Tevelev Mikhail Alexandrovich "DP" spoke about the financial problems of the owner of the restaurants "Two Sticks" and "Marcellis" and his failed exit in the United States

The Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region registered three lawsuits against Aquarium LLC for a total amount of more than 510 million rubles. One of them, on the recovery of 195 million rubles, has already been accepted for proceedings, follows from the materials of the court. All three statements relate to non-performance or improper performance of obligations under loan agreements, indicated in the file of arbitration cases.

The plaintiff company, Agro-Spektr LLC, was registered in St. Petersburg in 2010 and has not yet participated in arbitration proceedings. The firm is managed by Dmitry Bykov, who also owns shares in Glass Project LLC (100%) and Kulon LLC (50%) and heads a total of four legal entities. Among other things, he is listed as the general director of OAO Energomekhanicheskiy Zavod.

Agro-Spectrum is owned by Finecross Organization Inc., a company registered in the Seychelles. The principal activity of the plaintiff firm is “manufacture of other basic organic chemicals”.

Half of Aquarium LLC is owned by a well-known restaurateur, co-founder of Food Retail Group Mikhail Tevelev and PSK LLC, owned by Elena Zhelnovskaya. She is also listed as the general director of Aquarium.

Aquarium was first mentioned in media publications in 2012. Then it became known that the co-founders of Food Retail Group Mikhail Tevelev and Evgeny Kadomsky bought an unfinished building on Ho Chi Minh Avenue to open the first entertainment center of the new network there. About 1 billion rubles were invested in the project, Tevelev told reporters. MazaPark on Ho Chi Minh City opened in July 2015, and already in December, the media reported that the building was put up for auction by the Russian Auction House. Tevelev then explained that they plan to sell the building to pay off the loan taken to open the park. The initial price of the lot was 850 million rubles. In April 2016, a new auction was held, there is no information about its results on the AHRF website.

As of February of this year, the MazaPark network was no longer managed by Aquarium, but by Vanderland LLC. This company, along with Mazapark LLC, became a defendant in the lawsuit of minority shareholders of the network Renat Grankin, Pavel Timts and Anton Sigaev in the winter. They contested an agreement on the transfer by Wonderland to Mazapark of non-exclusive rights to use the three trademarks of Mazapark. As Grankin explained to Vedomosti, Tevelev and Kadomtsev, without agreement with the co-owners of the network, removed Sigaev from the post of general director and appointed Elena Zhelnovskaya instead. She, in turn, transferred the right to use trademarks to Mazapark for a symbolic sum.

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Holding Food Retail Group, burdened with loans for 9.9 billion rubles, received bankruptcy claims from two dozen of its companies. The group's business was knocked down by the failure of the ambitious project of the Urbo restaurant in Manhattan worth 3.2 billion rubles.

Food Retail Group (FRG), founded by Mikhail Tevelev and Yevgeny Kadomsky, was on the verge of collapse after the failure of the ambitious Urbo restaurant project on Time Square in New York. Investments in it, according to the interlocutors of "DP", amounted to $ 55 million (3.2 billion rubles at the current exchange rate). However, Urbo did not work even for 2 years and closed in the spring of 2016.

Against the background of the devaluation of the ruble, problems began in the Russian business of FRG. The group includes the restaurant chains "Two sticks" (22 restaurants) and "Marcelli's" (10 restaurants), restaurants Biblioteka on Nevsky Prospekt and "Big Kitchen" in the shopping mall "Gallery", street food "Kulek", a catering service, as well as business Swissam school and other projects.

Today, the largest restaurant group in St. Petersburg in terms of total revenue is going through difficult times: bankruptcy claims have been filed against 20 FRG legal entities, six of them this week. The amount of loans and credits of the holding companies, according to SPARK, amounted to almost 9.9 billion rubles in 2015 (no more recent reports were submitted to SPARK). Over the past couple of years, FRG companies have received claims from banks, contractors and suppliers for almost 1 billion rubles, it follows from the data of the arbitration court. In particular, the bank "Saint-Petersburg" insistently proposes to put up for auction the brand "Two sticks" as a debt.

