Stanley Ma, the Canadian founder of MTY Food Group, was once was dubbed "The Food Court King" by a Quebec newspaper.
But with the Quebec-based franchisor's purchase of Minnetonka-based BBQ chain Famous Dave's parent company, BBQ Holdings, Inc., Ma and MTY's food court days are increasingly a bygone fling.
The Canadian company announced Tuesday that it will pay $17.25 a share — 40% above BBQ's price a day earlier. With BBQ's group of about 300 restaurants, MTY will now be the franchisor of about 7,000 restaurant sites, chiefly in the U.S. and Canada.
In 2009, Ma — who immigrated to Canada with his parents from Hong Kong as a teenager — was proclaimed "King of Food Court" in a headline by The Gazette, a Montreal newspaper. At the time, Ma was purchasing Ontario-based Country Style coffee shops, to go head-to-head with Starbucks and Tim Hortons.
Ma founded his first Montreal restaurant in 1979, a blend of Chinese and Polynesian cuisine called Le Paradis du Pacifique. Since then, he has expanded holdings to include an array of Asian-style restaurants populating strip malls.
But over the past decade — with high-profile purchases like a sizable stake in Papa Murphy's — Ma's company has shed the shopping mall motif for fast casual dining. In 2016, the company made its largest acquisition, spending $310 million on Kahala Brands, which includes names such as Cold Stone Creamery, Blimpie and Baja Fresh.
Today, MTY says 64% of its restaurants are street-front, with 14% in shopping malls and office tower food courts.
The purchase of BBQ Holdings also represents a return to growth for the company that — like many in the dining sector during the pandemic — faced economic headwinds.
