The Salad Kitchen has secured a ninth site, Propel reports, taking the brand beyond the eight shops listed on its own website. The London salad business has said it plans to grow nationwide through franchising, MCA Insight reported earlier, and its founders are Sam Cole and Ross Cannon.
Propel’s headline on 5 November reads “The Salad Kitchen secures ninth site”. The detail sits behind the trade title’s subscription, so the location, the opening date and the landlord are not known. The brand’s website lists eight shops under the heading “One city, eight stores”: Devonshire Square near Liverpool Street, Welbeck Street in Marylebone, Whitecross Street in Barbican, Leather Lane in Farringdon, Avery Row in Mayfair, Queen Victoria Street near Mansion House, Royal Exchange and Jubilee Place in Canary Wharf.
Eight shops, mostly weekday trade
The opening times on the brand’s website point to an office-led business. Welbeck Street, Whitecross Street and Leather Lane trade on weekdays only, closing between 2:30pm and 3pm. Devonshire Square, Avery Row, Queen Victoria Street and Jubilee Place stay open until 8pm or 8:30pm from Monday to Thursday and close earlier on Fridays. Royal Exchange has the longest hours, opening until 9pm Monday to Thursday and 6:30pm on Fridays. No weekend hours are listed for any of the eight shops.
The franchising ambition
MCA Insight ran a report headlined “The Salad Kitchen sees scope for 100 sites”, which said the London-based salad bowl concept plans to grow nationwide through franchising and has a long-term ambition to be “bigger than Pret”. The date of that report was not visible and its detail is behind a paywall, so how many of the nine sites are franchised, if any, is not known.
This report therefore calls The Salad Kitchen a brand. For how the term is used in UK trading, see our guide to what a franchise is, and for the questions a prospective franchisee puts to a franchisor, see how to choose a franchisor.
What is not yet public
The sources read do not give the location of the ninth site, its opening date, the landlord, the funding behind the roll-out, or whether any shop is run by a franchisee. The full Propel report is behind its subscription.
Where it sits among London salad and food-to-go brands
A move from eight to nine sites is a small step in numbers, but it matters for a brand whose stated aim is a national network. London multi-site brands tend to grow in clusters near transport hubs, and L’Express Franchise has reported on Urban Greens opening its seventh London site as one example of that pattern. The Salad Kitchen has not published a site target for the coming year in the sources read.