"DP" learned how such a successful holding got into a deplorable position, as well as who in the restaurant market is considered the savior of FRG.

Ambitions grew

The first restaurant, Two Sticks on Italianskaya Street, was opened by Mikhail Tevelev and Yevgeny Kadomsky in 2003. Their company was then called "PSK-holding". A year later, businessmen founded a network of European canteens "Meatballs". Both projects were successful.

When the business flourished, Kadomsky and Tevelev decided to work in related areas - for example, in 2013, the first entertainment center Maza Park was opened. In addition, entrepreneurs have a business school of management in the service and culinary arts industry Swissam. The holding was named Food Retail Group, successfully passed several economic crises and continued to develop.

"The ambitions of the owners grew. They began to study the restaurant markets of London, Stockholm. Eventually they arrived in New York. They realized that one restaurant there could have a turnover equal to their entire group. First they were looking for a room for Two Sticks, and then they decided launch an independent large-scale restaurant project," an entrepreneur familiar with the FRG business tells DP.

New York, New York

Such a project was the incredibly ambitious Urbo in Manhattan - a restaurant with 687 seats on two floors with a mezzanine in a building right on Time Square. Renting almost 2.5 thousand m2 in this building cost restaurateurs $480 thousand. per month. The Urbo presentation indicated the amount of investment in the startup - $ 46 million. However, according to the interlocutor of "DP", who is familiar with the FRG business, as a result, the amount reached $ 55 million, which is equal to 3.2 billion rubles at the current exchange rate. However, the restaurant was expected to have an annual turnover of up to $50 million, so the investment seemed economically justified.

In fact, Urbo included several establishments: three restaurant halls with different types kitchens, a main boarding area with a conservatory and open kitchen, a VIP event room, a bar, a coffee shop, a souvenir shop and take away shops, and even a secret restaurant on the mezzanine. FRG owners have loved the secret restaurant format ever since they launched the restaurant. indian cuisine Apteka on Nevsky Prospekt in the same building as its own Biblioteka restaurant.

However, the fate of Urbo was not as rosy as its creators had hoped. The opening was somewhat delayed, and the second floor did not start working at full capacity. As a result, only additional costs for paying rent exceeded $10 million, the source told DP. Also, according to him, restaurateurs had to pay a salary to a star chef, although his services were not yet required. Moreover, when the restaurant did open, the chef was almost immediately lured to another employer.

In the spring of 2016, Urbo closed without turning a profit. So FRG had impressive losses. The group also did not receive a refund of about $20 million invested in the renovation of the premises. The American owner of the building referred to delays in paying rent, the interlocutors of DP said.

Mikhail Tevelev, co-owner of Food Retail Group:

Opening a restaurant in New York was a bold decision. As a result, I got a good life experience, which not only revealed the differences in approaches to marketing, but also taught me where to go. We planned to do a joint project with famous producer Reidy Vinen dedicated to Frank Sinatra. But, unfortunately, the doubled dollar exchange rate did not allow us to attract the necessary amount of investment, and we were not ready to continue to support the love of American consumers for fast food.

As for the bankruptcy of legal entities that are part of the FRG, it is impossible to work all your life in the same structure and according to the old rules. Since the establishment of the Food Retail Group, business conditions have changed, legislation has changed. You need to be in trend and develop. We conducted an internal audit and identified problems. One of them is debt. Today FRG is undergoing its restructuring. The issue of overdue accounts payable in FRG is practically resolved. We are moving on to stable servicing of current debt.

We attracted loan financing, like any large growing business. It is a pity that the currency. During the crisis, the rules of the game for suppliers have changed. Conditions that everyone used to work on - such as a 60-day deferred payment - no longer apply. Postpaid has become unaffordable for many companies. Suppliers needed credit resources to pay for purchased products.

In addition, we attracted new investors to develop the network. Also last year we decided to provide a franchise. In my opinion, this idea has already begun to justify itself. Closing the business is out of the question. We are actively developing.

