Copper Chimney Sets Sights on 100+ Restaurants by 2033 as the 50-Year-Old Brand Enters Its Next Chapter

Under Reetesh Shukla’s leadership, the Charcoal Concepts brand (part of K Hospitality) has grown from three restaurants to a 22 outlet network in 2026 with a plan to grow around 10-12 outlets each year. It is re-engineering its expansion model for greater consistency, efficiency and national scale.

Mumbai, August 2026: Fifty years after Copper Chimney first established itself as a name synonymous with North Indian dining, the iconic restaurant brand is entering its most ambitious phase yet with plans to cross 100 restaurants business by 2033.

At the centre of this next phase is Reetesh Shukla, Vice President & Business Head of brand Copper Chimney, part of Charcoal Concepts - who has been driving the brand’s transformation since joining K Hospitality in 2018. What began as a three-restaurant business has grown into a 22+ restaurant network, with the next phase focused on expansion, stronger unit economics, technology, people and operational scale.

The growth strategy comes at a time when India’s restaurant industry is undergoing a significant reset, with brands increasingly balancing expansion ambitions against rising real-estate, construction and operating costs. For Copper Chimney, this has meant going beyond simply opening more restaurants and re-engineering the underlying model that enables the brand to scale.

As part of this exercise, Copper Chimney has reworked its capex model, reducing build costs by approximately 25%, while sharpening unit economics and integrating technology and backend systems to support a larger network. The brand has also invested in structured learning and development initiatives aimed at building the talent pipeline required for its next phase of growth.

“The opportunity with Copper Chimney is not to simply preserve a 50-year-old brand, but to build the systems that allow its legacy to travel into the next 50 years,” says Reetesh Shukla, Vice President & Business Head of Copper Chimney, K Hospitality. “We have a brand with enormous equity and consumer trust. The challenge is to make that equity relevant to a new generation while building a business that is operationally stronger, more capital-efficient and ready to scale across markets.”

Building the next generation of Copper Chimney

The expansion blueprint is built around a combination of new markets, hyper densification of restaurants in key metro cities, people growth, technology and backend integration, with the brand looking beyond traditional metro markets to identify opportunities across India as well as international markets. A key focus will be the evolution of India’s Tier 2 and Tier 3 restaurant markets, where consumer aspirations are increasingly intersecting with demand for trusted brands and familiar, authentic dining experiences.

For Copper Chimney, this creates an opportunity to take its proposition of North Indian food to a wider audience while retaining the culinary identity and familiarity that have been central to the brand since its inception. The strategy also reflects a broader shift taking place across Indian casual dining towards premiumisation alongside value, authentic and comforting food, technology-led operations and greater capital discipline. Rather than treating heritage and growth as opposing forces, Copper Chimney is looking to use its five-decade consumer equity as the foundation for a more contemporary restaurant business.

From three restaurants to a national growth story

Shukla’s mandate has been to approach Copper Chimney not simply as a heritage brand to be protected, but as a business to be fundamentally re-engineered for its next stage.

With more than 26 years of experience spanning hospitality, food retail, consulting and international markets, Shukla has worked across the brand’s expansion strategy, operating model and organizational capabilities. The result is a business that has moved from three restaurants in 2018 to a 22+ outlet network today, with the next milestone firmly in sight: 100+ restaurants and a business by 2028 as part of the multi-brand F & B business of Charcoal concepts which operates brands like Bombay brasserie, Wagamama India, Bombay Borough, Jossh apart from Copper Chimney across India, London, Dubai and Colombo.

As Copper Chimney enters its sixth decade, the ambition is therefore not nostalgia-driven. It is about answering a more contemporary restaurant-industry question: how can a legacy brand retain the trust and authenticity built over five decades while developing the systems, economics and relevance required to scale for the next fifty years? For Copper Chimney, the answer lies in disciplined expansion, operational transformation and a renewed focus on what made the brand endure in the first place, while building it for the consumer and restaurant landscape of tomorrow.