Hey Hot Potatoes,

Welcome to the latest edition of the Hot Potato Newsletter! Well summer is officially over and I am already missing it but boy has September been busy. People back from holidays, industry events in full swing and hospitality back buzzing!

This week we're diving into the latest headlines across UK hospitality, breaking down how Yard Sale Pizza built one of London's most loyal pizza followings without ever chasing hype, digging into why hyper-specific dessert concepts are popping up all over London, and I've got a spicy take on why your menu layout deserves just as much attention as the food on it. Let's get into it.

In today's email: Yard Sale Pizza's Cult Following, The Rise of Niche Dessert Concepts & Why Your Menu Layout Matters More Than You Think

Read Time: Approx 3-4 mins

Five hospitality stories worth knowing from the last fortnight.

Sources: Propel Info, MCA Insight, Restaurant Online

UK spending on eating and drinking rose 1.8% year-on-year in August, with pubs, bars and clubs seeing the strongest growth.

The takeaway → Whilst it’s not major growth, after everything operators have faced, consumers are still finding money to spend on going out.

Joe & The Juice has rolled out a new nine-item breakfast menu across its 80 UK stores, with protein, fibre and gut health firmly front and centre.

Why it’s interesting → Breakfast is becoming another battleground for all-day café brands and “healthy” increasingly means functional, not just low-calorie.

Fireaway Pizza has opened its first concession inside a convenience store as it explores another route to growth.

The bigger picture → Hospitality brands don’t necessarily need more traditional restaurants to scale. Concessions, travel hubs, retail and partnerships could become an increasingly important part of the playbook.

Starbucks is investing $1bn into making thousands of cafés warmer and more welcoming, positioning stores as a “community lounge” for increasingly online lives.

My take → After years of convenience, delivery and grab-and-go, the physical experience might be becoming a competitive advantage again.

McDonald’s is taking over Shoreditch with The Counter, a three-day pop-up (17th-19th Sept) styled as a traditional butcher shop, complete with British and Irish beef and hands-on experiences.

Why I like it → A great example of a huge brand creating something deliberately small, physical and unexpected to get people talking.

London has no shortage of pizza brands but Yard Sale has built something most haven’t - a cult following based on delivering great pizza.

It started in 2014, when Johnnie Tate and Nick Buckland began baking pizzas from a homemade oven. Today, it has 19 London sites and ambitions to reach 40 over the next five years.

Numbers That Tell The Story:
🍕 19 sites across London
💰 £13.2m turnover, up 22%
📈 Growth target: 40 sites by 2030
🤝 Backed by Piper in 2025, growth-equity investors in Flat Iron, Loungers and Turtle Bay

🛵 Owning the customer experience - Yard Sale still runs its own e-bike delivery team rather than outsourcing everything to Deliveroo or Uber Eats. It’s also partnered with over 160 local pub partners to deliver pizzas directly to tables, a move I think is smart!

🍕 Giving people reasons to talk - menu items like the Holy Pepperoni and Marmite Cheese Garlic Bread helped build the initial following, while collaborations with chefs, musicians, brands and even F1 keep it culturally relevant.

🏘️ Going where others weren’t - rather than relying on obvious prime locations, it built a following in neighbourhoods like Clapton, Walthamstow and Tufnell Park, becoming the go-to pizza spot in areas the big chains overlooked.

🧑‍💼 Knowing when to bring in expertise - after a decade of being founder-led, Stephen Hollis came in as CEO from Soul Foods Group, while Johnnie Tate moved to a founder role focused on brand and property.

The playbook → Build something people genuinely love, own the customer relationship and only accelerate expansion once the model is proven.

I keep noticing increasingly specific dessert concepts appearing in London - banana pudding, cheesecake, tiramisu to name a few.

In the last month alone, Marrone has opened in Soho and Giuseppe’s in Shoreditch, both built around tiramisu.

I think there are two reasons this model is attractive.

Firstly, specificity cuts through. In a saturated market, being the tiramisu place is far easier to understand and market than being another generic dessert shop. Operationally, fewer SKUs should also mean simpler forecasting, better margins and less waste.

Secondly, we’re in an uncertain economy where affordable treats tend to perform well. People might postpone a big purchase but £5–£10 on coffee or dessert still feels managable.

Brands like La Maritxu have already shown the model can work.

The question: how many of these concepts become enduring brands rather than six-month TikTok sensations?

A poorly laid out menu is a cardinal sin.

Last week I attended a menu masterclass hosted by Ops Club and me&u, including a session from self-confessed “menu geek” Annica Wainwright of 2forks.

It was a great lesson on how much psychology goes into something most operators probably look at every day without thinking about it. Things like:

Where your eyes naturally go.
How many choices you offer.
Where prices sit.
When imagery helps and when it distracts.

Your menu isn't just a list of things you sell, it's one of your most important sales tools.

Yet plenty of restaurants spend months obsessing over their interiors, branding and social content before handing customers a menu that makes choosing harder.

My take → menu design deserves the same attention as the food itself.

That wraps this edition of Hot Potato! Hit reply with any thoughts - I read everything and it genuinely shapes what comes next.

I have a question for you all!

I’m thinking about launching Hot Potato Radar - a regularly updated look at 50 UK hospitality brands showing serious growth momentum, tracking things like new openings, expansion plans, funding, key hires and other growth signals.

If you’d be interested in getting access, just reply to this email with the word “RADAR”.

I’m testing the idea before I build it, so every reply genuinely helps.

Until next time!

Bon appétit,

Max Shipman, Founder, Hot Potato

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