Yo! Sushi, the British conveyor-belt sushi group, is close to striking a deal that will see it open its first outlet in America.
The business, founded by the former Dragon’s Den star Simon Woodroffe in 1997, currently has 24 outlets in the UK. But its chief executive, Robin Rowland, is planning a major push in which it will dramatically increase the number of its restaurants, both here and overseas.
Although Yo! Sushi is the owner of the UK outlets - which include standalone restaurants, counters in shopping centres and concessions in department stores such as Harvey Nichols - it plans to expand overseas through the use of franchises.
“America has been the holy grail for us for ages,” said Mr Rowland. “We have 200 applications a year from potential franchisees, a third of which come from the US.
“There’s no one [franchise partner] who could do the whole of America, so we’re probably looking at [doing deals with] around five partners.”
The cities the group is considering Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, Boston, Washington DC, Atlanta and then, finally, New York.
“I will be bitterly disappointed if we haven’t opened our first one in the US by the end of next year,” added Mr Rowland, who believes the group could support up to 250 US branches.
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