Malak Al Tawouk Brand Guidelines: The Lebanese Tawouk Chain With a Crown in Its Logo

A small sandwich shop and two brothers.

Malak Al Tawouk is a Lebanese sandwich chain founded in 1996 and built around one item, the tawouk sandwich of grilled chicken in Lebanese bread. In a statement published by the Lebanese food site NoGarlicNoOnions in July 2014, the company said it was established in December 1996 with its first store in Jounieh, the coastal town north of Beirut. Its chief executive, Joseph Saade, told Outlook, the student magazine of the American University of Beirut, in March 2021 that the business had been founded by his father as a small restaurant in Jounieh selling small sandwiches, and that he and his brother then took it over and switched to larger portions at lower prices. Trade coverage of the brand’s 2026 licensing deal, in Verdict Foodservice and in Lebanon’s Business News, gives the founding place as Beirut instead; both name 1996 as the year.

Growth at home came through new branches and then franchising. The 2014 statement said the chain had reached 15 outlets in 14 years and had grown past the point where it could be run by the two Saade brothers alone, so it had to work as a chain and a franchise. Dated counts since then rise steadily: over 40 branches in Lebanon, according to RetailME in November 2020; 40 in Lebanon, six in the UAE and three in Qatar, according to Hospitality News in August 2021; and more than 45 in Lebanon and 19 across the Middle East, according to Verdict Foodservice in February 2026.

The menu stays close to the sandwich. RetailME in 2020 described large classic tawouk sandwiches folded in fresh Lebanese bread, with burgers, platters and a range of starters alongside, and Outlook noted the garlic cream, toum, served with them in Paris.

Franchises abroad, then a 75-year licence.

Abroad, the brand has travelled through franchise partners. In the UAE, RetailME reported in November 2020 that the chain had opened its first Sharjah branch, in the Matajer Al Juraina mall, taking its UAE count to five after four branches in Dubai, on Hessa Street and in Motor City, Business Bay and Dubai Silicon Oasis. The operator named in that report was the Dubai company Yummy Junction.

Europe followed in 2020. The first Paris branch opened on 7 September 2020, Outlook reported, in a space of about 100 square metres with 35 seats, run by the franchisees Magali and Tarek Mekkaoui. In a December 2020 interview with Hospitality News, Saade named the French partner as Conshierto SAS Master. Hospitality News reported in August 2021 that the first branch was on rue René Boulanger and that a second, of about 40 square metres, had opened on rue Saint-Charles, franchised by Conshierto, the Mekkaouis’ company. By February 2026 the brand also had stores in Canada, Verdict Foodservice reported.

The main ownership news came in February 2026. On 9 February Verdict Foodservice and Business News reported that Americana Restaurants International, the Abu Dhabi-based operator of franchises including KFC, Hardee’s, Pizza Hut and Krispy Kreme in the region, had signed a long-term exclusive licence to develop and operate Malak Al Tawouk for 75 years in 13 markets across the Gulf, the Levant, North Africa and Central Asia. The same reports named Joseph Saade, Alain Saade and Joseph Ajoury as the brand’s owners, and Verdict Foodservice described it as a family-owned Lebanese brand.

How the region’s chains present themselves.

The fast-food chains of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon include several that began as a single restaurant in one city. ALBAIK dates itself to a Jeddah chicken shop opened in 1974 and took its present name in 1986; Kudu opened its first sandwich counter in Riyadh in April 1988. Their histories are told in two places: the companies’ own “our story” pages, and the business press of the Gulf and beyond.

What the companies publish about themselves is often bilingual: ALBAIK’s and Kudu’s websites, for example, run in English and Arabic, with the name set in Latin capitals. Menus are presented by named dishes and meals rather than by price lists: fried-chicken meals and garlic sauce, made-to-order sandwiches and burgers, shawarma wraps, falafel, man’oushe flatbreads and mixed grills, depending on the chain. Open kitchens, drive-throughs, food-court counters and petrol-station units appear as formats in their own right.

Restaurant networks are often counted by the companies themselves, so the numbers change with the date of the page. Expansion abroad often runs through partners: ALBAIK entered the UAE in 2021 with an Abu Dhabi operator, and Kudu opened its first franchise outside Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait, in 2026. Ownership can change too: Kudu passed from family ownership to private-equity investors in 2015 and to a regional investment group in 2022.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each chain — who founded it, who owns it, where it trades and which dishes it names — and attributes what rests only on the company’s word. The palettes and typefaces shown are unofficial interpretations, and no logo, sign or packaging is reproduced.

A crown on the logo, red and white behind it.

Malak Al Tawouk’s identity work is on record. In July 2014 NoGarlicNoOnions spotted a new logo carrying a crown on a branch in Lebanon and published the company’s explanation. The rebrand was led by the creative pair Tino Karam and Kimmy Zouki, working with the designers Marya Ghazzaoui, Judy Rizk and Cynthia el Hasbani, and it covered the logo, menu, signage, merchandise and uniforms. The new identity was shown first at the City Mall outlet, at a time when some branches still carried the original logo and others a version introduced about three years earlier.

The idea, as the company told it, played on the name and on kingship: its line was that if the customer is king, Malak Al Tawouk is “home of kings”; combining a chicken and a king, it said, took several rounds of trial and error. The company described the voice it wanted as generous, quirky, fun, honest and fresh, and said the job was a full brand overhaul with visual and business guidelines. It also explained the colours: the red and white backgrounds, it said, stand for the pairing of ketchup and toum, the garlic sauce served with the sandwiches.

Since then the name has stayed the same in every market, from Jounieh and Beirut to Dubai, Sharjah and Paris, carried by franchise partners rather than by a single operator. The February 2026 licence with Americana Restaurants puts the brand inside a group that runs international fast-food franchises across the region, while the Lebanese founders remain its owners, according to the reports of the deal.

For a design guide, Malak Al Tawouk shows how a single-product chain can build an identity out of the one word in its name that is not the product. Compare KFC and Hardee’s, two chicken and burger brands that Americana operates in the region. For this guide we use tomato red, toum cream and crown gold with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Malak Al Tawouk’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.