HOP
The founder of the Vietnamese street concept HOP has designed the business to be scalable as he intends to build an estate of about 45 London sites. Paul Hopper, who opened the first site in Broadgate in the City earlier this year, wants to focus on that area for the next few sites because he believes the demographic of City workers is perfect for the grab-and-go concept.
Former financial analyst Hopper received private investment to launch his concept that recreates the speed and style of eateries he visited in Vietnam but felt was lacking on the London food scene. Hospitality experts Monique Borst and Josh Wyse came on board as non-executive directors and mentors from day one, advising on all aspects of marketing, PR, HR and contacts in hospitality, strategy, operations and property.
After studying the food-to-go sector, he constructed the model that offers customers fresh, healthy street food served rapidly. He said there was no reason it would not work elsewhere in London and other UK cities, but the decision to launch in the City is to serve the workers he views as the most time-strapped – in the banking sector.
HOP serves a selection of salads, bahn mi sandwiches, summer rolls made from rice noodles, hot dishes and a Vietnamese-inspired breakfast range as well as coffee. All food is made on-site every day with choices of hot and cold dishes to take away or to eat-in at a limited number of tables. Every aspect of the store has been designed to reflect the look and feel of food markets in Hanoi – including custom-made furniture, packaging, the tiling and flooring.
The Stable
The 13-strong cider and pizza concept, in which Fuller’s has a 51% stake, is not exactly a newcomer, but the past 12 months has seen it enhance its presence across the south of England and make its first move in the Midlands, with a recent opening in Birmingham. An entrance into London will be next, with sites in Whitechapel and Brentford – adjacent to the Fuller’s One Over The Ait pub – lined up for openings this year. As the relationship between Fuller’s and The Stable deepens, the national reach for both companies is set to be strengthened. We expect The Stable to bolster its presence in the south of England, but also make further inroads into new territories within the next 12 months.
Fuller’s chief executive Simon Emeny says: “Every new site we have opened so far has achieved beyond our expectations. We have been able to share learnings and experiences from both sides. We work very closely with Richard and Nikki Cooper and have been able to share the fruits of 170 years of running pubs. Our IT and finance systems are consistent across the estate, along with many other shared systems. Interestingly, the two best-selling brands in The Stable, considering they have over 60 different ciders, are Cornish Orchard and Frontier. Frontier, in particular, is a great fit for the customer base of The Stable and the ethos of the company.”
Pint Shop
During the past few months, I expect most people in the sector have taken a visit to Cambridge to check out Reys, the new rotisserie chicken-led concept from Pizza-Express. If they had then, hopefully, they would have taken the time to also visit Pint Shop, the beer house and restaurant concept, which sits a few door down and will soon have Pho as a neighbour.
Opened in 2013 by ex-Leon duo Richard Holmes and Benny Peverelli, the pair have created a pub which is, genuinely, as welcoming for drinkers as it is diners – not the easiest trick to pull off. The site consists of a 65-seat bar, visible from the street and, hidden out back, a dining room – with overspill space for a total of 70 food covers. Very limited food is served in the bar and Pint Shop’s beer menu (16 cask/keg lines of edgy craft beer) is displayed in the restaurant. But the bar and restaurant are distinct entities. Customers can transition fluidly between the two, but neither imposes on the other.
Last year, the company – which has already received investment from a number of industry figures, including Steve Wilkins, founder of Little Gems Country Dining – appointed Rosie Sykes as its new development chef as it looked to take its food offer “to the next level”. It also spoke of raising £2m toward funding its future expansion and that a second site in Oxford should be announced next month. “It’s us two, and it’s private money, so it’s not going to be 10 sites a year, but we’d like to add more during the next five years,” says Holmes.
The Alchemist
After the success of Gusto and the New World Trading Company, there may have been some pressure on The Alchemist to continue the pattern of high-quality concepts to come out of the Living Ventures stable. If there was, the Simon Potts-led cocktail bar and restaurant concept hasn’t shown it and the next 12 to 18 months is set to see the brand cement its expansion credentials.
Potts, who has been with Living Ventures, the Tim Bacon and Jeremy Roberts-founded business for about 10 years, became designate managing director of The Alchemist in early 2015 working under LV managing director Paul Moran, but the positive progress of the business saw him move up to managing director earlier than expected at the end of last year.
