Built by operators. For operators.

Gergely Szabo organised his first parties in Budapest in 2009, at 17 and still in high school. By 2011 he ran three event brands and more than 100 events a year. In 2013 he co-founded Raktár Bár, his first nightlife venue, then Napközi in 2014, the start of a career building hospitality businesses rather than advising on them.

In 2015 he co-founded Bamba Marha Burger, one burger bar that grew into an 11-location Budapest brand, ranked fourth worldwide in Big 7 Travel’s World’s Best Burgers 2020. By 2016 Raktár ran three venues, including Raktár Beach, a 2,000-capacity open-air site, and won Best Bar in Budapest at the Heineken Budapest Nightlife Awards. In 2017 Raktár Beach welcomed more than 125,000 guests in one four-month season. Running that volume alongside a growing restaurant brand taught him more about operations than any advisory role could.

In 2019 he co-founded two restaurants at different ends of hospitality: Hoppá! Bistro, elevated French-Hungarian dining, and Donna Mamma, a Neapolitan pizzeria and the second in Hungary to earn AVPN certification. Hoppá! Bistro was listed in the Michelin Guide five years in a row, from 2021 to 2025, and holds 4.9 / 5 on Tripadvisor (3,400+ reviews).

By 2022 he co-owned ten operating venues across casual dining, nightlife and fine dining, each with different economics, teams and failure points. He has opened 20 hospitality venues in all, and his businesses have served more than 5 million guests.

In 2021 Gergely entered the Dubai market, building between Budapest and Dubai. In late 2024 he co-founded Zeora Hospitality with Mark Towning, built on the belief that the best advice comes from people who’ve actually run the business, not studied it. He leads Zeora’s OPEN and market-entry work, grounded in having built this kind of business himself, more than once.

Mark Towning started at a McDonald’s franchise in Bournemouth in 1998, part-time while at college, and worked his way up to Operations Manager. He ran eight franchise restaurants with a combined turnover of GBP 24 million a year and more than 500 people, took four sites to 24-hour trading, growing their sales by 29% in six months, and was named Franchise Operations Manager of the Year in 2012.

In 2013 he moved to Dubai to run the UAE flagship of Jones the Grocer, restaurant and retail, with a team of 80. As Regional F&B Manager from 2015 he was accountable for the P&L of nine company-owned stores and sat on the executive committee. He grew wine and beverage sales by 19%, cut paper and packaging costs by 6.6% and wrote the franchise operations manuals. In 2017 he became General Manager of Operations at BULL & ROO.

In 2019, at TasteBuds Group, he launched Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, an established US brand, in the UAE: three sites in four months, scoring over 90% on the franchisor’s operations audits, then reopening through Covid-19 under rules that changed within 48 hours. At Burger28 he opened three restaurants and launched three cloud kitchen brands within 12 months.

In 2022 BB Investments brought him in to take a successful Hungarian burger brand into the UAE. He adapted its European model to UAE rules and opened two restaurants within three months. From 2024 he also built sales of Bunge Pro Cuisine cooking oils for A-Trade to AED 20 million in 18 months.

In late 2024 Mark co-founded Zeora Hospitality with Gergely Szabo to give UAE and GCC operators practical, numbers-led support. He leads Zeora’s FIX and RUN work. His strength is taking a concept that works somewhere else and turning it into a compliant, profitable operation in the UAE and GCC, built on 15 years of McDonald’s systems discipline.