The first Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is in Greenwich Village.
Following significant investments, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is poised for growth in the United States and Canada.
“Shark Tank” stars Kevin O’Leary and Matt Higgins recently invested in Brooklyn Dumpling Shop to grow the brand beyond its eight restaurants. Brooklyn Dumpling Shop founder Stratis Morfogen called the investment “the missing link.”
The dumpling franchise is known for its unique dumpling flavors, such as mac and cheese, reuben and Korean barbecue.
Related: Morfogen’s New Franchise Brooklyn Dumpling Shop to Revive Automat
“None of those items have ever been introduced to the market,” Morfogen said. “We’re disrupting a lot of parts of the fast-casual, QSR market. To do that, it takes capital and marketing because you’re educating the customer.”
Stratis Morfogen uses an automat format for his Brooklyn Dumpling Shops, where customers order from their smartphones and pick up their food from cold and hot lockers.
Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is a smartphone-powered, automat-format shop that requires a small footprint and just three employees. Guests can order their dumplings through their phone and collect them from the hot or cold lockers inside the restaurant. The brand works with franchise development firm Fransmart.
The initial investment required to open a Brooklyn Dumpling Shop franchise ranges from $293,000 to $649,500. The company has 16 more restaurants under construction in the United States and two in Canada. Brooklyn Dumpling Shop also sells its food at Walmart stores in 20 states.
Rather than taking the venture capital route, Morfogen favored the investment from O’Leary and Higgins.
“We felt that their investment is important, but their resources, connections, market strength and they’re smart. These guys are really, really smart guys,” Morfogen said. “I think when you add all that up together, it goes past the financial investment.”
Morfogen and the “Shark Tank” pair initially met when another Morfogen concept, Brooklyn Chophouse, opened in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. “They actually were customers,” Morfogen said. O’Leary and Paul Palandijian, the CEO of O’Leary Ventures, visited the restaurant five days in a row, Morfogen said.
“They loved what we were doing with our operation, and we stayed in touch,” he said. When he told them about plans to find a venture capital firm, the pair said they were interested.
Across the border in Canada, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop entered into a binding letter of intent for a reverse takeover of 1169032 B.C. Ltd. to take the brand public in the country. Morfogen couldn’t speak more on the deal. The company will provide more details once the transaction is finalized.
Earlier this year, Sitewise Solutions Inc. signed a master franchise agreement in Canada to open 100 stores. Sitewise plans to open 30 to 40 stores and sub-franchise the other 60 to 70 units.