Premier Restaurants defends Applebee’s, IHOP pricing

PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Re­porter

Pre­mier Restau­rants CEO Vish­nu Ma­haraj has de­fend­ed the pric­ing at the new­ly opened Ap­ple­bee’s and IHOP restau­rants at Grand Bazaar, say­ing the prices are af­ford­able de­spite so­cial me­dia posts sug­gest­ing oth­er­wise.

Ma­haraj said some menu prices match or are low­er than those in the Unit­ed States de­spite im­por­ta­tion du­ties and ad­di­tion­al land­ed costs.

“Some of our food prices are ac­tu­al­ly match­ing the US prices. De­spite the fact we have im­por­ta­tion and du­ties and ex­tra ad­di­tion­al land­ed costs.”

“Our pric­ing is even more af­ford­able than some of the items in Amer­i­ca. I’m just say­ing. For ex­am­ple, in Amer­i­ca, a beer could be eight US. I’m just say­ing our al­co­hol is even low­er be­cause of ex­pens­es,” Ma­haraj said in re­sponse to ques­tions about a so­cial me­dia post de­pict­ing high prices at the restau­rant.

At the open­ing this morn­ing, Ma­haraj said the restau­rant had hired about peo­ple to work across two ro­tat­ing shifts at the dual-brand lo­ca­tion.

Troy Be­har­ry of Pre­mier Restau­rants con­firmed that the com­pa­ny had signed an agree­ment to open more of the fran­chis­es, with lo­ca­tions in North and South Trinidad be­ing con­sid­ered.