Chicking New Zealand aims to open a restaurant in Andersons Bay Rd in March, and another in George St later this year.
The restaurant chain was established in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, in 2000, by AK Mansoor, and is the first fully halal international quick-service restaurant chain from the UAE.
Since then, the brand has spread to more than 35 countries with more than 315 outlets, and is known as "a tasty alternative to formulaic fast food".
Marketing manager Alan George said the restaurant would be located at 383 Andersons Bay Rd, on a 130sqm premises next to Subway, and across from Pita Pit, Domino’s and Wendy’s.
The site for the George St restaurant has yet to be confirmed.
"It’s pretty much an expansion process. We have about 19 stores in New Zealand right now — the latest one was opened near Hamilton.
"We have two shops in Christchurch, and we just thought, as an expansion, the next good location would be in Dunedin.
"It will be our southernmost stores so far."
The company believed Dunedin was the best choice for expansion because the Andersons Bay area was experiencing a new business boom, particularly with Kmart opening in the area.
Mr George said based on social media comments, many people who had been to Chicking’s restaurants in other parts of New Zealand had shown a lot of interest in having a Chicking in Dunedin.
"After we opened a store in Christchurch, people started asking when we will open in Timaru, Dunedin and all those locations, and we just thought, ‘OK, this is a good opportunity for us to open in Dunedin’.
"We are all actually excited because since we posted our Dunedin announcement, we have been getting pretty good comments from people asking for dates, when we’ll be opening and stuff like that."
The Andersons Bay store would be the 21st to open in New Zealand, and he hoped the menu’s "unique taste" would be appealing to Dunedin.
