A Dundee-born restaurateur is to invest up to £15 million and create 500 jobs to build a new brand of Italian restaurants.
Tony Hussain, Scotland’s Asian Businessman of the Year, is to expand his chain of Papa Tony’s across the country, creating hundreds of new jobs in the process.
The 46-year-old entrepreneur plans to spend an initial £2m this year on three more restaurants in Glasgow, increasing the number of Papa Tony’s eateries in the city to five.
He then intends to use them as a launchpad for Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Inverness and up to seven other towns across the country.
The aim is to open around 25 Papa Tony’s restaurants in Scotland, each employing around 20 people directly, before expanding into the rest of the UK.
Hussain, who already owns and runs the popular Cafe India in Glasgow’s Merchant City and has interests in more than 30 other restaurants across Scotland, is looking for rapid expansion of the business.
He started his first restaurant aged 16 where offered “Dundee’s biggest naan bread” and currently runs SHK Property and Investments.
Hussain was also involved in a BBC documentary called Jute, Jam and Islam on Dundee’s Islamic community. Papa Tony’s is the first Halal Italian restaurant chain in the country, which he hopes will appeal to both Muslims and non-Muslims.
Tony Hussain said: “All my meat, fish, vegetables and other ingredients are bought fresh from local businesses.
“People are fed up with being fobbed off with food that has been prepared in big industrial-style factories and then reheated by untrained kitchen staff for which they are expected to pay a premium price.
“We know exactly where the food we serve comes from and that’s what people want.”
Hussain opened the first Papa Tony’s in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street in 2012 and the second at Springfield Quay later the same year.
Both are on the site of two former restaurants he took over and rebranded.
“Papa Tony’s is going to be a UK-wide brand,” said Hussain.
“Within the next few months we will have five up and running in Glasgow and at least another 20 across Scotland and south of the border in the next five years.”