Khalil Khamis on Relaunching Pinkberry and Building Brain Bites in Lebanon

Khalil Khamis is the managing partner of Brain Bites SAL, a food and beverage company founded in 2024 with a plain plan: operate international brands in Lebanon to a consistent standard, and build a platform that can keep growing from there.

The company's first move was to take the master franchise for Pinkberry in Lebanon and bring the frozen yogurt brand back to the market. Pinkberry had shut down in the country during the economic crisis. Before he became its franchisee, Khamis was a regular customer.

No industry experience, one brand's trust

He had never worked in food and beverage. Getting Pinkberry to hand over the brand for Lebanon was not easy, he said, and he credits persistence and a demonstrated attachment to the product.

Pinkberry, in his description, is where Brain Bites begins rather than where it ends. The team behind the company is young, ambitious and dynamic, and its stated goal is to become the leading F&B operator in Lebanon.

Opening during conflict

The relaunch landed in 2024, in the middle of a period of conflict. Khamis calls it one of the hardest things you can do in this industry. Brain Bites went on to open three more locations during a second stretch of conflict.

Managing through that means revisiting costs and margins constantly. Employee safety ranks above everything else. Discipline, as Khamis describes it, has become part of day-to-day operations rather than a mode the company enters when things go wrong.

Doing well under those conditions carries weight beyond the business itself, he said. A steady, positive experience gives Lebanese customers a brief break from hardship. The moment that made the effort worthwhile for him was watching a customer taste Pinkberry again after years without it.

Nine locations, and a portfolio logic

Pinkberry now operates across nine locations, which is also the number of outlets Brain Bites runs in Lebanon.

New franchise brands get evaluated as parts of a portfolio, not as one-off additions. The ambition is a complete food court experience under one roof, covering coffee, lunch and dessert. Khamis looks for brands he genuinely believes in, and for ones that fit an operating model the company can execute at a high standard.

The headquarters and systems were designed from the outset to support several brands, so the team can open sites or introduce franchises quickly and reliably. Consistency, in his account, starts with the system rather than the storefront. The first store and the ninth are held to the same standard, and uniform standards are what allow fast expansion without cutting corners.

That a franchise chain can keep adding outlets during conflict says something about how operators here have adapted. With Lebanon still working through the fallout of the crisis that closed Pinkberry the first time, the businesses that endure tend to be the ones treating cost control as routine and standards as fixed. The return of the brand tests that premise at scale.

What comes next

Pinkberry expansion continues, and Brain Bites is in discussions to bring a second franchise into the Lebanese market. Growth does not pause for the company, even in difficult periods. Lebanon is the immediate priority. Khamis describes himself as a partner and representative of every brand he brings in, not merely an operator, and other markets are always somewhere in the back of his mind.

He does not want Lebanese customers traveling abroad to try the world's best franchises, and he wants the surrounding region to come to Lebanon for them first.

His advice to entrepreneurs is to be ambitious, to chase what they believe in despite instability, to take the first step anyway and to keep looking forward. He believes Lebanon has a bright future. Keeping it moving, in his view, is work for Lebanese people themselves.