Hey Hot Potatoes,

Welcome to the latest edition of the Hot Potato Newsletter! Before we get into things, I’ve just had one of the most unique dining experiences of my life - a meal inside a jeans factory. Sounds odd right? But Slowburn in Walthamstow, London are doing something amazing, proper food cooked well and served inside Blackhorse Atelier - London’s only craft jeans factory. If you’ve had any amazing meals lately or think someone deserves a shoutout let me know!

This week we're diving into the latest headlines across UK hospitality, shining a spotlight on the pizza brand that went from one empty shop in Sutton to 160 sites and £60m in revenue, exploring why functional drinks are fast becoming a menu essential, and the data is finally showing some green shoots for restaurants. Let's get into it.

In today’s email: Fireaway's £60m Formula, Functional Drinks Are Taking Over & The Data That Gives Us Hope

Read Time: Approx 3-4 mins

🔥 Hot Off The Press 🔥

We take a look at some of the hottest headlines happening right now in UK Hospitality.

Sources: Propel Info, MCA Insight, Restaurant Online

🔥 INTERNATIONAL BRANDS BETTING ON THE UK: Parisian-American cookie institution Laura Todd makes its British debut in Kensington, Miami-born Mexican concept Coyo Taco arrives near Victoria this summer with ambitions for 50+ sites, Italian bakery chain Nonna - founded in China, targets 15 UK sites over the next five years following its debut last September and French smashburger group Junk brings sister brand Puffy along for its third UK opening

🔥 HOMEGROWN CONCEPTS ON THE MOVE: North west smash burger favourite Burgerism makes its first move outside Manchester with a Leeds opening and is already scoping a second site, while Madre, the taco concept from the founders of Belzan and Breddos Tacos, opens its second Leeds site in as many months

🔥 INVESTMENT & FUNDING: Danish juice-and-food-to-go brand Joe & The Juice secures a strategic minority stake from Emirates International Investment Company at a £1.35bn valuation, self-serve coffee station concept Unity Coffee raises £2m in its second funding round to roll out more than 500 machines across high-footfall locations, and AI and robotics kitchen supplier BOTINKIT closes $50m in funding as it prepares to launch a 'Restaurant as a Service' model

🔥 MARKET MOMENTUM: Specialty coffee brand WatchHouse reports a 48% revenue jump to a record £22.8m and is targeting ten new sites across the UK and US this year

Brand Spotlight of the Month - Fireaway Pizza

Not many people outside of South London would have heard of Fireaway Pizza in 2016. Today it's one of the fastest growing pizza chains in the UK and it started with a single empty shop, three employees and a grandmother's recipe.

Mario Aleppo left school at 16, grew up in Mitcham and spent years working jobs and doing college courses before opening the first Fireaway in Sutton, Surrey in 2016. His inspiration came from his Italian grandmother's traditional recipes. He'd initially considered taking on a Subway franchise but changed his mind, deciding instead to do his own thing, borrowing Subway's customisation model but applying it to stone-fired pizza.

Today Fireaway operates over 160 stores, has international locations and generates over £60 million in revenue.

The Numbers That Tell The Story:

• From one store in Sutton to over 160 locations in under a decade

• £60m in system sales revenue and £14.5m in HQ revenue

• Master franchises awarded in Bangladesh, Canada, France, Germany, India, Netherlands and Pakistan

• 250,000 active customers

Here's what they're doing differently:

🍕 A familiar format, completely reimagined - Fireaway took the Subway customisation model and applied it to authentic Italian pizza - four bases, four cheeses, four meats and 20 toppings, all at a flat price regardless of combination. Customers build their own pizza and it's ready in under three minutes. The format feels fresh because nobody had done it properly with pizza before. Simple idea, brilliant execution.

⚡ Technology in service of tradition - Mario travelled to Italy personally to negotiate with tomato farmers near Naples and flour mill owners near Milan, building direct supply relationships that protect both quality and margin. Those ingredients then go into a 400-degree oven that produces a pizza faster than most chains can take your order, cooking up to 12 pizzas at a time.

🤝 Franchise as a community, not just a model - Fireaway's first franchise came not from a boardroom decision but from a regular customer who loved the brand enough to want to open his own store. That word-of-mouth origin shaped how the whole network grew - franchisees who genuinely believe in the product rather than investors chasing returns. Mario has been open about his ambition to get to 400 UK stores and take on Domino's directly. Given where he started, it would be unwise to bet against him.

The playbook is one Mario would recognise from his own life: back yourself, learn fast, and don't let anyone else define the ceiling.

Trend to Watch - Functional drinks on the rise

Wellness and hospitality are becoming increasingly intertwined and this week's news proves it. Joe and the Juice has teamed up with Maya Jama to launch a collagen-infused matcha drink and for me it's one of the clearest signals yet of where the industry is heading.

This was one of my key predictions for hospitality in 2026 - that the lines between how we look after ourselves and how we eat and drink out would continue to blur.

And the numbers back it up: according to Ocado Retail, the functional drinks category has grown over 54% in the past year alone, spanning everything from kombucha and kefir to matcha.

Whether you're building a new wellness-driven concept or looking to evolve an existing menu, functional, feel-good offerings are fast becoming a point of difference.

Data Bite - Restaurants growing in March

The headline figure from a recent report from NIQ shows that restaurants posted 2.5% like-for-like sales growth in March. Total sales (including new openings) rose 4.3%, just nudging ahead of inflation, suggesting growth is being driven by expansion rather than underlying performance. In what is a fairly mixed picture right now in hospitality, we take the small wins!

That wraps this edition of Hot Potato. I hope you learnt something new or in any case felt inspired about the Fireaway journey… it always gets me excited reading about those who have successfully grown in the hospitality world!

Genuinely curious, if you’ve thought about starting a hospitality business but haven’t yet why not? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Hit reply with any thoughts - I read everything and it genuinely shapes what comes next.

Bon appétit,

Max Shipman, Founder, Hot Potato

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