Like ships at sea

Since 2016, FRG companies have begun to receive lawsuits. Several food and drink suppliers for the chain's restaurants told DP that delays in payments have recently begun to be 3-6 months.

The Group received credits from Saint-Petersburg, Absolut Bank, Petrocommerce and others. In one of the lawsuits, St. Petersburg demanded that the Two Sticks brand be put up for auction on account of the holding's debts, offering a starting price of 20-30 million rubles.

During the ensuing turmoil, one of the founders of the group, Yevgeny Kadomsky, decided to leave the business. As already told by "DP", Mikhail Tevelev did not buy out the share of Yevgeny Kadomsky. The partners agreed to share control over the holding's projects in non-cash form. According to SPARK, Yevgeny Kadomsky began to go out of business in 2015. It was then that his shares in numerous legal entities of the group began to pass to Mikhail Tevelev and companies affiliated with him.

Tevelev himself calls Kadomsky the founding father of all FRG projects. “His contribution is invaluable. As far as I know, he is now successfully developing his directions and ideas. Perhaps someday in the future, Evgeny and I will launch a new, no less interesting joint project,” Tevelev says about his former business partner.

Contact with Yevgeny Kadomsky "DP" failed. According to SPARK, after leaving FRG, he did not register new companies, but Kadomsky is credited with creating a secret restaurant "Kostya Kreutz's Apartment" in a building on the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and st. Marat. The area of ​​​​the premises is 800 m2, you can get there only after prior registration. This format of the restaurant "not for everyone" has recently been in trend.

Kirill Nikolaev, Managing Partner of NICA multi family office:

Food Retail Group was my client from 2013 to 2015. In particular, I helped raise approximately $25 million from investors in the construction, pharmaceutical and financial sectors to launch an American project, the Urbo restaurant, which closed in the spring of 2016. Now there is a process of restructuring of relations between investors and FRG as the company managing the project.

Urbo's idea was to diversify risks: if there were problems in Russian business, the American project would serve as a kind of float. But as a result, Urbo, on the contrary, turned into an anchor. After its launch, FRG faced the operational reality of New York City's largest restaurant market in the world. I had to reformat the project, and it's like going out of town in a Ferrari, and on the way converting it into a jeep.

In addition, the owners of FRG, Evgeny Kadomsky and Mikhail Tevelev, did not have the opportunity to move to New York for a year and control the launch of the restaurant. There were many other problems as well. For example, a restaurant opened in the summer of 2014, and already in November-December, the ruble devalued.

At the end of 2013, Evgeny and Mikhail offered me to lead FRG as a managing partner. However, it turned out that their views on how the business should be developed differ. This situation is always not good for the business, so I first proposed dividing the business, and until mid-2014 I was engaged in structuring the conditions for Kadomsky's exit from all projects. The most attractive conditions for him were in the summer of 2014: he could receive up to $60 million for shares in all companies, including MazaPark. But this process dragged on and ended without me. I believe that if the "divorce" of the business partners had taken place then, in 2014, many of the group's current problems could have been avoided.

Rescue of the drowning

Restaurant market players suggest that the head of the St. Petersburg Boxing Sports Federation, Maxim Zhukov, took over the rescue of FRG, paying off part of the group's debts and thus buying out Yevgeny Kadomsky's share.

Indirectly, this is also indicated by the fact that in May 2016, the Agro-Spektr company founded by Maxim Zhukov bought out part of the debts of the Aquarium company, which was part of the FRG, and is now bankrupting it (according to the claims of the case in the arbitration court). Agro-Spectrum also acts as a third party in the case of recovering more than 250 million rubles of debts from the companies of Tevelev and Kadomsky on loans taken from the bank Saint Petersburg. Agro-Spectrum also has several companies managing FRG restaurants as a pledge, according to SPARK.

Now "Agro-Spectrum" is registered offshore in the Seychelles. However, both at the time of its foundation and now, the general director of the company is Dmitry Bykov, a former official of the Committee for Improvement and Road Facilities of Smolny. On the market, he is considered the main representative of the business interests of Maxim Zhukov. In addition, Bykov and Zhukov are business partners. According to the disclosure of information by the Energomechanical Plant at the end of 2016, each of them owns almost 20% of the shares of OJSC. The company is located in St. Petersburg on Nevzorova street, is one of the leading Russian manufacturers high voltage equipment.

