PizzaExpress expands restaurant chain on international scale

PizzaExpress has signed franchise deals to export its upmarket pizza concept to nine more countries.

The restaurant group has now signed agreements to franchise its successful pizza concept in five Gulf states, plus Kuwait, Greece, Cyprus and South Africa.

Last year PizzaExpress announced that it had agreed to franchise restaurants in India and the USA (News, 16 May 1996).

PizzaExpress's first overseas branch will open in Laguna Beach, California, in March and will probably be called Pizza Pizza Pizza, said David Page, chief executive of the company.

The California restaurant is owned by Harshad Desai, PizzaExpress's biggest franchisee in the UK, although PizzaExpress has a minority stake in this restaurant in lieu of franchise fees.

The company's first Indian restaurant is scheduled to open in Delhi, by June 1997. An agreement to open 50 restaurants in India over the next 10 years has been made with Modi Group, a major industrial conglomerate.

Meanwhile, in the UK PizzaExpress has reached126 restaurants and is set to open at least 30 over the next year. It is now pushing far beyond its London base to Edinburgh, Dundee, Lytham St Anne's, Coventry, Lincoln and Cardiff.