Celebrity TV chef Gordon Ramsay is being reported to have moved his restaurant empire’s headquarters from California to North Texas, Dallas Morning News reports.
According to the report by Dalla Morning News on Friday, the company called Gordon Ramsay North America relocated from California to Las Colinas earlier this year.
The company is now on a hiring spree with plans to open 18 new restaurants nationwide next year.
The restaurant company is separate from Ramsay’s TV production company, which helps produce FOX’s Master Chef and Hell’s Kitchen.
The move by Chef Gordon Ramsay will see the TV host from Hell’s Kitchen hire a team of businesspeople and chefs to dramatically expand his restaurant empire across North America.
In 2022, the team in Las Colinas has plans to open 18 restaurants in cities like Boston, Miami and Chicago. In the next five years, CEO Norman Abdallah says he’ll oversee the debut of 75 company-owned restaurants.
Some of the expansion will be in Dallas-Fort Worth: Street Pizza, a restaurant from London, and Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips, which originated in Las Vegas, are both a fit for North Texas someday, Abdallah says. And after the new restaurant Ramsay Kitchen launches in Boston, it may come to D-FW, too.
The Dallas restaurants likely won’t open until late 2022 or 2023, however. Abdallah’s focus, for now, is up and down the East Coast and in Chicago.
“We want to be very careful not to dilute the brand, and the brand is Gordon,” Abdallah says.
He gives Hell’s Kitchen as an example: The one and only restaurant made famous by the TV show is in Vegas. With Abdallah’s help, Hell’s Kitchens will open in several more cities maybe Miami, Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.
“You don’t want to go throwing up a bunch of restaurants all over the place,” he says.
The same growth mindset will be used for Lucky Cat, an Asian restaurant in London that Abdallah describes as one of Ramsay’s most special brands. It’ll grow to five or so restaurants, he says, and Dallas might be included.
Notably, the company in Las Colinas is focused on restaurant growth only. The studios that produce Hell’s Kitchen, MasterChef, Uncharted and a 2022 Fox series called Next Level Chef remain separate, the Dallas Morning News added.