Category: Gossip & Rumors

This is pretty disappointing news but it doesn’t look like there will be track days this year at Kuwait Motor Town. Supposedly the contract with the company that was running KMT expired and it wasn’t renewed and neither does anyone else seem to want to run it. So all events that were scheduled to take place at the race track were canceled and there won’t be any open track days until a new company takes over. Sucks.

According to a contact of mine, Alshaya are bringing Primark, the popular multinational fashion retailer to Kuwait and the Middle East GCC.

Primark is known for offering affordable, fast fashion and a wide range of clothing, accessories, and home goods. The brand is particularly popular for its trendy styles at low prices, appealing to budget-conscious shoppers.

I don’t have any idea on when they’re planning to open their first location, but I’d imagine they would need at the very least a year. I’ll update this post if I discover more.

<strong>Update: It’s now official.

There is a rumor going around that Lana Del Rey is planning to come to Kuwait and perform as part of her Middle East tour. Turns out the rumor originated from a couple of popular instagram accounts that posted an audio file where Lana supposedly mentions she will be performing in Kuwait and Qatar. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s not true.

The audio file is actually from a really old Lana Del Rey interview with an Australian radio station from back in 2015. The funny thing is, Lana doesn’t even say she is coming to Kuwait. During the interview Lana mentions that if she was going to do another real tour, Australia would be one of the first places she would think of, other than the Middle East. When the host asks where she would like to tour in the Middle East, Lana then mentions she’d like to perform in Kuwait and Qatar.

You can hear the audio snippet that has been going around above. Don’t believe everything you read online, even if they have over 100,000 followers.

Over the weekend there was a bit of drama in Kuwait. Word got out that a PlayBoy model called Lina Bourghol was in Kuwait last week, and although it didn’t look like she did anything wrong while here, she still managed to ruffle some feathers.

Lina posted a photo of her in front of the Kuwait Towers which exacerbated the controversy. That photo now has over 3,000 likes but no comments since she closed it due to the abuse she was getting. In a video that popped up on my Tiktok feed she mentions that she doesn’t understand why authorities had a problem with her being in Kuwait, but were fine with Kim Kardashian being here. She denied that she was here because a guy paid her to come, and she brought up a good point that why would he bring her to Kuwait when they could fly out to a more interesting play like Miami. She said she came in here on a visit visa and that she wore the abaya everywhere she went out of respect for the local culture.

In any case she ended up leaving Kuwait, some people were saying she got deported but she mentions in her video she had left on her free will. The whole coming in on a visit visa thing I can believe since every now and then Tiktok pops up videos on my feed of what I assume are escorts temporarily in Kuwait. Don’t think there is a way to stop them from coming in unless you stop issuing visit visas completely.

Over the past couple of days there have been rumors floating around about Elon Musk coming to Kuwait. It’s being reported by some local news sites which I hadn’t heard of before, which is why I’m marking this as a rumor for now.

Allegedly, Elon Musk is expected to visit Kuwait in the next few days for discussions aimed at establishing Kuwait as a global hub for artificial intelligence.

This is where things gets strange, there is a secretive GPU cloud startup in Kuwait called Omniva that have plans to build a huge data center in Kuwait. The company is headed by big names who came in from companies like Amazon AWS, META and Microsoft. The data center which is under construction is located at the entrance of Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City (Road 278). source

I reached out to Elon Musk and Omniva to confirm all this, but I haven’t heard back from them yet.

According to a source of mine, the popular South African franchise Nando’s is targeting to open in Kuwait on February 20th.

Nando’s originally opened at The Avenues back in 2007 but ended up closing down shortly after. This time, Apparel Group are bringing them back to Kuwait, the same company that brought Tim Hortons back, and also recently opened Jamie’s Italian.

Nando’s will have two locations in Kuwait initially, one in The Warehouse Mall and a second in Al Kout Mall. The tentative opening date could change due to unforeseen circumstances, so make sure you follow @apparelgroupofficial for the official announcement.

Last year Chipotle signed an agreement with Alshaya to bring the franchise to the Middle East. The initial plan is for two locations to open each in Dubai and Kuwait. A few weeks ago I posted that their first location in Kuwait is expected to be at The Avenues, and now my source just informed me that they’re aiming to open by April.

The first location will be in The Avenues Phase 4, where Blaze Pizza used to be located, right next to Gait and VOX Cinema.

