Aegis Hospitality
“For those six weeks when we were completely closed for business, delivery completely saved us and it ended up elevating our service offering, elevating our delivery numbers, and that’s continued.”
Hamadeh said that deliveries previously constituted around 2.5-5 percent of annual revenue as a business, but this jumped to 12 percent. “We saw a good 7.5 percent-to-10 percent jump, which is extraordinary,” he said.
A second kitchen was opened on Hessa Street in order to meet demand, although Hamadeh conceded that bricks-and-mortar will remain a fundamental part of the business, with plans revealed this week to open a further three Akiba Dori restaurants this year, in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
He said: “Everybody survived because of deliveries during the pandemic. I was never a big fan of shifting my business to just a delivery model, not because I have a problem with delivery, I just think people want to be in a restaurant, they want to be in this third space because we’re social creatures.”
Hamadeh added that the support received from the government has also been invaluable.
Akiba Dori in Dubai Design District
“Another thing that everybody probably appreciates is the amount of tax cuts we got, a lot of fees got frozen by the government. Everyone from Dubai Tourism to Dubai Municipality, to even the CID, everybody was reaching into their own pockets and helping out the industry.
“And this is not a small industry, the F&B industry in Dubai is bigger than Manhatten, which is a problem but alsoo that’s the kind of burden that the government is trying to shoulder,” he said.
“Yes we pay our taxes, we’ve always paid our taxes, but when the time came for us to be pulled out of the gutter, they stepped up. I really think it would have been a very different conversation we were having now if those things hadn’t happened.”
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