Fabini opens first Prague store: Czech cookware brand goes offline

Jan Fabini, 28, founder of the designer cookware brand that bears his name, has taken his company offline for the first time: the first brick-and-mortar point of sale has opened in Prague. Until now, the business was built strictly as e-commerce.

The store is located near Strossmayer Square, on Dukelských hrdinů street. Previously, Fabini frying pans, pots and other cookware could be seen on shelves only through limited collaborations with well-known retail chains. Fabini himself speaks about the new step with restraint: “I'm glad, we've been heading toward this for a long time. We don't know yet what it will bring us. Of course I want people to leave with our products, but we'll also be happy that they can touch them with their own hands.” He stresses that the store should not be just a glossy space: “It's not a billboard.”

Fabini started in business as a teenager. When he asked investors for his first millions for an ambitious plan to build his own cookware brand, he had barely turned twenty. The bet paid off: in 2024 he made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and last year the company's revenue exceeded 320 million crowns. In a Forbes interview earlier this year, with characteristic modesty, he asked whether that was too little: “I don't know, is that a lot? Why not five hundred million?”

Thanks to the warranty on its products, the company returns unpacked goods to circulation fairly quickly. The new store has a small outlet for this: look for the long red shelf at the back of the room.

This year has been an important one for Fabini in general. He bought out the stake of investor Jiří Havlenka, who put money into the company at the very start, in 2018, for 100 million crowns. According to Fabini, he had been working toward the buyout for a long time: “Jirka came to me with a price, and I didn't dispute it.” The entrepreneur now owns 97% of the company, and the remaining 3% belongs to CEO Radka Vaculíková.

Havlenka wished his former protégé luck: “I believe Honza has the ability to join the ranks of the best and most successful Czech entrepreneurs and creators of family silver. I wish him much happiness and I'll be rooting for him.”

By the Around Prague newsroom