Chaiiwala has opened a new flagship café on Granby Street in Leicester, the city where the brand started in 2015. The 2,000 sq ft, 60-cover site introduces self-service ordering kiosks and a new layout, which the franchised chai café chain describes as the blueprint for its next phase of UK expansion.
The opening, reported on 23 September 2026, replaces the brand’s earlier café on the same street. Chaiiwala states on its own website that it operates more than 140 sites across three countries and is a member of the British Franchise Association, a voluntary trade body rather than a regulator, as what a franchise is explains. Trade coverage of the Leicester opening puts the UK estate at more than 120 sites, with a stated ambition of 500 sites worldwide within ten years.
A larger format built around kiosks
The new café covers 2,000 sq ft and seats up to 60. Customers order at self-service kiosks, and the dining room uses stadium-style bench seating. The menu is the brand’s full range: karak chaii brewed on site with a seven-spice blend, breakfast roti wraps, Bombay Bowls, Wala Wraps, platters, salads, desserts and cold drinks.
Sohail Ali, co-founder of Chaiiwala, said: “Granby Street is an incredibly important café for Chaiiwala. Leicester is where our story began.” He added that the investment “is about much more than creating a bigger café”.
A return to the city where the brand began
Chaiiwala was founded in Leicester in 2015, and the new flagship moves its Granby Street café into a larger unit on the same street rather than adding a second site in the city centre. Launching the new format in its home city ties the expansion template to the brand’s origins, which is the point Ali made in his comments. The Leicester café becomes the reference site where the kiosks, the seating layout and the service flow run at full trading volume before the format is applied elsewhere.
A template for high streets, drive-thrus and motorway services
Chaiiwala says the Leicester layout will guide both new openings and refurbishments across its UK estate. The brand now trades in several formats: high street cafés, drive-thrus and travel hubs, including motorway service areas through its partnership with Roadchef. Its most recent openings include Bristol and Woking.
A flagship of this kind gives franchisees a finished reference for fit-out, equipment and service flow before they refurbish their own cafés, and a refurbishment on that scale is a cost to be planned for, as how to open a coffee shop in the UK sets out.
Good to know
Chaiiwala grows through franchising and runs a franchise enquiry page on its own site, where it does not publish its fees or investment levels. Network size is the franchisor’s own figure: no UK register records franchised outlets, and Companies House does not count them.
What the brand has not yet published
The Leicester announcement gives no figure for the cost of the new format, and no timetable for refitting existing cafés to it. The brand’s own site cites more than 140 sites across three countries, while trade coverage puts the UK estate at more than 120.
The next signals are the pace of openings against the 500-site target and whether kiosks become standard in the franchise package for new sites. Whether a refit can be required of an existing franchisee, and at whose cost, is fixed by the franchise agreement.
