London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

Pizza Express: We're still making dough

The popular High Street chain is fighting back against its challenges amid a wave of online support.

"It feels good to be kneaded," Pizza Express quipped on Twitter after worries it could go under prompted an outpouring of affection from diners.

In a quick piece of savvy marketing, the chain told customers: "We're still making dough", trying to reassure the legions of parents and savvy, voucher-wielding customers who had expressed concern that another family-friendly, mid-priced restaurant chain could disappear from the High Street.

Pizza Express was responding to reports it had hired advisers to negotiate with lenders over a £1.1bn debt pile.

The news saw the almost 55-year-old pizza chain become the latest High Street eatery to have its money troubles splashed across the financial pages.

But what separates Pizza Express from the likes of Jamie's Italian, which went under in May, and Carluccio's and Prezzo, which have both closed dozens of restaurants, is its customers' response to news of the financial troubles.

Some Twitter users called for the restaurant chain to be nationalised, while others encouraged people to pay full price for their pizza, rather than use the discount vouchers that have become a centrepiece of the firm's business model.


Out of fashion


Pizza Express won a place in UK diners' hearts by managing to appeal to both adults and children. Its low lighting, tall stemmed glasses, and wine bar vibe happily coexist alongside kids' meals and colouring pencils.

But more recently, it has gained popularity for its special offers, which are nearly always available.

Danny Shaw, a footwear branding consultant, wrote on LinkedIn, that this approach is backfiring.

"Pizza Express really isn't fashionable any more." Now, he says, "it's all about discount codes", and that means "it doesn't feel special".

Retail expert Kate Hardcastle agrees that the restaurant chain's relentless focus on discount vouchers and other special offers has "devalued and eroded" the once-strong brand.

On top of that, she accuses Pizza Express of cannibalising its own market by selling its pizzas through supermarkets.

Because "there's nothing very special" about the chain's restaurants, Ms Hardcastle thinks, people may choose to pay less and eat its pizzas at home.


'Nothing right with it'


She says Pizza Express falls squarely into the "middle market" category of chains that have failed to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Those chains promote "blandness", she tells the BBC. "There's nothing wrong with it, but there's nothing right with it."

Nevertheless, the chain does appear to hold a special place in the hearts of many.

Partly, that's because of its heritage - which stretches back over half a century.


A brief history of Pizza Express


1965: Pizza Express founder, the late Peter Boizot, brought a pizza oven from Napoli and a chef from Sicily to open his first restaurant in London's Soho.

1992: Mr Boizot grew his empire over the following almost-three decades before selling it for £15m to Hugh Osmond and Luke Johnson, the man who was - until recently - chairman of Patisserie Valerie. They floated it on the stock market the next year and ultimately sold out in 1997 when it was worth £150m.

2003: It was taken private again in a £278m deal by two private equity firms who then floated it two years later - although it lasted less than a year on the public markets before it was returned to private equity hands.

2014: It changed hands again, this time to be acquired for £900m by its current owner, Chinese private equity house Hony Capital.

Analyst Peter Backman thinks the brand evokes a nostalgia in people whose parents and grandparents ate at Pizza Express restaurants. They may also have childhood memories of eating at the chain's family-friendly restaurants themselves.

"My family and I would personally miss pizza express," says Jayne Golden, who works for a bank.

Her five-year-old son was diagnosed with coeliac disease last year and she likes that the chain caters for him.

"Being able to eat there - safe in the knowledge his food is prepared in the way it should - has been a blessing to us when others restaurants have let us down," she says.

But Pizza Express is operating in a difficult environment.

Mr Backman says there is too much competition from other High Street chains.

"There are now too many restaurants chasing not enough business so each restaurant suffers," he says, blaming the economic uncertainty around Brexit for putting people off buying meals out.

He says the chain, which depends heavily on EU workers to staff its restaurants, has also struggled to hire since the referendum in 2016, which has driven up its wage bill. On top of that, Pizza Express has been hit by a hike in rates and the weak pound has made it more expensive to import ingredients.

But the firm's biggest challenge, appears to be its debt.

The interest on that £1.1bn is costing the company £93m a year, which wiped out all its operating profit last year.

In fact, the debt payments have pushed Pizza Express into the red for the last two years with a loss of £55m last year alone.


'It may not be the sexiest'


But Mr Backman thinks Pizza Express has something going for it, which many of its younger rivals - like Franco Manca and Pizza Pilgrims - do not.

"People will argue that it's the discounts that are pulling the people in but I'm not 100% convinced," he explains.

"It may not be the sexiest or the most modern," he says. But, he argues: "There is a lot of goodwill towards Pizza Express."

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×