Background and Challenge
Founded in Jordan, Otantik Restaurant is built around authentic Levantine cuisine with a clear vision: to create a cross-border dining experience that travels with the culture.
To achieve that vision, Otantik needed to expand internationally — recruiting skilled chefs and management staff from multiple countries, establishing franchise operations across regions, and navigating the regulatory requirements of each jurisdiction.
The challenge involved three overlapping layers:
- Multi-nationality hiring: Bringing kitchen and management talent from different countries requires separate work permit applications in each jurisdiction, with different document standards and timelines
- Franchise structure: Setting up compliant legal entities in each market requires careful corporate planning — the wrong structure creates liability gaps and tax inefficiencies
- Regulatory coordination: Each country’s immigration and business registration process has its own rules; managing all of them simultaneously without a dedicated team is extremely difficult for a growing restaurant group
For an international restaurant brand focused on food quality and guest experience, administrative complexity was becoming a barrier to growth.
How Kerui Helped
Kerui provided Otantik with structured support across both visa and corporate advisory dimensions:
Multi-nationality Work Visa Coordination
- Managed the full work permit application process for Otantik’s international kitchen and management staff
- Coordinated documentation across multiple nationalities — each with different passport, notarization, and qualification requirements
- Provided a single point of contact for all visa-related queries, removing the burden from Otantik’s internal operations team
Corporate Structure Advisory for Franchise Expansion
- Advised on the appropriate entity structure for each market — distinguishing between wholly foreign-owned entities, local partnerships, and representative offices based on operational needs
- Helped Otantik build a compliant cross-border franchise framework that could scale without creating structural compliance risk
- Supported continued market entry planning as the brand expanded its footprint in the Middle East and beyond
Outcome
With Kerui’s support, Otantik now has an operational framework that supports global talent recruitment and franchise expansion without administrative friction.
- The restaurant group can recruit culinary talent from multiple countries without being slowed down by visa processing complications
- The franchise network continues to grow, with the brand building presence across the Middle East and additional international markets
- Corporate structure planning has given management a clear, scalable foundation for expanding into new jurisdictions without compliance gaps
