The UK’s food-to-go market is becoming increasingly dominated by US-based franchises, with major investments announced recently by the likes of McDonald’s, Starbucks, Wingstop and a host of other popular quick service operators as they seek to build their presence across Britain.
But a Bristol-based, family-run eatery operated by father-and-son duo Nicholas and Joshua Kleiner is determined to fly the flag not just for Britain but for the humble, or not so humble, sandwich. And it has designs on eventually overtaking the country’s biggest sandwich chains with food that “makes lunch memorable”.
In July the company made its London debut at 1 Gresham Street and, after being named Uber Eats Restaurant of the Year in 2023, has quickly appeared on the list for best London sandwiches at Square Meal and won Time Out’s Sarnie Slam competition in August, after just three weeks in operation in the UK capital.
The company has aspirations as big as its chunky sandwiches, with plans for more London sites, outlets in transport hubs and growth beyond London around the UK and eventually internationally.
Bristol store launch
It all started on a much smaller scale just over a decade ago. Sandwich Sandwich was first launched in 2012 by Nick Kleiner, starting from a small kiosk in Bristol that he started up as a side hustle from his nearby neighbourhood restaurant. Such was the success of that side hustle that the sandwich business relocated to larger permanent premises, expanded into catering orders, and has since relocated to a larger outlet and grown to run from four sites, including Baldwin Street, Queen’s Road, and Park Row in Bristol.
Now Sandwich Sandwich has landed in London and has already announced that it has plans to open a second site in London, likely to be in the City, by the end of the year and then look for four or five more locations in 2025.
“There is no reason why Sandwich Sandwich will not take over Pret a Manger or Subway,” Joshua Kleiner, head of operations & marketing at Sandwich Sandwich, told British Baker recently. “They are outdated. I believe those companies haven’t changed with the times. People are so fed up.”
Keeping the business in the family, Nick’s brother Richard is also part of the team as an informal director and as corporate finance advisor, with a remit to use his corporate finance experience to help the company put the structures in place to try and achieve its ambitions, and Hospitality Investor caught up with him to hear more about the company’s plans.
Sandwich Sandwich looks for growth
With a background in finance within the F&B sector, he had been a non-executive director at Lebanese food chain Comptoir Libanais, where he met former CEO Chaker Hanna before the two departed in 2022. Under his encouragement, Hanna visited the Bristol outlet and both subsequently invested in the business ahead of its London launch.
“If you have growth ambitions, then going to London is a no-brainer and we came across Gresham Street which has a great spot on the corner and also a very large basement, as we wanted to establish a dark kitchen as well, so the site doubles up,” Richard Kleiner says. “We were very busy on social media and the awards were obviously a massive boon, so when we opened we’ve had huge queues from the start.”
Kleiner believes that Sandwich Sandwich can squeeze into a market dominated by the likes of Pret A Manger, Subway, London’s numerous independent sandwich shops and to an extent the upmarket Gail’s Bakery, because it offers what he describes as “something memorable”.
“Sandwiches are incredibly popular but in our view there is very little special about going to the vast majority of these outlets for lunch or breakfast, but we have tried to combine the theatricality of preparing the sandwiches and the visual appeal of the way they are layered, plus the quality of the ingredients and recipes,” he says. “For around £9 you can bring something back to your office desk that is memorable, substantial and makes you want to come back.”
Gail’s Bakery Shows Potential
Despite its ambitions for rapid growth, Kleiner is keen to stress that the company wants to build carefully and on firm foundations and it would no doubt look to the expansion path of private equity-owned Gail’s Bakery, the upscale bakery chain that currently has 131 outlets and intends to open up to 35 new stores across the UK this year, as a good example.
Gail’s started with a single shop on Hampstead High Street in 2005 and only began to expand outside of the southeast of England as recently as June 2022 with a shop in Manchester. But speaking at The London Coffee Festival recently, Gail’s managing director Marta Pogroszewska defended its growing high street presence: “Scale gets bad press. We will forever be a neighbourhood bakery business. We’re a place for all people who appreciate quality and craft.”
At the other end of the F&B scale, Greggs has enjoyed phenomenal growth and recently opened its 2,500th outlet, with ambitions to reach 3,000 or more UK outlets in the future and designs on expanding internationally.
“Naturally, in the future we can see 10 or more major cities in the UK that would be suitable for our offer,” Kleiner says. “That might be in the next four or five years, but I think we would want to grow to at least seven or eight London outlets before we considered other locations. We would be looking for partnerships with an experienced franchiser, because ingredients quality and service are two things we won’t compromise on.”
Kleiner also says that Sandwich Sandwich is likely to explore alternative opportunities such as locations within food halls and at major shopping centres.
“We could definitely see ourselves being involved with a busy food hall and I have a personal dream to see us located in a Westfield shopping centres,” he adds.
For now, the plan is to consolidate on its presence in London and once the retail component has had time to bed in, to expand to Uber Eats and corporate catering using its new basement facilities as it sets its sites on taking on the big boys.