Following last week's announcement that it would be opening its tenth restaurant, in Chorlton, the company says it will open further sites in Sheffield’s Division Street, alongside a fifth site in Greater Manchester, on Portland Street.
The Portland Street site will be a 120-cover pizzeria, as well as a training academy for pizza chefs, as the company tries to mitigate the post-Brexit lack of available Italian chefs.
The pizza brand, which is owned by Mission Mars and backed by the BGF, is also looking at opportunities in Didsbury and Heaton Moor, as well as a second Birmingham city centre site, and Harbourne, near Birmingham, according to managing director Neal Bates.
The Sheffield restaurant, which will open in June or July, represents a new area for Rudy’s as it looks to cast its net wider.
The company is also looking at further expansion in the Midlands on the back of the success of its Birmingham restaurant, which is recording sales up 40% on like-for-like figures on 2020.
“As soon as we’ve got momentum, we’ll look at further satellite opportunities around that city,” says Bates.
Delivery has delivered
Speaking to BigHospitality's sister publication MCA, Bates said that like-for-like sales were up around 30% on 2020 – and that 20% of that uplift had come from delivery sales.
The pandemic forced Rudy’s to embrace delivery, which had proven much more popular than expected.
“We used to think it would interrupt the normal busy service, but we had to jump on it, and it’s proved extremely popular - more than we could have ever dreamed.
“Our numbers are 30% up on 2020 when we had five or six pizzerias – and of that 20% is Deliveroo. It’s the cream on the top, a real eye opener.”
The popularity of delivery has also enabled the brand to open smaller sites. The new Chorlton pizzeria is part of a new smaller model for the brand, which has become more viable with the additional revenue stream of delivery.
Continued expansion on the horizon
Rudy’s will continue its level of expansion throughout 2022, according to Bates.
“The idea is to open one every four to six weeks for the rest of the year after June, which is a bit of a push,” he says.
“There are fabulous opportunities around at the moment, but we want to invest the time, support and money so if we do an opening, we do it really well and it’s the best it can possibly be.”
“Our growth needs to be organic; we can’t grow too quickly. We need to keep our focus on world class pizza.”
This story is based on information that first appeared on BigHospitality’s sister website MCA. To subscribe to its breaking news feed, click here