The company, which earlier this month announced plans to reach 250 sites by 2020, is hoping that up to 50 Harry Ramsden's outlets will open in the region by 2018 with Leeds, Bradford and York currently being assessed as suitable locations.
JVP Ventures, owned by Vikesh and Dimple Patel, who also operate 34 coffee bars under the Love Coffee brand, plans to open a mix of full service 100 plus-cover restaurants with takeaway facilities as well as the new smaller format 'traditional locals' under the Harry Ramsden's name in Yorkshire, where the brand first started out, over the next five years. The move is expected to create 500 new jobs.
Vikesh said: "To be able to bring Harry’s name back to his roots is really exciting, especially since both Dimple and myself were born and brought up in Yorkshire.
"Working with an established and recognised brand is absolutely key to franchising success and to my mind, Harry’s Ramsden’s is the most iconic brand this country has ever produced.
"Our confidence in the Harry Ramsden’s name is reflected in the fact that our initial investment is being financed personally. In the coming years, we will regularly plough our profits back into the business to achieve our ambition of having 50 new outlets opened within five years.”
Ambition
Harry Ramsden's chief executive Joe Teixeira, who has overseen a multi-million pound investment into the estate since taking over the helm of the Boparan Ventures-owned company in 2011, said it had always been a 'dearly-held ambition' to bring the Harry Ramsden's name back to Yorkshire.
The county has not hosted a Harry Ramsden's since the original site in Guiseley closed at the end of 2011.
Teixeira said: "I am delighted that the first franchise to be awarded fulfills that desire. It also effectively represents further and deserved financial investment in Harry Ramsden’s, which was so sadly lacking in the past.
He said comparisons with the past site would be inevitable, but 'time and taste' moved on and that the new outlets would reflect the brand's evolution.
"Even as we move forward, though, we continue to embrace the heritage and values of Harry Ramsden himself and this allows us to actively re-engage with customers of old as well as introducing Harry’s to a whole new generation.
“We are extremely hopeful that this is just the first of many such announcements in the coming months, and anticipate as many as 250 new outlets opening within the next five years, making Harry Ramsden’s more easily accessible to the millions of admirers it has, and continues to attract, across the UK.”