EDIYA COFFEE, Paris Baguette and Dookki have each opened their first Laos stores in Vientiane in recent weeks — and all three did it under master franchise agreements with the same partner, KOLAO Group. All three also opened inside the same building. Korean operators are no longer treating Laos as a small standalone market; they are treating it as a controlled entry point into the wider Mekong region.
The three brands opened side by side at Kok Kok Mega Mall, a Vientiane shopping centre operated by KOLAO itself. Shinsegae Factory Store runs its first official overseas store in the same mall. Mom’s Touch, Lotteria and No Brand had already entered or expanded in the country, and convenience store E-MART24 is working with KOLAO on a local rollout.
A franchise industry official quoted by Chosunbiz put the concentration bluntly:
“If you go to Kok Kok Mega Mall, it almost feels like a Korean shopping mall.”
KOLAO was founded in Vientiane in 1997 by South Korean chairman Oh Se-young, initially assembling and selling cars. It has since built out motorcycle and vehicle manufacturing, distribution, construction, finance, leisure and bioenergy. In practice the group now functions as a Laos entry platform: nationwide distribution, real estate and logistics that an incoming brand would otherwise spend years and a great deal of capital assembling.
That is the whole argument for a master franchise structure, stated plainly. An EDIYA COFFEE official described the logic as combining KOLAO’s local network with the franchisor’s own R&D and franchise operating capability — which is exactly the division of labour a well-drafted master agreement is supposed to create.
They get supply chain, site access, government familiarity and a landlord who wants them to succeed because he owns the mall. They give up direct control of unit-level execution and a share of system economics. For a market the size of Laos, most franchisors will take that trade — the calculation changes considerably in a market like Vietnam or Thailand, where the same rights carry far more value and are usually structured differently. Our breakdown of master franchise versus area development structures covers where that line normally falls.
This is the part worth reading carefully. Industry analysis cited by Chosunbiz suggests the recent wave is less about Laotian demand than about securing a foothold for Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar. Where Korean brands once went straight at China, Vietnam and Indonesia, several are now proving out their operating model and localisation in a lighter-competition market first, then moving next door.
One coffee franchise wrote Cambodia and Myanmar into the master agreement it signed with KOLAO last year — so the multi-country intent is contractual, not merely aspirational.
The pattern here is more instructive than the individual openings. A single diversified local group is aggregating master franchise rights across multiple foreign brands, then anchoring them in real estate it controls. That is a portfolio strategy, not a franchisee strategy — and it is the structure we increasingly see family offices and conglomerates across Southeast Asia and the Gulf asking about.
The second lesson is sequencing. Using a smaller, lower-cost market to validate menu localisation, supply chain and unit economics before committing to a large territory is disciplined capital allocation. It is also how a brand ends up with a defensible case when it finally negotiates for the market it actually wanted. Korean systems have been unusually good at this — see the pattern in Paik’s Coffee’s Tokyo entry and Taiwan pipeline and in Angel-in-Us’s Indonesia master franchise. For the category view, see our overview of coffee franchise opportunities in Asia Pacific.
VF’s earlier reporting on Paris Baguette’s first Laos store under KOLAO covers that single opening in more detail; the additional context via Inside Retail Asia puts the bakery-café at 360 sq m and 72 seats.
Source: Chosunbiz — Korean food chains tap Laos via Kolao to spearhead Mekong expansion