However, a representative of Maxim Zhukov told DP that he is not a co-owner of FRG, has not paid the group's debts and does not plan to negotiate a purchase of a stake in FRG. Mikhail Tevelev also said that Maxim Zhukov has nothing to do with the FRG business. According to him, Agro-Spectrum supports FRG in restructuring the holding's credit debt and advises on further business development options. "The Aquarium company had nothing to do with the Two Sticks restaurants. It was another investment and creative idea. It has already fulfilled its business function," Tevelev said.

Alexander Zatulivetrov, co-owner of SkyRest Group:

Food Retail Group has always been distinguished by its innovative approach and great attention to creativity in the development of new concepts. I think the reason for the holding's problems is growing pains. New original concepts developed very rapidly: Bengel & Zaek, a restaurant in New York. Creativity came first, not economics. FRG had a strong creative team of marketers, not pragmatic financiers. Excessive enthusiasm for creativity, when the company lived in a big way, in the current economic conditions, could play a bad joke and cause financial problems.

Nikolai Mitchin, managing partner of the restaurant group Beer Family project:

We ourselves, as beer suppliers, are faced with systemic non-payments by the Food Retail Group for shipping. I know it's not uncommon for a company to not pay rent. They changed the composition of shareholders and attracted investors, but this did not help much. I do not think that the cause of the problem is the untimely launch of the restaurant in the USA, after all, its scale is not comparable with the size of the business in Russia. Rather, it is a matter of managerial errors. There were problems with refinancing. Of course, I wish the shareholders to get out, but I will not undertake to estimate the chances for this, the problems have been dragging on for too long.

Moscow, 30.10.2013

Having opened over 50 restaurants in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the ideologists of the Two Sticks chain and a number of other successful Russian projects decided to move to the West.

About how the idea of ​​​​opening "Two sticks" in conservative Stockholm unexpectedly transformed into the largest in the history of the domestic restaurant business a startup in the heart of New York, said Mikhail Tevelev, co-owner of the Food Retail Group holding.

Expert North-West: Mikhail, your business card says Makers lab instead of the usual FOOD Retail Group. What are the changes?

Mikhail Tevelev: Everything is quite natural: FOOD Retail Group was the name for b2b partners - banks, suppliers, government agencies - in a word, for everyone except our guests. But since now there are more brands of projects, a certain semantic filling of our association has appeared, its ideology has been formed, we decided to make a brand for b2c, that is, for visitors, so that when they come to the restaurant, they understand: all this is Makers lab. It seemed to us that this name has more creativity and creativity.

"Expert North-West": Why did you immediately go abroad, and not to the regions?

Mikhail Tevelev: We covered only St. Petersburg and Moscow not by chance. I traveled a lot in Russia: Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar - of course, we all speak the same language, but our mentality is completely different ... We are very different, and when choosing where to do business - in Khanty-Mansiysk or New York, you need visit New York once so that the answer becomes obvious.

This is an entrepreneurial approach - the desire to discover a new horizon. It is not directly related to the question of the image of the company, with the fact that it must certainly be, as they say, "international".

This story is no longer exciting. But other things are exciting: the crazy capacity of the New York market and access to its colossal opportunities if successful. For understanding, I can give you some figures: according to expert estimates, in 2010 in Russia the size of the restaurant market was, according to official data, 20 billion euros, in America - 520 billion dollars. The New Yorker mentality is to eat three meals a day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner—out of the house. In Moscow, so far people go to restaurants at best for business meetings.

"Expert Northwest": In a city like New York, it's hard without support. Did someone from the American side advise you, help you?

