Three Archibald's restaurants in Quebec and Lac-Beauport were sold to local owners

Three Archibald restaurants in Quebec and Lac-Beauport have become the property of a group of local business people who acquired Foodtastic franchises after a transaction announced earlier this week.

• Also Read: Catering: Foodtastic Archibald swallows restaurants

The group of associates that acquired the three restaurants included Frédéric Petit, owner of Kimono Sushi Bar in Saint-Foy, Vincent Blanchett and Pierre-Antoine Morency, owners of the Blanchett Morency Group, which owns dozens of restaurants in Quebec. Guayam Arsenault is the founder and co-owner of the Chocolat chain, which also owns other catering businesses in the area.

“Foodtastic will become a franchisor by acquiring the Archibald brand. They resell the restaurants to groups of business people who are capable of taking on these big projects,” explained Guayam Arsenault, the new president and co-owner of the three Archibald restaurants.

The transaction targeted the Saint-Foy, Lac-Beauport – and Petit-Champlain branches in Old Quebec – where Archibald's adventure began.

food lovers

“We are a very tight group and we complement each other. My partners are visionaries, exceptional business people, with great talent in management and operations. My strength is development. I am a person who is very close to employees and customers. We are all foodies and would love to join the Archibald family and its We are very excited and excited to be involved in the development,” Mr. Arseneault said in an interview.

“We're all people from Quebec with twenty years of catering experience,” he insists.

New owners want the transition to be smooth.

“What we want to do is first make sure everything is working properly. We are entering the learning phase. It is a big brand. This is a very well suited banner. Our goal is to get to know the inner workings, our employees, the systems and slowly see what can be optimized. The goal is not to make changes. The goal is to continue operations and make sure everything is in order. In fact, we want to develop and grow the Archibald brand,” says the co-owner.

The latter noted that catering has been “put to the test” since the pandemic.

“There is no rest. It is important to properly control your operations and control costs. It's important to be involved every day and make every effort to make sure customers are there.”

“It takes meticulous work and extraordinary rigor to do good business in these times because we feel there is financial pressure, but all the same, business is good and there are customers. We feel very fortunate to be doing what we do,” he concluded.