Petrescu, City Grill: In 2010 we will take over restaurants in which others invested

Dragos Petrescu, owner of City Grill restaurants, is in negotiations with various independent restaurant owners to take over the restaurants, rebrand them and integrate them into the Trotter Prim group, a company through which he manages 14 restaurants and coffee shops. "This is a strategy adapted to suit the current times, and targeted at cutting development costs. "We will not have to invest, but instead will take over the restaurants in which others have invested. Very few independent restaurants can survive at this time for two reasons - either they cannot fund their operations or they don't have enough management expertise in the sector. Whereas previously everybody would open a restaurant that survived for a month, two, a year, maybe two only because the market was rising, not is all over," Dragos Petrescu told ZF, without providing further details on prospective acquisitions. Petrescu took over another three facilities in the past three years, and opened a Buongiorno restaurant on the former location of Casa di David, a City Grill restaurant and a City Cafe on the former sites of the Crem Cafe coffee shops, and Hanu' Berarilor restaurant on the former location of Casa Bucur. Trotter Prim, which includes Caru' cu Bere, Sport Bar Cantina and fast food restaurant Bundetot, posted 15.2 million euros in 2008.