Deep dish pizza concept Japes is close to signing its first franchised site in North London as it looks to expand across the UK, founder Alex Aleksic tells MCA.
The brand, which is working with Seeds Consulting, reported like-for-like turnover up 27% last year compared to 2022 and is on the lookout for franchise partners nationwide.
With two sites in London’s Soho and Greenwich, Japes looks to provide a point of differentiation in a crowded category, both with deep dish and its ‘London-style’ pizza.
“We’re big fans of Neapolitan, but the reality is that market is very saturated,” Aleksic says. “It’s a hard market for an outsider, and those types of pizza require a lot of training to do properly.
“We saw Detroit-style becoming more popular, combined that with Sicilian dough, and used the same pans as we do for Chicago-style to make our London-style pizza.”
London-style was born as an amalgamation of the best features of other pizza styles, encouraging customers to try something new in the category.
“If we decide to sell something, it should be something we’re proud to sell, something that’s scalable, and can be done over and over regardless of where the restaurant is and how busy it is.”
The 27% rise in like-for-like turnover was achieved through a rise in both customer numbers and prices, with no dip in volumes despite the price rises, according to Aleksic.
Japes’ growth journey will be dictated by its franchise partnerships, albeit the business is looking to get past the 10-site mark “as soon as possible”.
“But we have no desire to grow quickly and ruin our reputation if that’s the trade-off we need to make,” Aleksic adds. “It’s much better to have 20 strong sites in the UK and then expand overseas than to have 100 UK sites with bad reviews.”
While Japes is targeting high street and tourist locations, its Greenwich venue evidences that it can cater to different demographics and markets, he says.
While Greenwich is more delivery- and click-and-collect-oriented than Soho, the majority of sales remain dine-in.
“London is important to us, but the reason we spent so much time setting up a comprehensive franchising approach is to make sure distance doesn’t matter.”
“People see Japes as more of an experience compared to some other pizza places. They may prefer different types of pizza, and there are many good operators in our category, but not too much direct competition.”