Every time I post about Chipotle the posts tend to go viral and I’ve been trying to understand why. My best guess is that lots of people used to have Chipotle back when they were studying in the US? I have no idea but if you have a better theory, let me know.

The coming soon hoarding is still not up, but I took the liberty of adding one to my photo.

Back in July, Chipotle announced that they had signed an agreement with Alshaya Group to open locations in the Middle East next year. The initial plan is for two locations each in Dubai and Kuwait.

According to a source of mine, Chipotle’s first location in Kuwait will be at The Avenues in place of where Blaze Pizza was located, near Gait and VOX Cinema.

All the Blaze Pizza locations in Kuwait recently closed down and I’m assuming permanently. Blaze, I believe, was Alshaya’s third attempt with pizza, the first two being 400 Gradi and Spontini (I loved Spontini) both of which also closed down.

I reached out to Alshaya for confirmation regarding Chipotles first store and they responded stating they would not comment on speculation, but that as they’ve previously mentioned, Chipotle is set to open in Kuwait in 2024.

This is an interesting and random project, BBT is opening a haunted house next month on the Gulf Road. The project is in collaboration with TEC and is located near where Jeans Grill used to be in Salmiya (the good old days).

The haunted house looks to be hospital themed which gave me Raccoon General Hospital vibes from Resident Evil. In addition to the haunted house there will also be a new BBT location right next to it.

Both the haunted house and the new BBT are expected to open mid next month. Tickets to the haunted house will be through the TEC app. If you want to check the place out it’s still under construction but here it is on Google Maps.

Because of my Popeyes post this morning a few people asked me if I had any updates about ALBAIK opening in Kuwait. ALBAIK is a very popular Saudi fried chicken concept and from what I’ve been told, they’re planning to open in Kuwait next year with the first two locations in Al Khiran and Aswaq Qurain. They also have plans to open two more locations in the north but they haven’t decided where yet.

Dubai’s beach-born concept SALT is coming to Kuwait next month and they’ll be popping up at the new Blajaat project in Salmiya.

Although SALT is mostly known for their iconic Airstream trailer, over the past few years their pop-ups have turned into beautiful and elaborate setups, so should be interesting what they’re planning for Kuwait.

The exact date hasn’t been finalized but they should be popping up the last week of November.

A friend told me that Zain was launching RedBull Mobile next week to compete with Virgin Mobile. I didn’t know RedBull Mobile existed until she told me so I contacted a couple of sources to confirm this rumor but they were being tight lipped about it. But, it looks like it’s happening.

If you head to www.redbullmobile.com.kw/en right now you’ll end up at their website which seems to still be under construction. Their Instagram account will also be @redbullmobilekw. Like Virgin Mobile, I doubt this is going to have any effect on the market or anyone (unless there is some Formula 1 tie in and in that case this is going to be great! I love Red Bull Mobile, please get me RedBull Paddock access during a race).

Mo Amer, the Palestinian American comedian known for his hilarious performances in the Netflix show ‘Mo’ and the award-winning Hulu sitcom ‘Ramy,’ is set to bring his comedy to Kuwait this September.

Mo was actually born in Kuwait and lived here till the age of 9. He only left Kuwait because of the 1990 Iraq invasion which is how he ended up in the US. I’m not sure if he’s been back to Kuwait since then, but if you went to a British school in the 80s, I’d pull up an old yearbook and see if I could spot him.

According to the information I have, Mo will be performing his standup on September 8th at The Arena. More information will be officially announced soon.

Café Kitsuné, the sub-brand of the trendy French-Japanese lifestyle brand Maison Kitsuné is opening in Kuwait.

Maison Kitsuné expanded their brand in 2013 by opening Café Kitsuné in Tokyo followed by a location in Paris in 2019. I’ve been to the one in Paris and I’m a fan of the brand like I’m sure many people are.

Café Kitsuné has over 21 locations worldwide and they’re now planning to open in Kuwait (lso set to open in Dubai). The details aren’t finalized yet but they’re planning to open in Abdullah Al Salem sometime this year.

Nando’s the popular South African franchise that specializes in Portuguese flame-grilled peri-peri style chicken is coming to Kuwait.

They originally opened at The Avenues back in 2007 but ended up closing down shortly after. This time Apparel Group are bringing them back and they’ll be opening at the new Warehouse Mall which I posted about recently.

I don’t have an opening date but I’ve reached out to Apparel Group and waiting to hear back from them. But, I think it would be safe to assume they’ll be open by Q4 of this year.