Blame it on the ongoing financial turmoil, Speciality Restaurants, India’s only listed fine dining restaurant, is going slow in its hunt for an overseas quick service restaurant (QSR) franchise which it was planning to introduce in India some time back. Instead, it’s floating its own QSR with a minimal investment, for which it is looking to tie up with Justdial, the recently listed search engine, for food ordering service, dna has learnt.Speciality Restaurants had earlier talked of actively scouting for bringing in an American QSR keen on an Indian foray. Anjan Chatterjee, the promoter of the restaurant chain, was not exactly looking at big brands in the league of Domino’s Pizza or Burger King, but several other smaller niche brands that dot US landscape.It may be noted that the current spell of slowdown has hurt fine dining restaurants the most, which is forcing them to revisit their business model. In contrast, QSRs are the fastest growing segment in the food business estimated at Rs 11,740 crore in 2013, and is expected to grow to Rs 26,835 crore by 2018, according to Technopak. Some reports even predict an even higher compounded growth rate of 27% till 2020.No wonder, Jubilant FoodWorks, the master franchise for Domino’s Pizza in India and some of its neighbouring countries, has remained the darling of investors ever since the stock debut happened in 2010.Speciality Restaurant now plans to encash this growth without getting into the food delivery infrastructure that most QSR players have on their own. Outsourcing the required infrastructure is what Speciality is now examining through a probable tie-up with Just Dial.Speciality now has 87 restaurants with its brands like Mainland China, Oh! Calcutta and Sigree, and 14 confectionery shops under Sweet Bengal brand across India while it’s actively considering going international, with Singapore and London, and also West Asia blinking on its map.With margins staying under stress as the economic slowdown forces people to cut down on discretionary spending like fine dining, Speciality of late has been looking at various options to sweat its existing assets.

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