Celebrity Chef Vikram Vij is partnering with Eat Up Canada to launch a new chef-inspired Indian street food restaurant concept called ‘Bombay Frankies‘ in the Greater Toronto Area in September.
Newmarket will be Bombay Frankies’ first location in Canada with franchising opportunities to grow the brand.
Restaurant industry veterans and co-founders of Eat Up Canada, Alex Gerzon and George Heos, already have plans for Bombay Frankies’ growth and expansion across Canada. Â
“The goal is to open three to five locations in the first year, with the potential for more than 100 restaurants in 10 years,” said Heos. “Having seen the rise in popularity of Indian cuisine in Canada, we believe there’s a huge opportunity for Bombay Frankies in the fast casual restaurant sector.
“We really wanted to start with a great site. It wasn’t so much which specific market it would be. Our strategy is going to be to locate our restaurants in very high quality shopping centres and this is one of those types of shopping centres. We’re building a brand that is going to have mass appeal.
“Sometimes I think people think that it’s a so-called ethnic brand and shouldn’t you be going into a market that is predominantly that ethnic group. Our strategy is really to build a brand that is going to be enjoyed by Canadians as a whole rather than targeting all these specific demographic groups.”
The restaurant is named after India’s all-time number one street food, the frankie roll, which originated in the city of Bombay. The frankie is a handheld, burrito-style flatbread wrap called a paratha, filled with meat or vegetables and Indian spices and sauces. Bombay Frankies will serve a variety of meat and vegetarian frankie options, plus frankie bowls, salads, side items and drinks.
Celebrity Chef, restaurateur, cookbook author and TV personality Vij will oversee menu development as the team prepares for the grand opening of the first Bombay Frankies in Newmarket, at Yonge Street and Green Lane at the Green Lane Centre, in early September.
“Those AAA type newer centres is what our strategy will be,” said Heos.
Franchising opportunities are available, and Eat Up Canada is looking for great locations for Bombay Frankies across the GTA and Ontario, ideally between 1,200 and 1,500 square feet.
“My partner Alex Gerzon and I have collectively been in the restaurant industry over 50 years,” said Heos. “We realize that at the end of the day a restaurant concept is successful because of the food. Marketing and branding and all that is great but people choose based on their stomach. Does it taste good and do they feel good about eating it?
“We fell in love with this product when we first tried it about three years ago. We didn’t know anything about it, what a frankie was. And we tried it and we found it was very, very craveable. And as we started to do more research we realized this was India’s number one street food, available widely there. And we just thought this was a product that we really could build a brand around. It was something that we believed Canadians will love.
“It’s an affordable handheld product that can be made quickly, enjoyed whether it’s on the go or it’s going to be a great delivery, pick-up product which is obviously very important these days. At the end of the day, it’s an opportunity to expose the wonderful tastes and flavours of India in a format that a lot of Canadians would be comfortable with, which is a handheld burrito-like product.”
Heos said he and Gerzon feel so fortunate to work with Vij, someone who is so accomplished in the Indian space and is so passionate about this project. He was born in India and is from Bombay. It’s one of the reasons Eat Up Canada is so confident in the brand. People rave about his food and Vij is not just a chef but a restaurateur as well. He believes in hospitality and guest service.
“Frankies have always been dear to my heart because they bring me back to the streets of India, its culture and deep-rooted food history. Namaste and enjoy,” says Vij.
Eat Up Canada, which was formed in 2021, is the Canadian master franchisee for Pokeworks and is focused on developing restaurant brands new to Canada. Prior to launching Eat Up Canada, Heos and Gerzon were the co-founders of Onfire Restaurants Inc. and have held senior roles in franchising, real estate, construction, finance, marketing, and operations at some of Canada’s largest restaurant companies.
