Category: Gossip & Rumors

A Starbucks opening up in a mall wouldn’t really be news except for the fact when 360 Mall first opened, one of the differentiating factors from other malls was they wouldn’t carry any of the Alshaya brands. They wanted to be different from other malls and so didn’t want the same shops you’d find everywhere else also open there. That’s not an easy decision to stick by especially when Alshaya owns so many brands. I think the first Alshaya brand that opened there was Asha’s, but now Starbucks is planning to open up by the end of the year.

I’ve been wanting to post about this since back in 2018 when I first found out but couldn’t due to secrecy reasons (I was working on the project back then). But, now that the secret is out I can finally share this. Mr. Holmes Bakehouse known for popularizing the cruffin is opening up in Kuwait. The cruffin, a hybrid of a croissant and a muffin became a huge hit a few years ago and sparked a lot of copycats around the world. But Mr. Holmes are also known for their pastries which I got to try all of them and they’re really good. Like I’m going to gain a lot of weight once they open kinda good.

I think they should be opening up fairly soon with their first location being in the city right next to Eighty Six.

Yesterday Al Corniche Club sent out an email informing their members that they will be closing down the club on October 11th. Last year Al Corniche Club lost the bid to operate the location but went to court hoping to reverse the decision. That must have not worked out and so they now have to leave the location.

EL&N Cafe (formerly known as Élan Café), one of the most instagrammable cafes in London is opening up in Kuwait. EL&N Cafe is known for their over the top pink interior, pink and purple floral wall, neon signs, millennial pink furniture and their equally instagrammable pink desserts. They will be opening in The Avenues near Cheesecake Factory next year.

Over the weekend I was in Avenues for work (the mall is closed FYI) so I decided to walk around and see if it was true that Alshaya was closing down some of its restaurants. Inspired Edibles had posted a list on Instagram of the brands that were closing which included:

400 Gradi
Alforno
Blaze Pizza
Bridge Water Chocolate
Cafe COCO
Castania
Cleo
Le Pain Quotidien
P.F. Chang’s (Phase 1)
Spontini Pizza
Veranda

Turns out it’s partially true. Other than Blaze Pizza and P.F. Chang’s, all the restaurants listed above had been closed down with their logos removed and the storefronts boarded up. I guess the two I’m gonna miss the most are Alforno and Spontini. When Alforno first opened I used to go there a lot with my family, and Spontini, well I kinda liked their pizzas even though I know a lot didn’t.

But, if a giant like Alshaya has difficulty sustaining a restaurant during this difficult period in a mall they basically own, you can only imagine how other smaller businesses must be doing.

Like Chili’s, McDonalds and a lot of the restaurants on the Gulf Road, Corniche Club also lost the bid for their location earlier this year and now have to move out. Originally the rumors were that Alshaya won the location and were going to turn it into Equinox but that rumor didn’t turn out to be true.

On the other hand, the latest rumor I’ve been hearing is that Corniche Club will now be moving to Arabella instead. I’ve known for some time now that Arabella was repositioning itself and I had also heard rumors that it was turning into a hotel, so it would make a lot of sense if it turns out Corniche is taking it over. Sadly, that whole strip is already too congested with Palms and Radisson Blu right next door so I’m not really excited about this.

The popular Italian restaurant and marketplace Eataly is targetting to open up in Avenues on July 21st. Eataly is already open the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and although I haven’t tried it myself I’ve heard the food is great. The Avenues location is in Phase 4 near the Mercedes dealership and they’re on Instagram @eatalyarabia

A friend just let me know that Al Bisher, the company that recently lost the Mercedes dealership has signed an agreement with Tesla to bring them to Kuwait. Tesla will be taking over the old Mercedes locations and garage which should make life easier on the Tesla customers who imported their cars to Kuwait.

The reason Tesla took so long to come to Kuwait is because of ownership rights. Tesla doesn’t franchise the brand but it seems they’ve worked out some sort of deal with Al Bisher that solves that. I’m curious to see if they’ll set up charging stations around the country. Exciting!

Note: Keep in mind the above information is just a rumor for now, I am still waiting for confirmation on the above from another source.

Thanks K

Update: The information turned out not to be true, Al Bisher isn’t bringing Tesla to Kuwait.

Update2: Looks like it’s going to be Alghanim, not Al Bisher that is bringing Tesla to Kuwait. The hiring ad below was just shared by an Alghanim HR employee on LinkedIn.