Mikhail Tevelev: In general, in the States, as here, we do business on our own, but in legal matters and in the search for resources that could be attracted to create a business, we were helped by Russian-speaking colleagues. By the way, for a long time we could not find partners who could show suitable premises. At first, even the New York branch of the largest international consulting company in the field of commercial real estate Colliers International did not help us, but when a Russian guy Dmitry Levkov came there, with whom we were introduced by a well-known real estate expert Nikolai Kazansky, we received all the necessary advice and assistance in finding . As a result, they decided to go not to Manhattan, but to Times Square.

"Expert North-West": Why?

Mikhail Tevelev: These are two different halos… Times Square for New York is like Nevsky Prospekt for St. Petersburg. You have to understand that it’s harder to make a mistake on Nevsky: here the guest always forgives, especially since 80% of visitors are new every time. But the mistake in Manhattan, somewhere on Bowery Street, is much more significant, because there are many more regular guests who will remember that you made a mistake. Although it is clear that the cost of building a restaurant on the same Bowery is disproportionately lower - 3-5 million dollars, while our budget for construction alone, even without approvals, amounted to 22 million. When we entered this market, we sincerely believed that it was more expensive than in Russia, there can be nothing anywhere - no matter how it is!

"Expert North-West": Only for the construction - 22 million dollars, for the entire implementation of the idea - 46 million ... Is this a lot for such a project in the heart of New York?

Mikhail Tevelev: For a restaurant with an area of ​​2.5 thousand square meters. m in a similar place is adequate. For Russia, of course, this is a very large sum. We recently opened a restaurant on 1.5 thousand square meters. m, additionally launching the elevator, changing all the engineering, supplying gas, electricity, redoing the floors, and spent about $ 5 million on all this ...

But keep in mind that Times Square is also a trade union work area, and in the States it is a specific mafia, albeit legalized, with which God save you from quarreling. So it was not possible to invite low-skilled workers to work in a new skyscraper, built immediately after the 2008 crisis, who would reduce the cost of our costs by one and a half times. It is clear, of course, that you are not obliged to enter into an agreement with the union companies, however, if this is not done, they may declare war on you. Thus, according to the views of the unions, the cost of one worker - an ordinary carpenter who, relatively speaking, just nailing - is $ 300 per hour. This is with a mandatory lunch, mobile communications, an eight-hour working day and a solid increase in the tariff for each hour of processing. Refusal to work with trade unions is fraught with information confrontation. So, those who have already encountered this, for example, tell how representatives of trade union companies inflated a huge rat near their objects as a sign of disagreement ... True, as a response, entrepreneurs hired passers-by who pierced this rat. The fight can go as far as writing on the walls of your house or setting cars on fire. This is real. So it is better not to save on construction.

By the way, in this project I first encountered the American approach to construction. This is a colossal amount of documentation with countless sheets for literally every screw! But they also build for centuries. This cannot but delight.

Returning to the question of the budget, I would also like to emphasize that in New York we are not building a restaurant, but a restaurant complex, although I do not like this word. Let's call it experience. The project includes a separate Blue Bottle coffee shop (a very trendy story for the USA), a bar on the second floor with a separate entrance for a huge number of visitors who wished to spend time somewhere after the same Broadway show, a secret restaurant, the entrance to which will be strictly by records. We also create a zone for banquets: in America, a kind of “team building” has become popular, when, after work, employees gather in a small company in a restaurant that is closed to them and cook something themselves.

"Expert North-West": Apparently, there will be no cabbage soup, borscht and a bear at the entrance?

Mikhail Tevelev: There is Mari Vanna in New York, and Russian authenticity is enough for him. We do not really advertise that this project is being done by the Russians. The concept of the restaurant was born from a clear analysis of what is happening in Times Square. Imagine: you come to Italy, to the States, to any other country. It is clear that you are more interested in seeing what is really there. Tourists are mostly programmed by guidebooks: the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Fifth Avenue, at worst - the Apple Store. Restaurants are about the same. We would like to be featured in the top guides to the best New York restaurants, and at the same time really show guests what the real, not pop New York is like. According to our concept, we create an authentic space using only local materials, without bringing Italian marble or Russian gold. A strict selection of brands is designed to reflect the identity of New York, to create a real atmosphere of this city, to reflect its spirit ...

