MOSCOW, April 25. /TASS/. The Rostik's chain of fast food restaurants is set to expand to 2,000 locations, Tatyana Shamanskaya, CEO of the Unirest company, told TASS on Tuesday.

Unirest manages the former assets of the American company Yum! Brands in Russia.

"We see great potential for the growth of our chain and set ourselves such an ambitious goal as one thousand more locations," Shamanskaya said.

In her opinion, the area of the chain’s development includes remote and small towns with a population of 100,000 or less.

On Tuesday, a Rostik’s restaurant opened on Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street in central Moscow on the site of the former flagship KFC restaurant. By May holidays, 40 corporate restaurants in Moscow and the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug will open and 26 more will start working in the Moscow region until the end of May, Shamanskaya said.

On April 17, Yum! Brands completed its exit from the Russian market by selling its KFC business in Russia to Smart Service Ltd. The sale to Smart Service includes all Russian KFC restaurants, operating system, master franchise rights and the trademark for the Rostik's brand. Currently, the total number of network locations is more than 1,100.

In early March, Yum! Brands announced the suspension of the work of KFC restaurants in Russia. However, franchise outlets were able to continue operating.

Later, Yum! Brands announced that it had agreed to sell the Russian division of KFC to a local franchise operator - the Smart Service company, which is part of the Food Service Group. The co-owners of Food Service are Konstantin Kotov and Andrey Oskolkov.

In November 2022, the Federal Antimonopoly Service granted Smart Service Ltd LLC’s petition to acquire the Russian KFC. Under the terms of the deal, the company will own 70 restaurants and become a franchisor for more than a thousand partner restaurants, which will continue to operate under the Rostik's brand.