A Singaporean entrepreneur has opened the first fast food restaurant in North Korea and he is already drawing up expansion plans just months after opening the first shop, AFP reported.
The first branch of ``Samtaesong (Three Big Stars)'' started operating in May in Pyongyang after Patrick Soh got the first license awarded to a foreign fast food outlet.
Soh, 56, holds the franchise in several Asian countries under the title of ``Waffletown,'' a relatively obscure brand compared to the likes of McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut.
"There is a potential to develop this business over there," Soh was quoted as saying. He is bullish on the prospects of fast food in the isolated Stalinist state.
According to AFP, burgers, called "minced beef and bread" in North Korea to mask their American association, are the biggest attraction at the eatery, which also sells fries, crispy Belgian waffles, fried chicken and ― the latest addition ― hotdogs.
"It is not only the locals who enjoy the food. Even the foreigners like the food," Soh told AFP in an interview at a Singapore outlet of Waffletown.
Soh will make his fourth trip to Pyongyang this month to explore the feasibility of opening a second outlet there.
If all goes smoothly, it should be up and running in early 2010, said Soh, who is not deterred by problems like power outages and the unavailability of some items in Pyongyang.
Soh made his first trip to Pyongyang in November last year, taking four days to survey the site and see whether the fast food concept was workable in one of the world's few remaining communist states.