From Granville to the Australian Open: Inside El Jannah’s ascent to cult chicken chain

Lebanese chicken chain El Jannah’s breathless national expansion and the ballooning reputation that seems to precede it may have never come to fruition, if not for a phone call on Christmas Eve in 2019.

“[Founder and owner] Andre [Estephan] reached out,” said Brett Houldin, who has been chief executive of El Jannah for the last five years.

“He said, ‘Why don’t we do this together? Let’s grow the business and turn it into a household name.’”

The essentials: whole charcoal chicken meal with Lebanese pickles, bread, tabouli, garlic dip, and fries.Credit: Wolter Peeters

Earlier that month, Houldin had departed Craveable Brands, the parent company that operates Oporto, Red Rooster, Chargrill Charlie, after the franchise group was sold to private equity firm PAG Asia Capital.

During his time heading Craveable, Houldin had gotten to know the husband-and-wife duo behind El Jannah to find out what had made their take on chicken – roasted over charcoal – such a hit with Sydneysiders, who were willing to drive across town for it.

“There’s a huge amount of disruption that can happen in the fast food industry for players that can centre on quality, freshness, dining experience,” says Houldin. “El Jannah had all that intrinsically, as part of the way that the Estephans had built it around their culture, their values and behaviours.”

El Jannah was only five outlets back then, all clustered around its birthplace of western Sydney, which counts Arabic as the most spoken language at home other than English.

The love for the brand and the product, and the opportunity for growth, was immense. “You can’t just create that,” says Houldin.

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There was a time not too long ago that the idea of a nationally beloved Lebanese fast food chain with an Arabic name (“el jannah” means paradise or heaven) might have been harder to imagine.

Their prized chicken is dressed, brined and then marinated for 24 hours in one of three production kitchens before it is cooked.

A rich variety of cuisines have flourished in Australia over the decades thanks to the influx and integration of immigrants and their children. Food is often the first and most accessible touchpoint for interacting with new cultures.

Part of El Jannah’s success is that its basic elements are familiar. “Chicken and salad has always been a deeply embedded Australian thing. You grab a roast chicken, you get a pot of coleslaw. It’s been a classic family takeaway meal or picnic solution for a long, long time,” says food consultant and Titanium Food director Suzee Brain.

“A trend ... that’s already in our DNA, that’s when it’s going to explode. It’s great to see a more diversified version of that coming out now.”

Like clothing, food moves in and out of fashion. The likes of Oporto, Red Rooster and Nandos aren’t seen as inspiring brands to the newer generation. “They’re looking for the next wave,” she says. “El Jannah’s found a nice moment to move on that. And the fact that it’s char grilled – we’re having a wood fire moment as well.”

Houldin says his three young children’s most-requested cuisine is sushi, which continues to grow in popularity for its freshness and convenience, and points to recent ASX entrant Guzman y Gomez as driving national appetite for Mexican food. “No one’s doing charcoal. No one’s really doing Middle Eastern [at] scale,” he says.

Being the first chain to do Lebanese chicken will only get you so far. “You still got to do it better than the incumbents,” says Houldin. “Just being different isn’t enough.”

El Jannah founders Carole and Andre Estephan.

One thing El Jannah isn’t is an overnight success. The Estephans opened the first El Jannah in Granville in 1998 after a small takeaway outlet, Awafi, with Andre’s sister Samira and her husband Simon went well. It was more than a decade before El Jannah’s second store opened in Sydney’s south-west suburb of Punchbowl.

There were five stores when Houldin joined in 2020. And he didn’t waste any time; the first drive-through location in western Sydney’s Smithfield opened shortly after.

“It was an old Red Rooster, so I was familiar with the site,” he says.

El Jannah has since grown to nearly 40 locations and has become something of a litmus test against which its rivals are compared. Their prized chicken is dressed, brined and then marinated for 24 hours in three production kitchens (two in Sydney and one in Melbourne), which centralises the preparation of salads like tabouli and fattoush, its popular garlic and chilli sauces, and a growing range of dips, all of which are made in-house.

