YoYo Noodle, the franchised noodle bar concept, is planning to open 15 sites this year with Southampton and Oldbury opening within the next few weeks, M&C Report has learnt.
The company has signed up c50 franchisees to open sites over 2015 and 2016 to grow from its current estate of eight stores across the country.
Jadey Li, chief executive of the company, said the number of signed-up franchisees doubled between the end of 2013 and 2014 and the new operators are awaiting suitable sites.
The Oldbury, Birmingham site is located adjacent to a petrol station and will offer an express format to sell additional products to the noodle bar offering. This will include Asian snack foods to diversify the offering to compete with the garage.
Li said this range will be introduced to existing stores over time and all new restaurants will include both the noodle bar and express choices such as grab and go salads and soups. Li said the new ranges would include “more than what you’d expect from a noodle bar”.
“We will still be looking for different types of locations. So far we have found smaller locations have worked in our favour.”
As well as train stations and high streets, YoYo is considering student unions within universitiesand potentially shopping centres – although Li said there are reservations regarding the limited trading hours these units can have.
“We want to maximise on the hours we can open. We have found that going in to high streets without time restrictions goes better than shopping centres but shopping centres that are open later would be OK.”
Internationally the company has completed a deal for the master franchise rights in Nigeria and expects to sign a similar deal in the Republic of Ireland by the end of this year.
Li said the company has seen a large amount of interest from people wanting to open franchise sites in the country as visitors to the UK see the concept and want to open in Ireland.
