Building category-leading restaurant brands across Central Europe.
Everyone talks about the region. We came to take a bite.
"Emerging Bites" is the master franchise partner for Subway in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia. We run the brand across the region, support the franchise partners who built it here, and open the next generation of restaurants alongside them.
We combine global brand standards with deep local operating expertise.
A holding built for one purpose: operating world-class franchises, market by market.
Emerging Bites Holding GmbH is the Vienna-headquartered holding company behind a growing portfolio of quick-service restaurant operations in Central and Eastern Europe. We partner with leading international restaurant brands to develop, sub-franchise, and operate their concepts across our territory.
Our founding team created a restaurant brand from a single unit and grew it into an international franchise system, owning the brand and running its franchise operation, before a full exit in 2025. Having sat on the brand side of the agreement, we know exactly what a franchise partner needs. Today we operate both our own brands and international brands under franchise.
We believe Central Europe is one of the most underserved QSR regions on the continent. Rising urban populations, strong retail infrastructure, and growing demand for trusted international brands create a generational development opportunity, and we have built the platform to capture it.
What we do
Five markets.
One operating platform.
From our Vienna headquarters, we develop and operate across a contiguous five-country territory in the heart of Europe.
Open restaurants as of September 2026.
Every capital within four hours of head office.
Five markets, one contiguous territory around Vienna. It means a management team can stand in any restaurant we operate, in any country, on the same day.
Territory data, combined population figures, 2025 estimates.
Combined addressable market: 37M+ consumers
Fresh from the kitchen.
Subway® signs master franchise agreement with Emerging Bites Holdings to add 300 restaurants across Central Europe
Subway has signed a new Master Franchise Agreement with Emerging Bites to open 300 new restaurants across Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic over the next ten years.
Read the full story →Hungry for a territory?
We grant exclusive development rights for whole cities and regions to operators and investor groups who want to build with us.
Global standards.
Local execution.
Franchise development done properly is an operating discipline, not a licensing exercise.
Our platform covers every layer of the value chain.
Development & real estate
Structured market mapping, site selection, and lease negotiation across high-street, mall, transport, and travel-hub locations, powered by long-standing landlord relationships across CEE.
Franchise partner network
We recruit, onboard, train, and support sub-franchise partners, protecting brand standards while giving local entrepreneurs a proven system to grow with.
Supply chain & quality
EU-compliant sourcing, distribution partnerships, and quality assurance systems that keep every restaurant consistent, from Vienna to Ljubljana.
Operations excellence
Field operations teams, training academies, and audit programs that hold every unit to global brand benchmarks on food safety, service, and guest experience.
Investment & capital
Institutional-grade financial structuring, investor relations, and capital deployment to fund disciplined multi-unit growth across the territory.
Brand & marketing
Localized marketing engines in five languages, digital, delivery-platform, and in-store, executed within global brand guidelines and led in-house.
Great brands,
served one bite at a time.
Every brand we bring to the table gets our full kitchen: our own restaurants, our partners and a team built to scale it.
Fresh sandwiches, made your way. We develop, operate and grow the Subway network across five countries, side by side with our franchise partners.
Your brand could be next
Own a brand that's ready for Central Europe? We bring the operators, the sites and the partners.
Talk to us →Brands we build
Original concepts, from first idea to franchise ready. Just like our first one, born in Dubai.
We don't only operate brands.
We build them, bite by bite.
Beyond franchising established international concepts, "Emerging Bites" creates and launches its own restaurant brands, the same craft that took our first brand from a single Dubai flagship to a global franchise system.
Concept development
From category insight to menu engineering and unit economics, we design original QSR concepts built for multi-unit scale from day one.
Brand & identity
Naming, visual identity, and store design led in-house, creating brands with the character to stand out and the systems to stay consistent.
Launch & franchise-ready systems
Pilot operations, training manuals, and supply chains built for expansion, so every new brand is designed to franchise from its first location.
We've built global franchise brands before. From the first bite.
Our founder launched German Doner Kebab (GDK) in Dubai in 2013 and scaled it to 37 restaurants, earning back-to-back national franchise awards before UK-based Hero Brands acquired a majority stake in 2017. We remained shareholders until our full exit in 2025.
GDK now operates 170+ locations across six countries. The discipline behind it, careful site selection, rigorous training and standards we refuse to bend, is what we bring to every partnership at "Emerging Bites".
One restaurant. No franchise network, no head office, no playbook. Everything that followed was built from it.
Our Leadership
"Emerging Bites" is led by the husband-and-wife team behind German Doner Kebab, joined by senior franchise development leadership. Built by founders. Run by operators.
Farshad Abbaszadeh
Serial franchise entrepreneur with 13+ years building international food brands. Founded and scaled a global QSR concept to a successful majority exit, and has since built a portfolio of restaurant, brand, and franchise ventures across Europe and the Middle East.
Leila Zomorrodian
Leads brand identity, marketing, and creative direction across the group. Has shaped the visual and marketing systems behind multiple international food and consumer brands, from launch through multi-market scale.
Thomas Kremer
Franchise development leader with 15+ years scaling brands across Europe and the Middle East. Former Vice President Development EMEA at CKE Restaurants and President Franchise Excellence & Expansion at AmRest, he leads market development, operations build-out and franchise partnerships across the group’s five markets.
Moritz Sommer
Responsible for finance, reporting, budgeting and cash flow across the group. Brings experience in financial modelling, credit risk and due diligence from the fintech and construction sectors, and holds a Master’s in Finance from EADA Business School.
Hungry for Central Europe? So are we.
Whether you're an international brand, an investor, a landlord, or a prospective franchise partner, we'd like to hear from you.
Email UsImpressum
Offenlegung gemäß §5 E-Commerce-Gesetz (ECG) und §25 Mediengesetz.
Emerging Bites Holding GmbH
c/o TPA Steuerberatung GmbH
Wiedner Gürtel 13
1100 Wien, Österreich
Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (GmbH)
Sitz: Wien, Österreich
Firmenbuchnummer: FN 682438 k
Firmenbuchgericht: Handelsgericht Wien
UID-Nummer: ATU83493024
Farshad Abbaszadeh
Geschäftsführer
Betrieb von Restaurants und Vergabe von Lizenzen, Gründung von Tochtergesellschaften, sowie Erwerb, Verkauf und Verwaltung von Beteiligungen an anderen Unternehmen.
E-Mail: info@emergingbites.com
Telefon: +43 5 9975 1100
Mitglied der Wirtschaftskammer Österreich
Wirtschaftskammer Wien
Magistratisches Bezirksamt für den X. Bezirk, Wien
Anwendbare Rechtsvorschrift: Gewerbeordnung (GewO)
Abrufbar unter www.ris.bka.gv.at
Für den Inhalt dieser Website ist die Emerging Bites Holding GmbH verantwortlich. Trotz sorgfältiger Prüfung übernehmen wir keine Haftung für die Inhalte externer Links. Für den Inhalt verlinkter Seiten sind ausschließlich deren Betreiber verantwortlich.