“We want to have happy franchisees that build themselves a career and don’t just buy themselves another job.”
— Nikolaus von Solodkoff, CEO Döner Haus
BACKGROUND
• Von Solodkoff opened his first Döner Haus in 2023 in New York City. The franchise has four units.
• Döner Haus specializes in authentic, German street food-style döner kebabs.
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How did the idea for this concept first come about? Why kebabs?
I came from Germany to the U.S. about 15 years ago, and I was in New York for 12 years. Every year, I was thinking I wanted my food. I wanted a döner kebab. The way you get it in Germany didn’t really exist in the U.S. at all, and that was totally crazy to me. A German döner differentiates itself from the American way in that you have a little pita bread pocket, you slice the meat off, put it in there, add white garlic sauce and some vegetables. It’s a really simple meal.
After 12 years of wondering why this doesn’t really exist or why the variations that do exist in New York don’t even come close to what I experienced, I decided to do it myself. We did a lot of testing, and we came to the conclusion that this is actually a concept we could start selling and that there’s potential for the U.S.
What steps have you taken to build interest among American consumers?
There’s a big educational component here, which is a little bit of a burden. You have to explain to people how to eat it and what to do, that you don’t use a fork, things like that. There are multiple competitors trying to do the same thing we’re doing, but I don’t see that as a problem. I think it’s actually good. The more the people know the product, the better, and they’re going to go for the best quality, which we provide.
We utilize social media a lot, and we have quite a big follower base. You can see in our videos how people eat the kebab and how they should unwrap it. There’s education involved, but we’re trying our best, and we utilize a lot of social media to make this work.
The Döner Haus menu features halal chicken and zabiha halal beef in a variety of items.
How have you made your franchising model attractive to franchisees?
We have very few products. You can count them on one hand, and that makes for a really strong sales proposition. You’ve got to stick to what you know, and you’ve got to do that right. That’s what we do. It’s always fresh, and I think that’s a massive advantage we have.
The next point is our unique footprint. Our flagship location only has 800 square feet. We don’t have any inside seating. We literally only have a window to pick up and take away. You cannot sit down, you cannot use the restrooms, and it helps a lot with keeping costs down.
You don’t have to clean restrooms, you don’t need a waiter, you don’t need cleaners every day, and you don’t need hostesses. You don’t need to provide a lot of additional permits because those aren’t needed if you don’t have any occupancy.
We have a very small footprint and can operate basically anywhere, which means you can be in the prime locations where it’s normally hard to rent it out.
We also only charge a 3 percent royalty fee and a 2 percent marketing fee. That’s a total of 5 percent, and a lot of other companies clock in between 10 and 12 percent. If I make a million dollars in sales, and I have to pay over $100,000 away to the franchisor, I’d be pissed off.
From my perspective, that’s not the right thing to do. We want to have happy franchisees that build themselves a career and don’t just buy themselves another job. That’s what we are looking for—long-term relationships with our franchisees.