What exactly is a restaurant spin-off?
We’re talking about new brands from existing restaurant operators that have already achieved significant scale. They tend to be connected to the original IP in some way, but not always.
And why are we talking about them now?
The spin-off is back in a big way. Pizza Express has just cut the ribbon on a new supermarket carpark-based grab-and-go concept called Pizza Express Pod and this month will also see Honest Burgers launch its smash burger concept Smash + Grab, while Franco Manca-owner The Fulham Shore is to open a crispy-Roman-style pizza concept called Super Club Roma. These will join McDonald’s US-based retro-style, coffee-focused CosMc’s, Dishoom’s nominally drinks-led Permit Room, and Loungers’ roadside brand Brightside (pictured above), which all launched within the past year or two.
Why do these big brands bother with these side hustles?
It could be groups looking to hit different demographics and price points or – in the case of Honest Burgers and The Fulham Shore – capitalise on a new food trend in a bid to stay relevant in a rapidly changing market. In some instances, spin-offs also allow operators to take different sorts of property then they normally would in terms of size, location and usage class.
Sounds sensible
You’d think so, but alarmingly few brands have come anywhere close to replicating the success of the original format (chapeau to Loungers’ more luxe Cosy Club spin-off, which has more than 30 sites to its name). There are a few examples of some doing okay – for example Comptoir Libanais’ Shawa Lebanese Grill, which operates two sites -but more often than not it ends in tears. Perhaps the most famous spin-off is Gaucho’s more casual offshoot CAU, which expanded rapidly throughout the mid 2010s reaching a little over 20 sites before collapsing in 2018 and nearly taking its elder sibling with it. That’s an atypical example, though; usually, spin-offs are killed off much earlier.
Such as…
The restaurant graveyard is littered with them. Pizza Express has launched two formats within the past decade that have been quietly shuttered less than a year after launch (rotisserie chicken restaurant Reys and pizza-by-the-slice concept Za). Yet Leon probably takes the record for the shortest-lived spin-off with its Thai Tuk Shop brand throwing in the towel after just two months of trading in 2018.
Any others that are worth digging up?
Quick serve versions of existing concepts are among the most popular form of spin-off but have proven to be a tough sell, with Wagamama’s Mamago and Café Rouge’s Rapide going down about as well as Pizza Express’s Za did. Ditto meat-free spin-offs: Honest Burger’s V Honest was swiftly converted back to the core brand and Veggie Pret didn’t work out either, although it did hit double figures.
Is there any cause for optimism for this most recent crop of tricky second albums?
History strongly suggests that the sophomore slump is real and that most of them won’t be long for this world. That said, both Dishoom and, once again, Loungers have got a lot further than most with the Permit Room and Brightside brands having reached three and five sites respectively. These are two companies you bet against at your peril.