All of this is delivered six days a week across NSW, the ACT and Victoria. About 40 or 50 chickens at a time are cooked by “charcoal masters” who aren’t allowed to touch the charcoal until they have had six months of training.

El Jannah CEO Brett Houldin and head of marketing Adam Issa.Credit: Wolter Peeters

“We’ve never harped on about all this,” says Adam Issa, head of marketing and Houldin’s offsider. “Everyone’s come before us and said these things, we’re the freshest, we’re the healthiest. We’ve allowed the food to speak for itself.” He gestures to the tabouli. “That’s better than Mum’s. Hand on heart.”

Ensuring the chain’s rapid roll-out doesn’t compromise the quality of the food will be crucial. Sticking close to El Jannah’s roots as a family restaurant run by the Estephans in a tight-knit community sums up the playbook, if there were one; staff are currently being retrained on the “EJ Way”, a reminder that selling chicken meals is more than just a transaction.

“The whole experience of the way that it’s served, the way you ensure that the customer is treated like a guest, as if it was you welcoming them into your home, allowing them to enjoy, relax, bring friends; the service around the table is another layer to the business that is the authenticity of the Lebanese way,” says Houldin.

“We don’t want to dilute the experience, the product, the brand, by any new store,” he adds.

So what does Houldin say to criticisms – usually from their earliest customers, western Sydney locals – that the chicken is sometimes dry?

Chicken, pickles and toum (garlic dip) in the original Granville store, May 2020.Credit: Marco Del Grande

“I think a lot of the dialogue … is [from] those that aren’t familiar exactly with the way that charcoal chicken is cooked,” he says. Oven-baked or deep-fried chicken will retain oil in its own way, he says.

“If you cook a chicken over a charcoal bed, a lot of that fat drips out, which actually, by nature, means it is a drier form at the end, which is our strength, but if you’re new to the brand, you might say, that’s not what I’m used to.”

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On balance, El Jannah has far more fans than detractors and one impatient fan has even petitioned El Jannah to open in Adelaide. To scale from a family-run operation to a national chain, El Jannah’s core business functions like HR, legal, operations, and marketing have been bolstered; about 45 people run the head office and a further 100 work on the supply chain side.

El Jannah in Melbourne’s Preston, 11 August 2022.Credit: Eddie Jim

Setting up in Australia’s other states will emulate the way El Jannah mushroomed in Sydney: identifying areas densely populated by Middle Eastern communities and setting up not just one store, but a cluster of three or five, which helps streamline supply chain logistics and encourage word of mouth.

The chain is on track to reach 50 stores by June and aims to hit 100 in two years. Queensland and South Australia expansions are slated for 2026. It expects to report revenue of $250-300 million this financial year.

While there are nascent ambitions to go international, with investment bankers reportedly already circling, Houldin says the talks are “very speculative”.

“We’ll be patient in that regard,” says Houldin, who has a minority stake in the business. “You can see that we’re at the start of something of our own here.”

El Jannah debuted on the global stage earlier this year at the Australian Open, which attracted a record-breaking 1.2 million visitors, a move that Houldin said was more brand and marketing-led than commercial.

“It’s about allowing people to access the brand, being seen as a bit bigger than maybe what we are in store count today.”

The Estephans prefer to keep a low profile (they declined to be interviewed), but Andre is still very active behind the scenes in signing off on major decisions and likes to look over menu development.

According to Houldin, they’re delighted and proud to see it grow while staying true to how it began. “I think they have a higher sense of confidence that the brand can be significant in the food landscape.”

Some El Jannah’s secrets will stay in the family. One source, of Lebanese heritage, recently queried if their flavour-bomb condiment – its celebrated garlic dip, was mixed with mayonnaise.

The allergens chart shows the garlic sauce contains egg, a common emulsifier and stabilising agent that doesn’t typically feature in traditional toum recipes.

When asked, Issa and Houldin look at each other, puzzled. Only the Estephans know the answer.

“It is a genuine locked down recipe,” says Houldin. “No one knows,” Issa adds. “But it hasn’t changed because they’ve been doing it since day one.”

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