Back in October there was a press release in the papers by a company which stated that they were opening Fatburger in Kuwait. Today there was another press release by another company stating that they are also opening Fatburger in Kuwait. So what gives?

Well this is what I found out. A local company got the Fatburger franchise rights 2 years back for Kuwait but never opened up a store. So, Fatburger decided to take the franchise rights from them and pass it to another local company. Fatburger will now be finally opening in Kuwait before June.

I am still holding my breath for Arby’s and Wendy’s.

Update: Turns out yesterday’s press release was actually placed in the newspaper by Fatburger North America themselves to clarify that there is a new Fatburger owner in Kuwait.

I previously posted about how Planet Hollywood was going to open at Olympia Towers this past summer but they never did. Now it seems they will be opening in March 2010 according to a reader who also sent me a picture of the exterior. I also previously mentioned that I had heard Sylvester Stallone was coming for the launch and I will say this again. If he comes I am going to be there with my Cobra DVD for him to autograph. I will not let him leave Kuwait before he does!

Thanks Farah

I passed by and spoke to the manager today and he told me they were opening on Sunday. He said they “might” open Saturday night but he can’t confirm since they still have some training to do.

Today I was lucky enough to be taken on a tour of Infunity which will be one of the largest indoor amusement parks in Kuwait once completed. Three things that grabbed my attention there, the first is they will have a pretty cool indoor roller coaster that’s designed by the same people who build ones for Six Flags. Secondly they will have Go-Kart Drifting which I didn’t know existed but sounds pretty cool. Finally my favorite thing, they will have a huge proper climbing wall! The place will launch early next year and they will be located on the top floor of 360 Mall near the bowling and arcades.

Tomorrow their will be a huge fire on the 61st floor of the Al Hamra Tower which is the soon to be tallest building in Kuwait. I can’t see the future but a reader emailed me telling me they will be testing the firefighting capabilities tomorrow. I didn’t quite understand if they will be testing the actual firefighters capabilities to fight a fire in a high-rise or if they’re testing the fire readiness of the building. In any case if you see smoke tomorrow you know why.

Thanks Ba3ks

Update: The exercise took place today but I don’t have any pictures so if you do send it in.

Nibaq tweeted the other day that he heard Trader Vic’s on the Gulf Road got turned into Shrimpy. I thought that was a joke (and a funny one) but turns out it’s true. I just passed by it on my way to work and the signs are already up, Trader Vic’s has shutdown and Shrimpy is there instead. This can’t be good for Don Mario’s and Letter Damour whom are now going to be located right behind Shrimpy.

Update: It seems Don Mario’s and Letter Damour have also closed down. I tried Don Mario’s once and didn’t like it but a lot of people I know used to say good things about.

Just like the Gucci rumor I posted about a few days ago, there is another rumor going around that The Chocolate Bar in Marina Crescent was closed down by the ministry because they found chocolate that contained alcohol in them. That is of course not true or else I would have been their #1 customer. The Chocolate Bar at Marina was closed down due to renovations and all their other branches are still open for business.

Back in March I posted that P. F. Chang’s China Bistro will be opening up in Kuwait. Well I just found out that it will be opening up in December at Avenues in the same location the H&M’s male store was located opposite to Al Forno.

Note: Alshaya are the ones who are bringing P.F. Chang to Kuwait.

There is a rumor that’s been going around on a hack which supposedly only works with Zain sim cards which allows you to make free calls. I haven’t been able to find out what to do so I wanted to ask here if anyone knew the trick. This is what I’ve been able to gather about it online:

Frankom’s blog had a post where he said that you needed an iPhone for the trick to work. I have an iPhone but I haven’t found any information on what I need to do.

360Dewan had a link to a video (below) that looks like it was shot in Kuwait where the person in the video wraps aluminum foil around the sim card and then heats its up? That looked like total bullshit to me and no way on earth it would work if anything you would most probably damage your sim card trying that.

[YouTube]

Finally a user called HearBeat posted a link in my forum to a video (below) which looks like it could work but haven’t tried it out myself. Basically the video talks about the sim card and how every cell on the chip means something. The theory is one of the cells controls the clock so if you cover up that cell you would be able to talk for as long as you want and the telecom provider wouldn’t know how long you spoke for. HeartBeat also mentions this would only work on sim cards issued before 2002.

In any case Zain might have already fixed this bug (or they will after this post) but if anyone has any more info please post it below.

Thanks Rashed

I just heard that the Los Angeles based franchise for the upscale frozen dessert restaurant Pinkberry was taken by Alshaya and that they will be opening their first branch at the Avenues. It will be the first Pinkberry branch outside California and New York. According to the Pinkberry facebook group they should open up before the end of the year. [Link]

Choowy Goowy will be opening up at the Avenues hopefully this Wednesday. This will be Choowy Goowys first store and they’ve really come a long way since I first reviewed them over three years ago back in January 2006. They will be baking cookies at the Avenues store so you should be able to pick some up as they come out of the oven. The pictures above and below are just sneak peak shots of the store taken with a Nokia E71. They still haven’t removed the wooden paneling that currently surrounds the store so it was pretty hard to get anything wider than these shots.

Update: I just realized that a lot of readers might not be aware of the fact that Choowy Goowy have cookies called Mark&Nat. Back in November 2006 Nat and I were invited to Choowy Goowy to create our own cookies. After some experimenting and having some friends try out our creations, the oreo cookies were voted as being the best and so Choowy Goowy decided to make these cookies and call them Mark&Nat with jar labels matching our blog. You can read about our experience [Here]

I’ve got a friend who works at the Commercial Bank of Kuwait and according to him CBK terminated the contracts of all their employees. Supposedly they are now going to have to sign new contracts but no one knows yet what to expect. No bonuses? Salary Cuts? No one has been told what the new contracts will state…

Update: Buzberry just posted a letter from a CBK employee which you can read [Here]