The brand, which made its debut in London last year, has lined up its fourth opening in Manchester with a site scheduled to open near the end of 2016 as part of the £50m redevelopment of Manchester Business School. It has also secured a site in Media City, Salford, for an opening this summer.
The company, which opened its second site in Leeds earlier this summer – again highlighting its ability to go multiple in major cities, is also set to make its debut in Birmingham this year after agreeing to take space at The Grand building in the city’s Colmore Row, which is currently being redeveloped. It is also believed to be in advanced talks on securing a further unit in London and its first in Liverpool.
Grillstock
While Red’s True Barbecue, The Big Easy, Hickory’s, Porky’s and Bodean’s may have been getting more column inches, Grillstock, the fledgling barbecue concept, has continued to strengthen its pipeline of openings for this year, by lining up openings in Cardiff, Exeter and Reading.
The five-strong group, which is set to open in Liverpool in the first quarter of this year, opened its first site at Triangle West in Bristol’s Park Street in June 2013.
Led by John Finch and Ben Merrington and including Turtle Bay founder and Las Iguanas co-founder Ajith Jaya-Wickrema as a backer, the company has used its Grillstock music and food festivals to cleverly raised brand awareness across the country, with three now taking place a year in Bristol, Manchester and London.
In 2014, Andre Plisnier, the co-founder of the Belgo brand, joined the group’s board. Plisnier founded Belgo in 1992 with Denis Blais, before selling the business six years later to Luke Johnson. Plisnier’s appointment and the patronage of Jaya-Wickrema highlights the fact that Grillstock could be the next Bristol-founded concept to become a national brand.
Wahaca/Pho
Arguably both Wahaca and Pho are very much established brands, especially in the capital, but the past 12 to 18 months has seen both stretch their legs regionally. Arguably these are two of the concepts that have the best chance of becoming the next Wagamama in terms of execution of offer and national presence – if they both want it – and the next 12 months should see them back up that theory.
Pho, the Vietnamese restaurant group run by Stephen and Juliette Wall, is on track to post turnover of c£20m in its current financial year, with like-for-like sales up c8% year to date. The 17-strong group is due to open in Cambridge in the next few months, plus its first launch in the South West in Bristol is in the pipeline, whilst it has another three units in legals. Last year, it secured just over £8m of new funding from NatWest, which should help the group grow to 30 sites during the next two to three years.
Wahaca, the Mexican street food brand co-founded by Thomasina Miers and Mark Selby, will add to its regional presence in April, when it makes it long-awaited debut in Brighton. The 21-strong company, which recently opened in Liverpool, is in talks to open in Chichester and has also secured a site at the Westquay Watermark development for later this year.
It saw turnover in its most recent financial year to the end of June 2015, climb from £28.2m to c£35m. The group also operates two sites under its DF/Mexico concept and has lined up its first regional DF/Mexico site for the extension to Intu’s Watford shopping scheme.
The brand is arguably in the middle of its most significant period since its launch in 2007, co-founder Selby has already admitted to M&C that he has his eye on the company becoming the mid-market equivalent to lifestyle brand Soho House. With its now annual all-day Day of the Dead festival attracting 5,000 people, current one-off Burrito Mama concept in its back pocket and speculation that the new taco bar at its Wardour Street site in Soho could become a stand-alone format, we don’t see any reason to doubt Selby’s ambition.
Thaikhun
Peer Giggling Squid might have hogged the headlines last year, but Thaikhun, the street food-influenced, Thai Leisure Group-owned brand, was quietly getting on with putting the foundations in place to turn the six-strong concept into a national entity. Co-founder Martin Stead has already expressed his belief that the concept can grow to 40 sites in the medium term.
Turnover at the first two sites, which opened in 2014 in Manchester and Aberdeen, were averaging £47,000 a week each. Each site averages 3,500-4,000sq ft with a fit out cost of circa £800k. Last year, the group added three further Thaikhuns in Nottingham, Glasgow and Oxford, while securing £10m of funding from Santander.
In December, it promoted Ian Leigh from group operations director to managing director to oversee its next stage of growth. He is supported in the senior management team by Christian Hall (group commercial and finance director), Jason Almeida (F&B director) and Iain White-Duncan, formerly of the ONE Group, who was recently appointed marketing director.
The company has already strengthened its regional pipeline for Thaikhun by securing new sites in Leicester, Gateshead and Guildford. The group’s ultimate aim is to push out in a form of “pincer movement” from its current Scotland and north England locations, pushing southwards.
