Pizza Express - Next one to collapse?

[anonymous-user]

pavarotti1980 said:

eldar said:

Or they cook their own pizza, which is infinitely better and costs a fraction of the price.

Yes that too but I dont always carry my oven around town though....

I'm impressed that you ever carry it around!

Great way to burn off the calories and have guilt free pizza though..

[T-195]

Rise of home deliveries, decline in popularity of same wherever you go Chain restaurants (Not the Mcdonalds end of the market) The SIL says the kids love Pizza Express and is the only reason they go, because expensive. Cooking decent Pizza at home isn't hard.

[pavarotti1980]

Roman Rhodes said:

I'm impressed that you ever carry it around!

Great way to burn off the calories and have guilt free pizza though..

Either burn off calrories or work up appetite. I got the idea off this bloke running the Great North Run (as he overtook me) with a different appliance on his back

[Tankrizzo]

Lemming Train said:

His "facts" are no such thing. They're not made fresh on site like he claims when half of it is coming frozen on the back of a truck.

So we've wound down from "I delivered frozen pizzas to PE branches in my 26 tonner & they're made by NMW Eastern Europeans for 10p and sold to mugs for £20", to "Maybe it was the bases then", then telling people who see them being made in front of them that they're wrong, to agreeing with a poster who told you that it's the balls of dough that's frozen and delivered, to then realising you hadn't read his post properly and then telling him his facts are bks.

It would have been a lot easier if you'd just said you were mistaken and moved on. Christ.

[Sporky]

The 26-tonner bit was a nice touch though - it's the little details like that that add an air of authenticity to that sort of post.

Shame the rest of the content let it down, mind.

[menguin]

HTP99 said:

You can watch them make the pizza in my local one, they do it to the side of the restaurant in clear view.

Exactly - strange suggestion, since you see them stretching the dough and adding toppings, that they somehow come in frozen. Unless it is only some stores?!

[BoRED S2upid]

Vanden Saab said:

5. Employ staff who give a st... We went to PE recently on a big retail estate. Got shown to a table, waited 15 mins for a waiter to come and take our order, got fed up and walked out. The people on the next table had been waiting for half an hour and also left.

Very much this. Look at Wagamama last night in Cardiff it was heaving and within 15 mins my order was taken, drink and side arrived within 30 mins I had paid and someone else was sat at my seat. The steady flow of diliveroo going out the door is a good business model to follow.

As for PE owing a billion the writings on the wall that’s a huge amount.

[Oakey]

Tankrizzo said:

So we've wound down from "I delivered frozen pizzas to PE branches in my 26 tonner & they're made by NMW Eastern Europeans for 10p and sold to mugs for £20", to "Maybe it was the bases then", then telling people who see them being made in front of them that they're wrong, to agreeing with a poster who told you that it's the balls of dough that's frozen and delivered, to then realising you hadn't read his post properly and then telling him his facts are bks.

It would have been a lot easier if you'd just said you were mistaken and moved on. Christ.

To be fair, any mug can sprinkle some toppings on some ready made dough, even my 5yr old can do that

[Shakermaker]

Oakey said:

To be fair, any mug can sprinkle some toppings on some ready made dough, even my 5yr old can do that

If you pay Pizza Express then of course you can take your 5 year old, and all their friends, to your local branch and they can have their own pizza making party, see if they can do it as well as the professionals who have spent a whole day on an induction course learning to make those pizzas (as well as filling in payroll forms, new starter documents and uniform size forms etc)

[hyphen]

Oakey said:

Tankrizzo said:

So we've wound down from "I delivered frozen pizzas to PE branches in my 26 tonner & they're made by NMW Eastern Europeans for 10p and sold to mugs for £20", to "Maybe it was the bases then", then telling people who see them being made in front of them that they're wrong, to agreeing with a poster who told you that it's the balls of dough that's frozen and delivered, to then realising you hadn't read his post properly and then telling him his facts are bks.

It would have been a lot easier if you'd just said you were mistaken and moved on. Christ.

To be fair, any mug can sprinkle some toppings on some ready made dough, even my 5yr old can do that

Can she hand toss and roll out the base too?

[Oakey]

Shakermaker said:

If you pay Pizza Express then of course you can take your 5 year old, and all their friends, to your local branch and they can have their own pizza making party, see if they can do it as well as the professionals who have spent a whole day on an induction course learning to make those pizzas (as well as filling in payroll forms, new starter documents and uniform size forms etc)

Think you missed the point. The original argument stemmed from Lemming Train stating they're not 'freshly made'. The only challenging part to making pizza is making the dough and that's shipped in frozen so all that's required from the staff is to assemble them. If someone suggested that Subway sandwiches were 'freshly made' they'd probably be sneered at as it's all pre-packed and simply requires assembly by the 'sandwich artists'.

[Oakey]

hyphen said:

Can she hand toss and roll out the base too?

Did you just assume my sons gender?

He has a good go at it but his tiny hands are probably a hindrance.

[Shakermaker]

Oakey said:

Think you missed the point. The original argument stemmed from Lemming Train stating they're not 'freshly made'. The only challenging part to making pizza is making the dough and that's shipped in frozen so all that's required from the staff is to assemble them. If someone suggested that Subway sandwiches were 'freshly made' they'd probably be sneered at as it's all pre-packed and simply requires assembly by the 'sandwich artists'.

