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Tony Napoliello , CEO and President at IRMG , is delighted to share the rest of the story with us .
“ About 35 years ago , Kelly entered the quick-serve food court space within regional malls with Chinese Cafes . Prior to that , he had four sit-down restaurants but decided to enter the quick-serve market due to the rapid rate of return on investment and the ability to duplicate the concepts . Kelly developed multiple brands under the IRMG umbrella including Yeung ’ s Lotus Express , which we recently rebranded as Wok A Holic ; Kelly ’ s Cajun Grill , our own Cajun food brand ; and Suki Hana , our Japanese teppanyaki concept . The company began franchising its concepts in 1996 and currently has around 50 franchisees across the US , as well as in Bogota , Colombia and Dubai , UAE . A big driver for our company ’ s growth has been our proven track record and an excellent reputation with leading shopping center developers . Our ability to bring multiple concepts to a shopping center and successfully operate multiple locations across a wide geographic area is unmatched in the non-traditional market .”
Exponential growth
Having succeeded with its own proprietary concepts , IRMG sought to duplicate that success by operating nationally established brands by becoming a franchisee of Burger King in the early 2000s . The company ’ s first store opened in Dolphin Mall in 2007 which became one of the top performing nontraditional restaurants in North America . The store count grew to 13 during that time , but in 2023 , a new Area Development Agreement ( ADA ) was executed to open 20 new stores over the next five years , seven of which have already opened with another three slated to open before the end of 2024 . The Company was recently recognized as Burger King ’ s North American Developer of the Year and ranks in the top five percent of Burger King ’ s
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