Expert North-West: Is the restaurant team Russian?

Mikhail Tevelev: We bring nothing Russian to the American market, and the team is no exception (except for the financier and our creative director). General manager - a person who was involved in the start-up project Eataly, which today generates 45 million annual turnover for 600 seats. We also have two very strong chefs who are also foreigners.

"Expert North-West": How soon and how do you plan to pay off?

Mikhail Tevelev: Our financial model was based on the expertise of top managers from the New York industry. The payback period is 4.7 years. One of our key advantages is location. Due to the fact that we are at the epicenter of the flow of people (1 million people a day), we are able to confidently predict the launch of the restaurant in the spring of 2014. In addition, we have five different segments under one roof, and due to this, as well as regular monitoring and analysis of the results, our risks of not getting into the concept are well diversified.

"Expert North-West": And yet: if the new project is successful, will you return to the idea of ​​"Two Sticks" in the USA?

Mikhail Tevelev: When American friends came to us, they unanimously repeated that the format of "Sticks" is what New York needs. In the US, there are a lot of small sushi restaurants with 50 seats, owned by people from Korea and Japan. On the other hand, there are very large high-end restaurants on the market. We can offer the market a democratic youth network, which in New York realities would be fresh and new. So let's experiment. We got a lot of bumps and understood what American business is and how to deal with it. In any case, New York is the most fertile ground for the development of correct concepts.

"Expert North-West": Well, what are the nearest plans of Makers lab in Russia?

Mikhail Tevelev: Russian business today is developing in three main directions. First of all, this is a restaurant group that promotes chain concepts of restaurants of Japanese (“Two Sticks”), Italian (“Marcelli’s”) and Oriental cuisine, as well as several local restaurant projects (“Long Tail”, Biblioteka, etc.) in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

The second direction is the sphere of entertainment. Not so long ago, we launched the largest indoor entertainment complex in Europe - Maza park with an area of ​​15 thousand square meters. m at the Bukharestskaya metro station. By paying 300-600 rubles, depending on the time of day, guests of the complex get free access to all entertainment. This is a bowling alley with 38 lanes, 100 billiard tables, 20 table tennis tables, an autodrome, discos, nightclubs, bars, fast food, etc. The complex shows very good performance, so now we are building another amusement park in the north of the city. The plans include the largest project at VDNKh: we intend to cover 20,000 sq. m. m of premises with a spacious adjacent territory.

The third vector of development is the Swissam business school in St. Petersburg. In fact, this is an infrastructure project, the purpose of which is to supply the hotel and restaurant industries with highly qualified personnel. It was launched in collaboration with the Institute of Hotel, Tourism and Event Management of Switzerland (International Management Institute) and the American Institute of Culinary Education. By combining two proven programs and without inventing anything, we only adapted them to domestic realities. The rector of Swissam, Swiss Walter Spaltenstain, who has long run a successful business school in Lucerne, is a well-known personality in the field of education.

In general, we have enough plans for both the Russian and global markets...

Reference

The Times Square 11 restaurant is located in the center of New York, next to Broadway and the theater district, in a new office center. The total foot traffic in the restaurant area is over 1 million people a day. The restaurant is open around the clock. Its concept is "Bring food back to Times Square".

The total project budget is $46 million (IRR: 23.7%). Partners project : Isometrix, Gardiner & Theobald, HLV, Thornton Tomasetti, VDA, N CAPITAL.Start of the project in autumn 2011, the opening of the restaurant is scheduled for spring 2014.

Partners

January 26, 2015

Mikhail Tevelev and Yevgeny Kadomsky opened the first Japanese restaurant "Two Sticks" in 2003. Today the chain has 40 restaurants in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In addition to it, the Food Retail Group holding includes the Marcelli's Italian restaurant chain, as well as the single restaurants Library, Long Tail, Bakhchai, Big Kitchen and others. This summer, a restaurant was opened in New York Urbo project Mikhail Tevelev, co-owner of Food Retail Group, spoke about the various activities and plans of the FoodService holding.

