Chain restaurants coming to Visalia

Oct. 25, 2013

Written by David Castellon

Americans are used to foods being combined, from the turducken — a chicken stuffed into a duck, stuffed into a turkey — to the donut-croissaint mash-up known as the “cronut.”

There have even been been combined restaurants, which have included KFC and A&W fast-food restaurants under one roof.

But South African businessman Maurice Ghaniem is planning his own culinary mash-up, by having a coffee house and two restaurants under one roof, and he’s planning to do it in downtown Visalia.

On Wednesday, Visalia’s Site Plan Review Committee reviews plans for the “three-in-one” restaurant proposed to be established at the former site of Fatte Albert’s Pizza Co. next to Garden Street Plaza on Main Street.

The plans were submitted by MG Food Services, Inc., a South African business owned by Maurice Ghaniem, said Daniel Valencia, contractor and development director for the newly-established American division of the company.

Valencia said MG Food operates about 1,100 restaurants across Africa and Europe, all of them franchises of three South African-based restaurant chains, and Ghaniem wants to establish U.S. version of all three restaurants, starting in California.

And the flagship will be in Visalia, according to a letter from MG Food sent earlier this month to the city.

But the Visalia restaurant also will be unique in that all of MG Food’s restaurants are separate, and the one here will have all three under one roof. They are:

• Ocean Basket, a grilled fish restaurant.

• Grilled Peri Peri Chicken Restaurant, serving Portuguese-style grilled chicken.

• Coffee Lounge Mugs and Beans, selling coffee, along with pastries and breakfast dishes.

Ghaniem already has opened a Grilled Peri Peri restaurant in Washington, D.C., but the opening of the Visalia combination restaurant will mark the first time all three chains will be in the U.S., Valencia said.

As for why three restaurants chains from the other side of the globe are coming here, Valencia explained that Ghaniem is familiar with Visalia because he has visited his brother, who lives here, several times since 1990, and he recently moved here.

“It’s still a small city, but it has a lot of potential,” Valencia said of the decision to start the franchises in Visalia.

Plans are in the next year or two to open 15 restaurants in Central Valley cities that could include Hanford, Fresno, Bakersfield and Stockton, as wall as the Bay Area cities of Hayward and Newark, he added.

But those plans don’t include opening any more three-in-one restaurants like the one planned for here. Instead, MG Food will look to open individual restaurants for each of the three chains. In fact, company officials are considering an Ocean Basket restaurant on Visalia’s Mooney Boulevard, Valencia said.

As for the downtown restaurant, it will be divided into a bar area, two restaurant dining areas in the front and a coffeehouse area in the back, which may include an indoor balcony area that wasn’t used when the building housed Fatte Albert’s.

MG Food also is considering putting an awning and outdoor seating near the restaurant’s side entrance at Garden Street Plaza, but city officials will have to decided whether to allow it, as the plaza is a public park.

During Wednesday’s meeting, Visalia Parks and Recreation Director Vince Elizondo, said there were problems with Fatte Albert’s customers bringing alcohol outside, into the Plaza. during community events.

MG Food officials said the outside seating would be for the coffeehouse patrons, and no alcohol would be served in the plaza.

Valencia said the restaurants will serve inexpensive family cuisine in a high-end restaurant setting, with the Ocean Basket serving South African-style seafood dishes and Grilled Peri Peri serving grilled chicken.

Peri peri is a Portuguese chili pepper so widely grown in parts of Africa that it’s commonly called “African bird’s eye chili.”

City officials directed MG Foods to make some minor adjustments to its restaurant plans, and Valencia said the goal is to open the new three-in-one restaurant by December 1.

And that’s not the only new restaurant coming to Visalia. Next door to the former Fatte Albert’s, at the former Flip Flop Island store, a large sign in the window announces, “Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, COMING SOON!”

“Today, Dickey’s serves up beef brisket, pulled pork, ham, polish sausage, turkey breast and chicken with an extensive array of home-style sides from jalapeno beans to macaroni and cheese,” state’s the Texas-based restaurant chain’s website.

But that will not be the first Dickey’s opening in Visalia. Across town, at Packwood Creek West shopping center on South Mooney Boulevard, construction is underway on another of the chain’s barbecue restaurants.

Kelly Brooks, of Tulare, who owns the south Visalia Dickey’s with her husband Donnie, said their business is scheduled to open some time in November, but the couple isn’t involved with the one planned for downtown.

The downtown Dickey’s plans are being reviewed by the city and may require revisions before its owners can apply for building permits and start construction.

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