We Grill founder Tarek El Yafi has told MCA he plans to expand trading hours as the healthy fast casual concept looks to open two new sites in the new year.
The concept, which focuses on grilled skewers, seasonal side dishes, salads and soups, launched its first site in Leadenhall Market in January 2015.
El Yafi, a former investment banker, said while revenue had more than doubled in 2016, he was keen for his next sites to be expand its opening hours to include weekends, mornings and evenings.
He said We Grill, which has made offers on four sites in Central London and the City, would also look to introduce some lower priced, smaller sized items to appeal to a wider demographic.
El Yafi said: “We have heavy footfall here, but we’re slightly off the beaten track, with only five days a week and five day parts.
“The profile of the second site needs heavy footfall but also to open us up for seven-day week trading, and be on the main thoroughfare, which will hopefully give us at least two if not three day parts.
“Given the rent and rates here, if we’re doing these kind of numbers in five day parts, what we could do for less rent, but with 10, 14 or 21 day parts - it makes things very exciting for us.”
He said after two years of trading We Grill would also tweak its food offer.
El Yafi added: “What we’ve learnt this year, is that though our assumptions were correct, they weren’t fully developed.
“We will still do skewers and focus on very healthy food in fast casual space, but we’re going to tweak the concept, and want to deliver skewers in new formats which will allow us to look at different sizes.
“Some customer feedback has been this is too big and hence too expensive.
“We figure there’s a customer base that we’re not hitting. If someone’s willing to spend £8, £9 £10, that’s fine – but there are lot of people who only want to spend £4, and we’re missing out on those customers.”