Holding Food Retail Group Founded in 2003 in St. Petersburg by Mikhail Tevelev and Evgeny Kadomsky, until 2010 it was called PSK-Holding. Today, the holding owns and manages the Two Sticks chain (26 restaurants in St. Petersburg, 14 in Moscow), the Marcelli "e" network (eight outlets in St. Petersburg and one in Moscow), single restaurants "Biblioteka", "Shater", Cafe Berlin, Long Tail, Bakhchai, Big Kitchen, and the Urbo restaurant project in New York.

Michael, let's start over. Did you and Yevgeny Kadomsky open the first Dve Palochki restaurant in 2003 under the auspices of PSK-Holding?

Yes. In 2003, I was 23 years old, Evgeny - 27, before that I worked as a client manager in a Moscow bank. At that time, Evgeny had already opened the fashionable St. Petersburg club Absent together with the Ost-West company. In the capital, the Japanese restaurant "Gin no Taki" was then popular - the first motivator that moved us to Japanese cuisine. In St. Petersburg, we opened the first restaurant "Two Sticks" on Italianskaya in parallel with the opening of "Vasabi" and "Yakitoria", around the same time the future company Ginza Project launched its first sushi restaurant. Our "Two sticks” was immediately chosen by the fashionable public: for that time it was a restaurant-restaurant, the project was successful.

in 2001 Graduated from the Faculty of Economics of St. Petersburg State University. From 2001 to 2002 worked as a client-manager in "Promstroybank". Since 2003 - co-owner of PSK-Holding (since 2010 - Foot Retail Group).

Then came the search period. Even then, we were striving for diversification - we wanted to open concepts in different market segments. In 2004, we opened a democratic restaurant "Meatballs" in Stachek Avenue in St. Petersburg, which later became a chain, which we sold to the company "Chaynaya Lozhka" in 2011. They built the Italian restaurant "Solntse", the restaurant "Opera", instead of which the restaurant "Shater" on Italianskaya, the club "Ice-Lemon" was opened. And only then did we begin to open "Two sticks" again - the second point on Vasilyevsky Island, the third -on the street Uprising. And by 2005 we clearly formulated: we will build a network Japanese restaurants, seeing a great perspective in "Two Sticks". Gathered a strong team and began to replicate. Today, 40 restaurants "Two Sticks" provide 70% of the income of the entire holding.

- The first persons of the holding are you and Yevgeny Kadomsky. Who is responsible for what?

Eugene is more responsible for concepts, marketing, branding. I'm in charge of finance, GR, development.

- A year ago, you expanded the Two Sticks menu: you introduced a section of burgers, Pan-Asian, Italian. Do you need a cosmopolitan menu to survive a decline in interest in traditional sushi bars?

Yes. You can keep a clean format in a small project, such as, for example, our Indian restaurant Apteka. If you have a network, you are forced to follow the guest. Cosmopolitanism is a market demand, despite the fact that the Japanese direction in "Two sticks" still accounts for more than half of all sales.

- How much does the construction of one point cost you?

Depends on where to build, in street retail or shopping mall. If we are talking about street retail in St. Petersburg - 80 thousand rubles. for 1 sq. m, in the capital the figures are comparable. St. Petersburg has very difficult premises.

No. "Two sticks" is a youth format, and we must be in trend all the time, consciously go along the edge. But our other network, Italian restaurants"Marcelli" s, we promote it as a family one, they bring their parents and even grandparents there. Now we are actively building it up, and in both capitals: in St. Petersburg we are opening at four locations, in Moscow we are considering several premises at once.

- How are you going to develop "Two sticks"?

Petersburg for Last year not a single point of Two Sticks has opened, and here we no longer want to develop the Japanese direction, all good passage places are occupied. Our plans are to actively go to Moscow, and to master the shopping mall. There is a trend in the capital now - the construction of hyper-complexes, plus the renovation of old ones that opened in the 2000s is underway.

In general, over the next three years, we would like to double the number of restaurants in our two main chains, that is, build another 50 outlets. At the same time, we are going to build more actively in sleeping bags.

Will agriculture revive?

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