I went from fine dining to owning a fast-casual chain. Here are 4 misconceptions about the restaurant business.

"I studied hospitality in Switzerland and then came to New York to work under celebrity chefs, Daniel Boulud and François Payard, so I had experience in fine dining. When I decided to open the first Naya in 2008, that was more or less my comfort zone. A week after we launched, we got an amazing article in the New York Times and then we were packed for lunch and dinner. It definitely helped prevent us from shutting down after a few months."

"A couple of years in, we realized the food worked incredibly well in a faster and more accessible format. If you go to a Lebanese restaurant, you have all these mezze in the middle of the table, like a plate with a variety of dips and vegetables, and you're putting scoops on your plate. That's how we eat usually. So that's why I shifted my focus into a fast-casual model."

"1. Fast casual is not easy A lot of people think fast-casual restaurants are easy. It is not easy. Serving more guests at a faster pace doesn't mean it's a simple effort; it means you should master your systems and consistency at scale, possibly even more rigor than in fi"

Hady Kfoury studied hospitality in Switzerland and worked under celebrity chefs Daniel Boulud and François Payard before opening Naya in New York in 2008. Early national press drove strong customer demand and helped stabilize the initial location. Kfoury transitioned Naya from fine dining to a fast-casual format because Lebanese mezze-style sharing suited a quicker, more accessible service model. Naya has grown to 44 East Coast restaurants and aims for 200 locations nationwide by 2030 as Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine becomes mainstream. Kfoury emphasizes that fast-casual growth requires mastering systems and consistency rather than relying solely on food quality.

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