Yes I get that, thank you. I don't have a problem with them using the same dough at every branch, surely that's a measure of what makes them a chain restaurant where you get a consistent product, and whilst I understand some people would want them to pretty much have their own field of wheat behind each restaurant to process into flour and be made into the dough, we aren't quite at that level when you can get them to make you a pizza that costs you about £5 and has cost them about 75p (according to my friend who used to manage our local branch)

[Oakey]

Shakermaker said:

Yes I get that, thank you. I don't have a problem with them using the same dough at every branch, surely that's a measure of what makes them a chain restaurant where you get a consistent product, and whilst I understand some people would want them to pretty much have their own field of wheat behind each restaurant to process into flour and be made into the dough, we aren't quite at that level when you can get them to make you a pizza that costs you about £5 and has cost them about 75p (according to my friend who used to manage our local branch)

So when Lemming Train said they charge you about £20 and it costs them 10p he wasn't far off then (based on the actual menu prices)?

[untakenname]

I occasionally get a Pizza Express chilled Pizza from Sainsbury's and notice they perpetually feature 40% off mains, I never remember to have the vouchers when I'm out or they inevitably expire but the fact I'm now missing out on 40% off means I'll never go in there and pay full price.

Even a few years ago there was a queue to be seated at the Weekends but now they seem empty even at 7pm at my local, having a Nando's next to it can't help.

[oyster]

bonerp said:

Kinda killed themselves selling their own pizzas from Tesco. Saves me going out and burning money on stupid priced drinks. Bad move was that.

Yep. Felt the same when playing Outrun. Never felt the need again to buy a Testarossa.

[anonymous-user]

Oakey said:

Shakermaker said:

If you pay Pizza Express then of course you can take your 5 year old, and all their friends, to your local branch and they can have their own pizza making party, see if they can do it as well as the professionals who have spent a whole day on an induction course learning to make those pizzas (as well as filling in payroll forms, new starter documents and uniform size forms etc)

Think you missed the point. The original argument stemmed from Lemming Train stating they're not 'freshly made'. The only challenging part to making pizza is making the dough and that's shipped in frozen so all that's required from the staff is to assemble them. If someone suggested that Subway sandwiches were 'freshly made' they'd probably be sneered at as it's all pre-packed and simply requires assembly by the 'sandwich artists'.

Would disagree that making the dough is challenging - so long as you have a recipe that works. The challenging part is making the ball of dough into something round, of the correct thickness, adding toppings in the correct proportions and cooking it correctly. That part happens in the restaurant. Maximum pizza price is c.£15, not £20 and the cost of the ingredients will be c. £2.33 on a £14 pizza even at 80% GP.

So yes, they are "freshly made" in the same way that Subway is - as opposed to being entirely assembled in a factory like M&S sandwiches or pre-packed chilled or frozen pizza.

[StanleyT]

I used to work in Northern Foods making M&S sandwiches. The most expensive sandwich sent to go to M&Ss shelves at the time was a "prawn triple".

Sold in those days for £1.30 in M&S.

Sold in the factory canteen at cost-to-make of 12p!

Mark up on food is huge at each step of the process.

Be sad to see PE go if they do, we didn't have Pizza Hut where I grew up and the local Italian didn't serve youths so was the first pizza place I frequented and seemed OK at the time. Probably helped we'd all got bottles of White lightening / Buckie / Toilet Duck / MadDog20:20 so never bought booze though......helped keep the bill down, more money for carbs to soak the booze.

[anonymous-user]

Did you say .... yoots?

/ Cousin Vinny

[anonymous-user]

JPJPJP said:

Teddy Lop said:

I wonder how much discounting undermines the business, putting them in a cant-afford-not-to when everyone else does scenario?

Pricing etc. in the UK restaurants is not the cause of the current problem really. Splits as follows

UK & Ireland turnover £441.4m with £50.4m operating profit

That, by anyone's standards, is not a bad business

The issue that PE has got to deal with is that it has been too good at raising debt. Now, we can argue about whether the sellers of the debt were bandits or that the buyers were schmucks. But the end point is the same

It owes £1.1 billion pounds! Most of it at pretty high interest rates

£665m to bond holders (£465m at 6.625% repayable Aug 2021 and £200m at 8.625% repayable Aug 2022)

£466.9m to the parent company at 10% repayable Aug 2024

There is no chance at all of the business generating £465m in time to repay that Aug 2021 bond. It will, therefore, need to refinance some, most or all of it. The market is making it known to PE that it isn't joyous about refinancing it: that might mean it doesn't get a straightforward refinance and the owner has to give up some equity. Or it might mean the refinance costs a lot more

You always post sensibly in threads like these and my assumption is you have some grounding in finance.

You’re completely right that revenues aren’t the problem, debt is and these noises are the first warning shots from the debt providers.

The usual PH response though is as rife as ever...... “last time I went in” etc etc

Reports of the brand’s imminent demise are greatly, in the case of the media massively irresponsibly, exaggerated.