Business

Quick service restaurant giant rolling out new stores across South Africa

Daily Investor • 8 April 2026

Hungry Lion is set to open 200 new stores this year, which is the fastest rollout of any fast-food restaurant chain in South Africa.

Over the last two months, Hungry Lion opened six new stores in South Africa, one in Windhoek, Namibia, and one in Zambia.

The new outlets are in Emalahleni Jumbo Mall, Middelburg Mall, Mthatha Cathedral Square, and Johannesburg Bridge Centre.

Other locations include Shongwane Phahladira Mall, Benoni Cloverdene Centre, Vida Maerua Mall Kiosk in Windhoek, and Chiparamba in Zambia.

To meet the 200 new stores target by the end of the year, Hungry Lion must open an average of 17 stores per month.

The latest figures of 8 new outlets in two months are well below these numbers. However, this is not unexpected.

Hungry Lion CEO Adrian Basson explained that new store openings are always slower at the start of the year. “We anticipate it ramping up towards the end of the year,” he said.

He added that the quick service restaurant is still targeting 200 new stores this year and is actively seeking suitable sites.

Apart from opening new stores in the nine countries where it operates, Hungry Lion is also looking to expand into three new countries this year.

“We’re fully committed as we continue to grow our footprint and bring our brand to more communities,” the company said.

What is impressive about this performance is that Hungry Lion competes in the highly competitive fried chicken market.

This market has traditionally been dominated by KFC and Chicken Licken. KFC has approximately 1,200 outlets in South Africa, and Chicken Licken has 287. Hungry Lion opened its 500th store in 2025.

For Hungry Lion to outgrow these two established and well-funded competitors would be an exceptional achievement.

Hungry Lion started with one store in Stellenbosch

Hungry Lion’s history dates back to 1997, when the Shoprite Group, under former CEO Whitey Basson, was looking to expand its business offerings.

The group tested the waters by opening its first restaurant in a small store in Eikestad Mall in Stellenbosch.

This store proved so successful that more were added in the same year, including in Zambia and the Eastern Cape.

In 1998, Hungry Lion opened its first store in Namibia, and in 1999, it expanded into Eswatini and Botswana.

Over the next two decades, the quick-service restaurant chain grew its footprint to Angola, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Mauritius.

It rapidly expanded its store count, opening its 500th Hungry Lion outlet by 2025 and reaching 10,000 employees.

The company offers what you would expect from a fried chicken outlet. Apart from fried chicken, it has wings, burgers, chips, drinks, and ice cream.

Basson joined Hungry Lion in 2001 and has seen the company come a long way over the past two decades.

He said that, at first, Hungry Lion wasn’t really building a brand. “We purely sold chicken and chips at an affordable price on a somewhat ad-hoc basis,” he said.

As they reached 100-plus stores, Basson said that they realised that stores without a brand, a story, and an experience would fail to deliver in the long term.

In the early 2010s, Shoprite had been working to make the restaurant a separate entity with its own distinct brand and character.

According to Shoprite’s annual reports, the group completely disposed of all its interest in Hungry Lion Fast Foods (Pty) Ltd on 1 July 2018.

Today, Hungry Lion is an independent, private company, Hungry Lion Fast Foods (Pty) Ltd, having fully separated from its former parent company.