From Uralsk to Almaty and Astana: How PLAN B Became a Burger Franchise

In partnership with Wolt, weproject.media and Gorod24 continue their series of conversations with the people shaping Kazakhstan’s restaurant scene. PLAN B began as a small burger joint in Uralsk. Founder Ildar Bisengaliyev talks about the difficult first months, expanding into Almaty and Astana, what Wolt has brought to the business, and why he is now focused on running smaller, more efficient restaurants.

Ildar Bisengaliyev, 37, founder of PLAN B, from Uralsk From tech to burgers I’m from Uralsk, but I came to restaurants by way of tech. My first venture was an app for finding car washes. It didn’t take off, largely because we hadn’t listened closely enough to the car washes we were building it for. In tech, it’s easy to feel removed from the people using what you’ve made. Restaurants are different. You can find out what someone thinks of your food almost immediately. I got a taste of the business while helping a friend with his healthy meal service. He was also the person who got me interested in burgers. The idea appealed to me because it was so focused. You could open a small place and do one thing really well. The first PLAN B PLAN B started taking shape in 2018, when I moved back to Uralsk. I was helping my parents with their small canteen and saw how much the quality could vary depending on who was in the kitchen. That’s a common problem in restaurants, especially in smaller cities. I decided that if I was going to open a place of my own, I had to know how to cook everything myself. I went to burger places all over Kazakhstan, made trips to Moscow and Almaty, and gradually worked out what I wanted PLAN B to be. Finding a space in Uralsk proved difficult. In the end, my parents let me use their former shop. I had it redesigned and renovated with white tiles, bentwood chairs and marble tables. It was an unusual look for Uralsk at the time. We were meant to open in December 2018. Then I discovered I’d miscalculated how much electrical power we needed. I borrowed a million tenge from a friend and spent 700,000 of it on the wiring. We finally opened in January 2019. It was slow going at first. We were bringing in around 15,000 tenge, and the customers were mostly friends and my mum’s friends. But they kept coming back. I’d worked in tech, so I knew to pay attention to retention. I’d ask the team at the till, “Have you seen these customers before?” They told me about two out of three returned, often with a friend. I thought: the food is working. We just need more people to discover it. Then our chef dismissed the kitchen team and left himself. My wife was pregnant, but the two of us went into the kitchen and took over. I could bake the buns, prepare the beef and make the patties. We had two people working the till and did the cooking ourselves. Later, I took over the till too. Until then, I’d believed that great food would take care of everything. Working face to face with customers changed my mind. In a restaurant, service matters every bit as much. I paid attention to people, listened to what they said, and the business started growing quickly. We kept experimenting. We brought in new drinks and fridges, even kombucha from Almaty, and were always adjusting something. Customers would laugh and say, “Every time we come in, something’s changed.” We added outdoor seating and put a piano on the street, like the ones you see in Europe. People played it, and eventually it was painted. Almaty and Astana I’d wanted to open in Almaty for years. I visited often, tried new restaurants and came home with ideas. In 2023, we opened at Platforma. It was a big gamble. We didn’t have much of a marketing campaign, but the first few months went well. We managed the crowds and stayed open while a number of the other food stalls closed. For me, that was a sign that PLAN B could hold its own in Almaty. We opened another Almaty location, on the third floor of MEGA, in April 2025. The first three months were rough and we lost money. We put more effort into marketing, made the restaurant more visible, and it’s been growing since. Astana was a different story. We initially opened there through a franchise, but it didn’t work out. The owner later offered to hand the PLAN B location over to me, so we took it on ourselves. We’ve been making smash burgers for seven years. For a while we barely talked about how we made them. Once we arrived in Almaty, we started telling people about it all the time. If there’s one thing we’ve got right over those seven years, it’s consistency. I travel a lot, and I’ve had burgers elsewhere that I liked more than ours. But our beef has always been excellent. Every morning, the team cuts and grinds fresh meat themselves. People have enough uncertainty in their lives. They like knowing they can come to us and get a burger they’ll enjoy. Customers know more about food now, too. Travel and Instagram have played a part in that. Years ago, hardly anyone asked how their burger was cooked. Today, people know what they like and think more carefully about where they go and what they spend. What Wolt changed for us We started working with Wolt in Uralsk. I wasn’t convinced at first. We already did our own deliveries, and I was wary of delivery platforms. But we tried it, and orders through Wolt began to grow. The team also supported us beyond delivery. They brought journalists in to meet us and write about PLAN B. When we were preparing to enter Almaty, they suggested we think of Wolt as a way for people to discover us. Ordering in is often someone’s first experience of a restaurant. I use delivery apps all the time myself. At one point I realised that a lot of my own decisions about what to eat happened on Wolt. Our customers were there, so it made sense to put more effort into how we appeared on the platform. We added photos, ran special offers and started paying closer attention to what customers responded to. That has helped us grow. The biggest impact has been in Astana. The restaurant was already making sales, but with Wolt, revenue grew by around 50%. We’re reaching figures I wouldn’t have expected for that location. I can’t tell you exactly how many people order a burger first and then come to the restaurant. But the data shows we’re reaching plenty of new customers. Wolt gives us information on new and unique customers, previous orders and retention. We read the reviews, too. Knowing what people enjoyed, and what they didn’t, helps us improve. The pressure on restaurants Ingredients are getting expensive fast, while customers don’t have more money to spend. That puts restaurants in a difficult position. The price of beef alone has risen by roughly 30% in the past six months. We used to see increases of around 10% once or twice a year. Now prices can climb 20–30% in three months. We’re constantly looking at how the business runs and where we can be more efficient. That’s our main focus at PLAN B. If we can cut unnecessary costs, we don’t have to pass all of those increases on to customers. We need to make the numbers work without losing sight of what makes people want to come in. A place in the city From the beginning in Uralsk, I wanted PLAN B to contribute something to its surroundings. We restored and repainted the whole building façade, including the floors above our restaurant. Seven years ago, few people in Uralsk were talking about how storefronts should fit into a city street. I was already thinking about it. We chose simple lettering instead of a huge, brightly coloured sign. The way a restaurant looks affects more than just the restaurant. But what matters most is how people feel when they’re here. I want PLAN B to be a place where you can take a breather, enjoy your food and give yourself a small treat. People come in for that after work, or even after the gym. What’s next This year, I want to make our existing restaurants run more efficiently. We’ll also continue developing the franchise. We’ve shown that PLAN B can work in Uralsk, Almaty and Astana. Advice for someone starting out If you’ve never run a restaurant, I’d seriously consider a franchise. It can be a good way to reduce the risk to your own savings. I don’t mean only PLAN B; there are lots of businesses to look at. It’s a volatile market, and starting out is hard. Pick something you genuinely like. If you love burgers, look into burger restaurants. If you love bakeries, look into bakeries. Building a restaurant from scratch takes a lot of ability and a good team. Finding that team can be especially difficult outside the bigger cities.