As a parent to 8 and 4yo children, fundamentally what they have right is the experience for families. My kids are entertained with colouring while they wait for food, which they love, almost all kids love pizza. It makes them feel they are in a "proper restaurant". While my wife and I can have a nice drink and good food and it doesn't break the bank. Catering to both kids and adults well is hard, that's what makes it a winner in our household.
Ask my kids where they would like to go out for dinner, it's always PizzaExpress.
Wagamama and Nando's are arguably the only two big casual dining chains that people actually enjoy eating at. All the others are pretty unpopular (and rightly so, the food is often terrible): Pizza Express, Frankie and Benny's, Pizza Hut, Chiquito...
Nando's social media and culture presence is impressive for a restaurant chain of its size.
Pizza Express is a known good. It's not the best, but it's guaranteed to be consistent everywhere. It does the job when you just want a "good enough" pizza with little fuss.
In contrast, searching for the best pizza carries a risk of getting something subpar and much worse than even Pizza Express.
It's not much different - Pizza Express isn't anywhere near as posh as it thinks it is, and I'd bet the average spend per customer is lower thanks to the constant Tesco Clubcard deals.
Ah, there's me confusing 'British restaurant chain' with 'restaurant chain in Britain'.
I'm sure the UK is by far their largest market though, and it has had an impact on 21st century UK popular culture far away and above any other restaurant.
Dishoom is one of the experiences I miss most having moved away from the UK. It took this article to make me realise I feel the same about Pizza Express. At least I still have Ippudo, which I'd fit into the same mental space somehow.
The other things I put in the same group would be Pret A Manger (more of a takeaway/cafe) and also Cranks. I was in London at the same time as these chains were taking off before they spread to the greater UK. Cranks was such a great healthy / vegetarian cafe with a few shops, everyone loved their food but I think when they tried to expand it all went wrong. If I'm somewhere and want decent simple food and can't be bothered to work out where will be good, especially with kids I'd always go for Pret, Pizza Express or Waggamammas
At someone in their 30s now, PizzaExpress was somewhere me and my dad would go as a child. It gave me the feeling of being a grown up, eating at a "real" restaurant.
As an adult now, me and my wife still go because it's good and consistent!
I think that’s one of the angles they miss in the article: food in the UK in the early 90s was atrocious, especially outside of London. Pizza express was at least a guarantee of a decent pizza.
I was quite young at the time but even in London pizza express felt really fancy and stylish compared to any other restaurant I’d been to (at about 8 years old). I guess it was very competitively priced too because my middle class but not particularly high earning family of 6 were able to eat there as an occasional treat!
We used to go to the one on upper street Islington, and it’s etched in my memory.
Still a big fan, I’ve never been let down by them.
Yes. In Cambridge at the same time, the chains were Garfunkels, Pizzaland, Pizza Hut, and PizzaExpress. PizzaExpress (particularly "7a") was head and shoulders above the rest, though Pizzaland's endless shower of half-price vouchers admittedly got people through the door. I don't think anyone ever went to Garfunkels unless the parents were down.
There were a handful of enjoyable local restaurants/cafes that were just one step above a greasy spoon, though.
When did Pret's fayre become so banal? I walk into one every month or so to see if they have anything interesting. They haven't for years.
Same for me as M&S - it seems like they've foregone variety and interest to have the same bleak sandwich range, but duplicated across this-free or that-free.
Sandwich ranges have been triple-hit by reduced demand due to covid, increased costs, and prices squeezed by supermarket "meal deals" which have generally gone up less than inflation.
Quality of sandwiches generally have completely disappeared as a result.
It's hardly a surprise that the market for a £6 sandwich just isn't there, so they have to cut costs to get back to a point people will pay.
Ask my kids where they would like to go out for dinner, it's always PizzaExpress.