Malgudi, the South Indian restaurant brand co-founded by singer Shankar Mahadevan and Eatopia Holdings, is accelerating its global expansion, with the brand set to close the year with at least 13 restaurants and targeting more than 25 outlets worldwide next year and scaling to over 102 outlets over the next five years.
The brand currently has nine outlets, four in the UAE and five in India, and is set to open another restaurant in Gurgaon shortly.
“This year, we will finish with 13 restaurants, and next year, we’ll mark about 25-plus restaurants across the world. We are truly a global brand,” said Shankar Mahadevan, co-founder of Malgudi.
The expansion is part of a much larger international roadmap for Eatopia Holdings, founded by K. S. Ramakrishnan. The group is currently present across India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia and plans to enter Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and North America by 2031.
“We haven’t put a market plan. Right now, we’re covering India, moving to the Middle East, and then the UK and Europe, Asia Pacific, which is Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and then America. So it’s a whole long pipeline. We will be covering all these countries by 2031,” Ramakrishnan said.
Eatopia currently operates 26 restaurants across its portfolio, spanning nine brands: Malgudi QSRs, Spice Mantraa, NOAA Asian Bistro, Mahesh Lunch Home, 1BHK, Aunty Ji’s Indian Bistro and “From Here”, a community eatery in Bali. The group also operates Jones The Grocer Express as a franchise in the UAE. The company plans to add further brands to its portfolio over the next decade, with Indonesia-based “From Here” set to enter India soon.
“We’ll be creating at least a dozen brands over the next 10 years,” Ramakrishnan said.
The company has consistently focused on innovating food brands across cuisines and customer preferences. Having created or incubated six in-house brands, Eatopia is now scaling Malgudi as its lead growth brand. The group has already invested more than $30 million in the business and continues to deploy capital. The company, along with Malgudi, remains self-funded and is not currently looking to raise external capital.
“We are not raising any money as of now. There’s already been an investment of over $30 million plus in what we’re doing,” Ramakrishnan said.
“We want to transform the food business into an experiential food business. If this takes us even five-fold more than what we’ve invested so far, we shall continue doing that,” he added.
The group is building multiple restaurant formats of Malgudi to support the expansion. Its mid-format restaurants typically have 60-80 seats, while large-format outlets accommodate 100-120 guests.
Average capex for a large-format restaurant in India is around Rs 3.5 crore, while the UAE requires about $500,000 per outlet. The next set of elevated international formats could require investments of close to $1 million each.
“All our restaurants are already EBITDA-positive, with India operating at more than 20 per cent EBITDA and the Middle East at over 37 per cent”, Ramakrishnan said.
The company also claims operational break-even from day one across its restaurant businesses.
Eatopia claims to have grown more than 100 per cent over the last three years, with the group now looking to replicate that momentum across geographies and formats.
Published On Sep 14, 2026 at 07:12 AM IST
Join the community of 2M+ industry professionals.
Subscribe to Newsletter to get latest insights & analysis in your inbox.
All about ETRetail industry right on your smartphone!
Dining and Cooking