Max Brenner

Max Brenner combines a premium-chocolate retail business with restaurants designed around the experience of eating and drinking chocolate.[1][2] Its chocolate-themed interiors, desserts, beverages, and observable research-and-development workshop distinguished the restaurant concept from a conventional patisserie.[2] The brand’s international business developed through company operations and local franchisees; by 2013, most of its reported 45 restaurants and chocolate bars operated under a franchise system.[4]

The business has also maintained a manufacturing base in Israel: its Beit Shemesh factory supplied products to international locations, including the first Chinese branch in 2016.[5] Its commercial emphasis has changed over time, from premium chocolates and gift packages to a broader chocolate range and café network, and later toward renewed investment in chocolate retail and desserts.[6][7]

Oded Brenner entered chocolate-making after completing his military service in Israel, when he took a government-subsidized pastry course while hoping to become a writer.[8] He subsequently spent six years apprenticing in Europe, including work with pastry chefs and a chocolate maker in Paris.[8] After returning to Israel, he opened a small retail chocolate shop with an attached workshop in Ra’anana.[2]

Brenner and Max Fichtman established Max Brenner as a producer of premium chocolates for retail outlets.[1] Published reports differ on the founding year: a 2010 Ynet report gives 1995, while a 2016 Globes report gives 1996.[9][5] The company name joined the two founders’ names, and Oded later adopted Max as a middle name.[2] The business also became known as “Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man.”[10]

Customers’ interest in the workshop helped shape Brenner’s approach to the business.[2] He recalled that visitors were more interested in watching the chocolate-making than in the shop’s front retail area, leading him to emphasize chocolate as an emotional, multisensory experience.[2] This approach informed restaurants in which chocolate-themed design and opportunities to observe and sample development work formed part of the visit.[2]

The early business expanded through international franchises.[11] By 2004, chocolate-bar locations included Singapore, London’s Harrods department store, Australia, and the Philippines, while preparations were underway for entry into the United States.[11] Earlier expansion in Australia and London proved difficult for the founders to sustain.[3] U.S.-based Israeli businessman Boaz Sheinfeld bought Fichtman’s share, attempted to develop American stores, and subsequently sold the business to Strauss-Elite.[3]

Elite acquired the rights to the Max Brenner premium-chocolate brand in 2001 and reorganized its product range, adding chocolate snacks and midrange varieties to a business previously centered on premium chocolates and gift packages.[6] The acquisition took place within a broader corporate consolidation: Strauss had acquired control of Elite in 1997, and the two companies formally merged in 2004 as the Strauss-Elite Group.[6]

Elite launched a Max Brenner café concept in 2004, opening two chocolate cafés in Israel and preparing for further expansion.[6] The Israeli branches operating that year were in Herzliya and on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, and both had been opened by franchisees.[11] Brenner estimated that café sales accounted for 75 percent of their business, with chocolate sales making up the remaining 25 percent.[11] International expansion plans identified the United States as the first target, with an overseas café anticipated for 2005.[6]

The first New York franchise opened in 2006 with a reported investment of $2 million and seating for up to 150 people.[3] A second Manhattan location, planned for the East Village, was expected to follow shortly afterward.[3] At the time, Strauss-Elite held a controlling interest in the business, which had five shops in Israel and additional branches in Australia, Singapore, and the Philippines.[3] The rapid American rollout drew concern from industry observers because of earlier difficulties abroad, while Strauss-Elite’s chief executive characterized the approach as taking “calculated risks.”[3]

Sales rose 66 percent in 2007 to NIS 95.7 million, largely as new branches opened, although the U.S. operation recorded a NIS 3.3 million loss.[12] The company then had 23 branches, including six in Israel, a factory in Beit Shemesh, and 570 employees in Israel and overseas.[12]

By 2010, the chain had 30 branches: six in Israel, 18 in Australia, and two each in Manhattan, the Philippines, and Singapore.[9] Its reported global sales turnover was NIS 120 million, and plans called for large branches in Las Vegas and Boston.[9] In 2013, its reported network had reached 45 restaurants and chocolate bars across the United States, Israel, Singapore, the Philippines, and Australia, with most operating as franchises.[4]

The first Chinese branch opened in 2016 at THE PLACE mall in Beijing’s financial district, bringing the reported worldwide storefront total to 65.[5] The Chinese franchisee, MAAN COFFEE, operated more than 100 restaurants and coffee shops in central Chinese cities.[5] The Beijing branch sold products manufactured at the Beit Shemesh plant and exported internationally.[5]

