My Big Idea: steak restaurant chain Swiss Butter

Eddy Massaad is the founder of Swiss Butter, a global restaurant chain. It's a simple concept, and Eddy has run the business for ten years, it's wholly owned and run by him, and he's gone from humble beginnings to millions in turnover, by starting with one outlet in Beirut, to now 19. Nine months of rejection, credit cards maxed out and a steely determination to make it work. BizAge spoke to Eddy to hear about his remarkable success.

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Hi Eddy! What's your elevator pitch?

Swiss Butter is a deliberately simple restaurant concept built around one hero experience: steak, fries, and sauce, executed obsessively well. We don’t franchise. We don’t overextend. We build company-owned locations with tight operational control and vertically integrated supply chains. The idea is straightforward: remove noise, protect quality, and design systems that allow teams to deliver exceptional consistency. It’s simplicity, engineered to scale globally without losing its soul.

What does the market need it?

The market is saturated with complexity disguised as innovation. Overloaded menus, inflated positioning, inconsistent execution. Many restaurant brands chase expansion before they build foundations. Customers feel that instability immediately. What’s missing is disciplined simplicity, a focused product, controlled inputs, and operational systems designed for repetition at scale. We’re not reinventing food. We’re rebuilding reliability. That’s the gap. In volatile environments, consistency becomes luxury.

Where is the business today?

We operate 19 company-owned stores across six countries and continue expanding into major global cities. Every location is controlled, not franchised. We’ve built internal supply chain infrastructure, centralized standards, and leadership systems that allow us to scale intentionally. Growth is steady, but disciplined. We measure expansion not by store count alone, but by system readiness and operational integrity.

What made you think there was an opportunity here?

Before Swiss Butter, I ran a management company serving top restaurant brands. I saw behind the curtain. Many concepts looked strong on the surface but were structurally fragile. Too dependent on individuals. Too reactive. Too complex and heavy. I realised there was an opportunity to design a brand from the ground up where operations efficiency and supply chain were the strategy, not an afterthought. I didn’t research trends. I studied failure patterns. That’s where the opportunity was hiding.

How did you research the niche?

I didn’t start with spreadsheets or trend reports. I started with operations. For years, through my supply chain company, I was inside kitchens, warehouses, procurement meetings. I saw where margins leaked, where standards drifted, where brands became dependent on personalities instead of systems. I studied friction. I paid attention to what broke under pressure. The research wasn’t theoretical. It was practical exposure to failure patterns. That gave me clarity on what not to build before deciding what to build.

What's wrong with your competitors?

Nothing is “wrong” in the dramatic sense. Many are successful. But structurally, most concepts are built for speed before stability. Too much menu complexity. Too much reliance on franchising. Too much dependence on individual operators. When volatility hits, those weaknesses surface. Efficiency is mistaken for strength. Expansion is mistaken for durability. We chose a different path. Control over shortcuts. Systems. Discipline over hype. In the long run, that difference compounds.

What's your biggest strength?

System thinking. I don’t believe in heroic founders. I believe in engineered execution. Our strength is that we design for volatility from day one. We invest early in infrastructure. We build redundancy before we “need” it. And we train teams to operate with clarity under pressure. That mindset compounds. It’s harder to copy than a menu.

What is the secret to making the business work?

Owning risk early. The main challenge in hospitality isn’t competition; it’s operational drift. Standards slip quietly. Costs creep. Culture fragments. The solution is brutal clarity. Clear accountability. Clear processes. Clear decision rights. You can’t scale what you can’t measure, and you can’t measure what you haven’t defined. Most businesses expand before they stabilize. We stabilized first.

How do you market the company?

We don’t shout. We design experiences people want to repeat. Word of mouth built the early traction. Now we combine disciplined marketing and strong location strategy. But marketing only works if the product holds. Retention is the real growth engine.

What funding do you have? Is it enough?

We are privately funded and growth has been structured conservatively. We reinvest aggressively. Capital is important, but discipline is more important. Expansion without operational maturity is expensive. We focus on sustainable capital deployment rather than speed for its own sake.

Tell us about the business model

The model is high-volume, tightly focused, operationally controlled. Limited SKUs reduce complexity and waste. Centralized procurement protects margins. Company ownership protects quality. Store economics are driven by throughput, not menu expansion. Break-even is engineered around predictable volume and disciplined cost control. Simplicity reduces overhead. Systems protect margin. Repeatability protects long-term value.

What were you doing before?

I founded I MANAGE, a hospitality management company serving restaurants across the region. That experience shaped how I think. I saw what breaks under scale. I saw what survives. Swiss Butter is the product of those lessons.

Are there any technologies you've found useful?

Integrated POS systems, centralized inventory control, financial planning tools, and data dashboards are essential. Technology is powerful, but only when it supports a clear operating model. We use tech to increase signal, not noise. Automation without discipline creates faster mistakes.

What is the future vision?

To build a global, company-owned brand present in every major city, while expanding the infrastructure behind it. The goal isn’t just to grow stores. It’s to build a durable, vertically integrated platform that compounds over decades. Speed matters. But durability matters more.