Have you met Nick Freeman, General Manager of Pizza Express Singapore?
Nick and his team are working hard to make sure that you, your family, your friends and colleagues are not only properly fed while working from home, they are also thinking up new, innovative and tasty dishes AND activities, especially designed to help get you out of the working-from-home-funk!
Read more about Nick, and learn about Pizza Express’ new initiatives!
Tell us a bit about you, Pizza Express and the story behind the restaurant.
Nick: Pizza Express was founded in London in 1965 by an adventurous entrepreneur named Peter Boizot.
After travelling around Italy he returned to London to find there was no decent pizza available, so he decided to do something about that. He imported a pizza oven from Naples and found a small restaurant unit available in Soho; London’s red light district. The restaurant was so small he had to knock down a wall to bring in the oven, but once up and running it became an instant hit with London’s trendsetters, with its blend of great food, cheap prices and good music. PizzaExpress was born! Many elements from that first restaurant still exist today, including original art in every outlet, great music and the black-and-white striped shirts worn by our pizza chefs.
I first joined PizzaExpress in Dubai in 2015 as head of marketing, then was given the opportunity to oversee the Singapore business in 2017 when we just had one restaurant. It’s been a great journey, watching the business grow. Today, we have 7 outlets in Singapore and over 630 worldwide.
What does ‘service’ and ‘hospitality’ mean to you (in these uncertain COVID-19 times)?
Nick: At the moment, we are limited to delivery and take away trade, so we have much less control over the service we provide our customers. Our chefs work to ensure that every pizza that leaves the restaurant looks and tastes as good as the last, and our team members still provide the same warm welcome to our takeaway guests. We’re also regularly brainstorming to identify areas where we can be helpful. We’ve added some retail products on our delivery channels, as we see supermarkets run low on stock of certain items. We’ve also been offering online pizza-making classes over Zoom, with pizza-making kits available from our restaurants through Deliveroo. (See Pizza Express Facebook for details).
What impact has COVID-19 had on your business?
Nick: It’s been pretty catastrophic, both here in Singapore and globally. Locally, our sales are down by 50-60% in the outlets, trading on delivery, but we’ve had to close some restaurants. This has meant we’ve had to examine our costs very carefully and eliminate anything non-essential. Thankfully, the government has been supportive and proactive in helping the F&B industry as I think we would be in real trouble otherwise. In our other global markets – like the UK and China – we have seen all restaurants close entirely, not even serving delivery dishes, so they have been hit harder.
The biggest challenge is rent, as most other costs can be flexed to a level that works with current demand. We have been talking to all of our landlords to appeal for their understanding, asking them to share the burden as we simply can’t afford to pay rent at a pre COVID-19 level. Some have been fantastic and we really appreciate their support. Others are yet to come to table and that is causing problems.
What steps are you putting in place to help your business during these times?
Nick: In the past few weeks, we’ve introduced new dishes that we feel will work well when delivered. We’ve also tweaked recipes on a few of our most popular dine-in dishes, like the Carbonara pizza, to make it more suitable for delivery.
What is the dish or drink that will be most popular for your customers?
Nick: The Carbonara and Calabrese, two of our most popular dishes, are now available for delivery and I’m looking forward to seeing how customers respond. I’m also pleased to see how many people dialed into our first pizza-making party on Zoom. We’re going to keep running them every Sunday, so hopefully that’s something that grows. Details of all are available on our PizzaExpressSG Facebook page.
How do you see the industry after this is all over?
Nick: I don’t think the industry will return to “normal” any time soon. Customers will understandably be reluctant to pack into busy restaurants and we can expect extended periods of social distancing and possibly further circuit breakers to help the hospitals overcome any new spikes. Many restauranteurs and retailers have been hit very hard in the past few months, and it’s likely to get worse when government support reduces or disappears. The landscape could certainly look very different in six months, with a lot of empty units in shopping centres, a greater reliance on technology to order food and restaurants limited to fewer, spaced out customers. But in the longer term, the industry will bounce back. People need to eat. Companies will find creative ways to overcome the challenges and we may see a reinvention of the traditional restaurant model.
And, that’s all from Nick! Support venues in Singapore, who are struggling under current regulations, by ordering delicious takeaway food from either PizzaExpress, Picotin, Rabbit Carrot and Gun and Little Creatures!
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