The 2016 network included 41 stores in Australia, five each in the United States and Japan, two in Russia, one in Singapore, several in South Korea, and eight in Israel.[5] Global revenue was reported as NIS 109 million for 2015, compared with NIS 111 million in 2014.[5]

In May 2017, Strauss announced the sale of Max Brenner’s international restaurant and chocolate-bar business to Israeli franchisees Yaniv Shtanger and Dudu Vaknin for $5 million.[1] The transaction included the brand, U.S. restaurants, international franchise agreements, and a lease of the Beit Shemesh factory.[1] Strauss retained ownership of the factory and leased it to the buyers for five years with an extension option; factory employees were to retain their jobs.[1] The sale formed part of Strauss’s strategy of concentrating on its core business.[1]

By 2021, the owners were shifting emphasis from restaurants toward chocolate retail and desserts.[7] Demand for chocolates and gift packages through a website launched during the COVID-19 crisis encouraged that change.[7] The company also began making chocolate from scratch at Beit Shemesh after installing a production line ordered from Germany during the pandemic at a cost of $1 million.[7]

A 2023 business report identified Shtanger and Vaknin as the owners and listed six chocolate-bar and dessert shops and four boutique chocolate shops in Israel, two U.S. locations at Times Square and Union Square, and 23 franchised locations in Australia.[13] It also said two Istanbul locations were expected to open after the holidays.[13]

The official locations page accessed in November 2026 listed New York addresses at 841 Broadway and 720 Seventh Avenue, identifying the latter as the Times Square chocolate shop.[14] Separately, a U.S. Trustee letter dated February 13, 2026 identified “Max NY Union Square LLC a/k/a Max Brenner Chocolate Factory” as a debtor in case 26-10275 (MG) and stated that it had filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition.[15] That record concerns the named Union Square entity, rather than establishing the financial status of the wider brand or its other locations.[15]

Chocolate pizza, hot chocolate, and an observable development workshop were central features of the restaurant experience described in a 2011 profile.[2] Brenner envisioned a chocolate culture in Israel and a chocolate bar associated with indulgence, rather than simply another café.[11] In a 2004 interview, he argued that the concept’s resemblance to ordinary cafés extended little beyond enclosed premises serving coffee.[11]

The first New York restaurant used design elements including pipes simulating flowing chocolate, a giant chocolate pot, and a liquid-chocolate mixer; its gift shop sold chocolate by weight and in gift wrapping.[3] The menu also extends beyond chocolate to breakfast dishes, savory starters, pizza, sandwiches, burgers, entrees, pasta, and salads.[16]

Named chocolate offerings include the “Melting Chocolate Heart Cake & Shake,” chocolate-chunk pizza, and Italian thick hot chocolate made with melted chocolate blocks and fresh vanilla cream.[16] In 2013, the chain offered 11 milkshake varieties, and its New York restaurant’s Pure Chocolate Granita was included in USA Today’s top ten milkshakes in America.[4]

Max Brenner developed from an Israeli premium-chocolate producer into an international restaurant and retail brand with locations across several continents.[1][5] Its international growth connected a manufacturing operation in Beit Shemesh with overseas franchise networks, including the large Australian network and the entry into China.[5] Recognition for its Pure Chocolate Granita in 2013 also highlighted the role of chocolate beverages within its restaurant offering.[4]

Brenner later returned to the cacao business through Blue Stripes Cacao Shop in New York, exploring uses of the fruit beyond conventional chocolate, including cacao-pulp drinks.[10] His daughter Tito had been four when he stepped away from the Max Brenner shops; at Blue Stripes, messages intended for her appeared within surrealistic wall scenes featuring children, forests, oceans, and dinosaurs.[10]

Brenner’s relationship with Strauss deteriorated after he opened a separate New York coffee-shop business, identified in one profile as Little Brown.[8][10] Strauss alleged that the venture breached their agreement and sued; subsequent reporting described a settlement and non-compete restrictions that barred Brenner from chocolate-related work for five years.[8] The litigation was described as lengthy and financially devastating for him.[10] These accounts describe the reported dispute and its effects, rather than independently establishing the alleged contractual breach or a complete legal chronology.[8][10]