Herfy

Herfy opened its first restaurant in Riyadh in 1981, founded by Ahmed Al-Said and Sheikh Hamoud Al-Ibrahim, then head of the Panda United supermarket group. A year later it set up its own bakeries so it could control the quality of its buns.

The company grew into something more like a food manufacturer with restaurants attached. Besides the bakeries it built its own meat-processing plant, and it passed through some of the kingdom’s largest business groups: in 1994 Panda’s stake went to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding, and in 1998 Herfy became part of the Savola group. It has been listed on the Saudi stock exchange, Tadawul, since February 2010, and has opened branches in the UAE, Kuwait, Egypt and Bangladesh, with a franchise agreement for Nigeria signed in 2021.

The menu is plain and cheap. The core is the Herfy burger in single, double and triple versions with the house Herfy sauce, alongside a long list of fried and grilled chicken burgers, the Mudabbal double burgers on the taller Tower bun, tortilla wraps and a fish fillet.

Hundreds of restaurants across Saudi Arabia, with branches in other Gulf countries and Egypt.

• Steers (South Africa). South Africa’s flame-grilled burger chain, home of the King Steer. Also built on beef, cheese and a double stack.
• RocoMamas (South Africa). South Africa’s loud smashburger chain, with ribs, wings and a build-your-own menu. Also built on beef, cheese and a double stack.
• Burgerizzr (Saudi Arabia, since 2009). The Riyadh burger chain that grew to 120 branches on chilled, never-frozen beef. Also built on beef, cheese and a double stack.
• SALT (United Arab Emirates, since 2014). Wagyu sliders from an Airstream on Dubai’s Kite Beach, the food truck that became a Gulf chain. Also built on beef and cheese.