Steve Holmes, the current managing director of ASK Italian, is to step up to become chief executive of the Gondola Group-owned brand and its sister chain Zizzi, M&C Report has learnt.
At the same time, Jason Thomas, former operations director at Loch Fyne Restaurants and current operations director at Whitbread Hotels & Restaurant, will become managing director of ASK Italian reporting into Holmes.
Holmes, who has been with Gondola since the end of 2001 and will report into chief executive Harvey Smyth, was promoted from operations director for the c110-strong chain, a position he has held for nearly three years, in September 2012. Previous to that he spent eight years as London regional director of PizzaExpress.
His new appointment follows on from Gondola’s decision to sell Zizzi and ASK together, separately from core brand PizzaExpress.
Goldman Sachs is to handle a sale of its biggest brand, although an initial public offering has not been ruled out, while Rothschild is handling the sale of ASK and Zizzi, which in total operate c.245 restaurants.
Holmes has been credited with being the driving force in the revival of the ASK brand over the last couple of years, with over half of the chain’s c110 sites now reflecting the brand’s “fresh new look”.
The transformed sites are delivering “excellent returns” and the group is applying learnings from these restaurants to its new openings. The brand has also recently launched a trial of an all-day offer at its flagship Islington site.
Under Holmes, ASK has seen a subtle shift in its roll out plans targeting major cities for openings over the last 18 months, with a debut in Birmingham under its belt and Manchester set to follow. Further future openings in Chelmsford and Swindon have also been secured.
Earlier this year, Gondola said that the evolution of the Zizzi brand was almost complete, “resulting in a stunning portfolio of over 130 restaurants and an offer that is well defined”.
The brand has been led by Smyth and operations director Rebecca Payton since former managing director Helen Jones left in the middle of 2012 to join Caffe Nero. Jones had played a major part in the evolution of the brand.
Comment by M&C Report editor Mark Wingett
The promotion of Steve Holmes to the role of chief executive of both ASK Italian and Zizzi should, quite rightly, be seen as due reward for the role he has played in bringing the latter brand up to date and competitive again in the most competitive sector of the casual dining market.
18 months ago observers would have argued that sister brand Zizzi had benefited most from investment from private equity backer Gondola , leaving ASK, which has always been positioned as a halfway house that combines the best of both its sister Italian-influenced brands, lagging behind in terms of progression and consumer engagement.
However, the significant effort that the group has put into the latter brand started by Harvey Smyth and taken on by Holmes is paying dividends, with its latest sites at Bluewater, Birmingham and Islington setting down an impressive template for the future growth and evolution of the format.
While ASK has started to gain traction, there have been the first murmurings Zizzi was starting to show signs of slowing down after two strong years in terms of evolution of offer and performance. Not according to Gondola, which earlier this year said that 85% of its estate had been transformed. Chairman Chris Woodhouse said: “Parallel to this reinvention, customer interest and interaction with the brand has continued to grow with innovative menu development, increased digital engagement and improved customer satisfaction scores.”
With ASK also “well on the way to realising its long term vision”, Holmes finds himself overseeing c.245 restaurants with good momentum and c5,000 members of staff. The combined group is also one of the biggest restaurant operators in the UK.
And here we come to the second part of Holmes’ promotion. With a sales process underway the pragmatists will suggest the timing of such a move provides a nice bit of tidying up by Gondola as it seeks a buyer for the combined business. This “tidying up” process started early last year when Jim Pickworth, who had been Zizzi’s finance director since 2007, took up the role across both brands.
A private-equity play seems the leading possibility as a future home for the businesses. Speculation has previously focused on Smyth, who has put a lot of effort into evolving both brands and again should take great credit for the their progress and for developing managerial talent, looking to lead a management buyout of the combined business. I still think this is a possibility with maybe a chairman role in the pipeline.
As I have suggested previously, acquisitive pub groups Mitchells & Butlers and Greene King would also be expected to take a passing interesting in either brand, as many of the sites are positioned on town and city-centre high streets, and especially with the opportunity to acquire significant packages of managed sites in the pub sector drying up.
Earlier this year, Holmes suggested that the reason ASK had started to struggle was because the brand, which is 21 years old this year, was seen as dated and that everything it was doing in terms of food, design and service was ok, but that there were a lot of people doing it better.
Thanks to him and his team, that is no longer the case and with new ownership and investment he should be able to prove this even further. The UK’s high-street casual dining sector is set to get a further shot in the arm.