As I previously posted, starting January 1st, Al Mulla Group will be the new distributors for Mercedes-Benz in Kuwait. There has been a lot of talk on where their showroom will be but this current rumor seems to be the most plausible one.

Volkswagon just moved to a new showroom in Al Rai (pictured above), so the rumor is that the Acura dealership will now move into the old VW showroom, leaving the current Acura showroom for Mercedes to take over.

To me, this makes the most sense since the Acura lineup is fairly small, and I don’t think is doing so well in Kuwait, so the old VW location should help cut down on their overhead. The current Acura location is actually pretty nice and spacious so should be enough for the full Mercedes lineup, at least until they build them a new larger location.

Update: Looks like the above isn’t a rumor anymore. A short while ago Acura sent a message to their customers informing them that the dealership is moving to the old VW showroom (including their service center).

Back in 2012 I posted that Alshaya wanted to bring the super popular American franchise Chick-fil-A to Kuwait. I wrote about how talks had failed since Chick-fil-A wanted Alshaya to close on Sundays (they’re a very Christian company) and Alshaya didn’t want to. Instead, Alshaya was trying to convince them to change that rule for the region but Chick-fil-A wasn’t backing down and the deal fell apart.

Then, a couple of years ago I posted that Al Sayer was in talks with Chick-fil-A. Al Sayer denied it but based on my sources at Al Sayer and the aggressive call I got from the Al Sayer Franchising team it felt like they were, in fact, talking with Chick-Fil-A.

I guess those talks failed because fast forward to today, I get an email from my source letting me know that Alshaya have finally signed with Chick-fil-A. No idea if Alshaya have agreed to close on Sundays or if Chick-fil-A have loosened up their policy for the region, but either way, I don’t care. With Chick-fil-A coming to Kuwait, the only other franchise left that we really need is In-N-Out.

According to the Tamdeen Group annual report, they’ve signed with Live Nation to manage the events and activities that will take place at the International Tennis Complex that’s currently under construction next to 360 Mall. Live Nation is the largest live entertainment company. They are concert promoters, venue operators and also handle ticketing and artist management.

This is pretty big news since more and more concerts are taking place in Kuwait and with Live Nation coming in, it could also mean a lot more concerts will start taking place here. Not only that but since the largest arena at the tennis complex can hold 4,000 people, twice more than the largest theater at JACC, this could mean they’d be able to price the tickets cheaper.

Construction on the Sheikh Jaber Al-Abdullah AlJaber Al-Sabah International Tennis Complex is expected to be completed by next year. For previous posts on the tennis complex, click [Here]

Thanks lovelykuwait

A bunch of people and friends have been forwarding me the screenshot above taken from the account @kuwait_projects. Kuwait Projects post is a bit misleading since he makes it seem like an official Apple store is opening in Avenues Phase 4. That isn’t the case. The store in the picture above is just a regular authorized Apple store, not an official one.

I honestly have no clue who Russ is, but a friend told me he’s pretty popular so figured this was newsworthy. Based on some tweets he posted a while ago, Russ was supposed to come and perform in Kuwait but then found out the promoter was planning on selling the tickets for a ridiculous price, so he backed out.

The prices for the tickets were going to be as follows:

VIP – KD250
Gold – KD200
Silver – KD150
Bronze – KD100
Normal – KD50

The prices seem similar to Sting but looking at the seating chart of this event, it didn’t look like it was going to be held at a proper theater. In fact, I think it was going to be held in a large tent or hall with no elevated seating which means anything behind silver would have been terrible seating. According to Russ, he’s still willing to come to Kuwait, but only if the promoter decides to reduce the ticket prices. We’ll see how this plays out.

I found out earlier today that Burger & Lobster are opening up in Kuwait City, in place of where Cereal Killer used to be located.

I like this location and I think it should end up doing a lot better than the Avenues one which always felt too out of the way to pass by for a quick meal. The new location is right next to Arabica in downtown, here it is on [Google Maps]

According to a contact of mine at the Touristic Enterprises Company, Shaab Park will not be reopening again. Back in August, the park along with Sultan Center and other businesses in that block were closed down and the whole area cordoned off due to contract issues. I was under the impression that the park was owned by TEC, but turned out only the land is actually owned by them.

I still have memories and photos of when I used to go to Shaab Park back in the 80s. It was a lot greener back then and it wasn’t fenced up as it is now (I should dig up the old photos). Even though I wasn’t a fan of the current iteration of the park, it was a place for young guys and girls to go hang out and meet up in so I’m sure it will be missed by many.

Photo from Fried Junk