Pizza pioneer

“And to think, it is all down to a simple round object from Naples,” was how Peter Boizot once described his own success and the humble beginnings of PizzaExpress , the business he founded in Wardour Street, Soho, in 1965, which 53 years later encompasses over 500 restaurants around the world, and last changed hands in a c£900m deal and is owned by a Chinese private equity firm in Hony Capital. If you trace back the lineage of the UK’s casual dining market, Boizot was also at the top of what can be described as the industry’s family tree, its branches touching some of the most significant players in the sector’s history, not bad for a former barrow boy.

From working as a tutor in Florence in 1948 where he was first introduced to a dish the locals called pizza, to travelling to Rome years later in the 1960s, and then finding on his return to London and not being able to find a decent pizza, the germ of the idea of PizzaExpress was born, with Boizot deciding to open a pizzeria himself. As he said years later in his book, Mr Pizza and All That Jazz, “the world was my oyster! I believed I could go as far as I could.” With £3,000 savings (about £58,000 today) he flew to Rome, took a taxi to a pizzeria and asked for directions to an oven-maker. He placed a £600 order for an oven — to be escorted to London by a skilled operator — and set out to find his first site. Two years after opening in Soho, a second branch launched and within a decade a number of sites had opened up around the country.

By 1978, Ian Neill had joined a business he would spend the next 11 years of his career with to work under the man he considered his mentor. He rose to become director and general manager at PizzaExpress before leaving to become managing director of branded restaurants at Rank Organisation. Neill said: “Peter had great style, was incredibly creative and truly inspirational. Without the commitment to quality and service I learnt from Peter it is unlikely that Wagamama would be the success it is today. Peter was very kind and I will miss him.”

By 1989, David Page had become one of those franchisees and was immediately touched by Boizot’s generosity. Page, who would go on to lead the business and grow it from 63 outlets at flotation in 1993 to 350, including 50 overseas. He says: “He leant me £250,000 to buy a freehold in Canterbury - in 1989 – on one phonecall! He was a very, very generous man - the phrase ‘generous to a fault’ could have been invented for him.”

In 1993, Page teamed up two young entrepreneurs – Luke Johnson and Hugh Osmond - to acquire Pizza Express from Boizot, and float it on the stock market. Johnson and Osmond, who went on to found Punch Taverns, organised the acquisition of PizzaExpress and floated the business on the stock market at 40p. Johnson remained chairman of the business until 1999, at which time the share price was over 800p and the business had a market capitalisation of over £500m.

Johnson says: “Peter was one of the more remarkable entrepreneurs and philanthropists of our time. He was at heart a salesman and a dreamer, full of superhuman energy. He has never really received the credit he deserves for his pioneering work as a popular restaurateur, a charitable giver on a major scale, and as someone who added immeasurably to cultural life in Britain over the last fifty years.”

Osmond says: “He did actually invent the UK’s casual dining industry. Brilliant, and difficult, he stuck to his values and principles no matter what. As a result, PizzaExpress, founded in Wardour St in 1965, is still the leading restaurant brand in the UK. Quite a legacy. I have a lot to thank him for.”

The business had made Boizot a multi-millionaire, which he duly re-invested in his childhood memories of his hometown Peterborough, acquiring the Great Northern Hotel, which his parents had revered because they thought it was “posh”, the city’s Odeon cinema and the football club, which is nicknamed “the Posh”. After 1993, Boizot drifted a little away from the business he had founded, but remained president of the company for the rest of his life, providing an energetic and valued sounding board for a number of chief executives, as it changed hands again through the first decade of this millennium.

TDR Capital and Capricorn Associates bought the company in 2003 turning it private again. In 2005, PizzaExpress floated on the London Stock Exchange, as part of Gondola Holdings PLC. It was then bought by private equity group Cinven as the Gondola Group in 2007.

During a large part of that period, Harvey Smyth was chief executive of the brand and then chairman of Gondola Group. He remembers Boizot as a “real man of conviction” and also someone who liked to start a meeting with a glass of Campari, whatever the time of day. He says: “He was a visionary, inspirational and great fun. He was a real man of conviction and he did things that he felt were right.”

In July 2014 it was announced that Chinese group Hony Capital had bought PizzaExpress for £900m, with the expansion of the brand in the Far East set to ramped up in the process. Richard Hodgson, currently leading YO! Sushi, has become chief executive of the business in 2013 and led it for the next four year, including through its 50th birthday celebrations.

He says: “I invited Peter along to our annual conference and introduced him to the c700 people in the room. He received a five-minute standing ovation, which I think took him aback, as we was very humble about what he had achieved. There was people there who knew him and came and shook his hand, but there were countless there who had never worked with, who did the same. He was great to talk to and be able to listen to his stories and tap into his experiences. The term legend is now overused, but Peter was truly one.”

I haven’t even touched on Boizot’s love of jazz, which became entwined with PizzaExpress, and is still a key part of the business today. Then there are the countless examples of his generosity. He introduced Pizza Veneziana in 1975, donating 5p of its price to the Venice in Peril fund. The donation is now up to 40p a pizza and has raised over £2 million for the fund. A few of Boizot’s other notable achievements include introducing Peroni to the UK, owning Kettners, being the owner and chairman of Peterborough United Football Club, founding the Soho Jazz Festival and launched his own champagne label “BOIZOT”.

His legacy can be seen up and down countless UK’s high streets and shopping schemes. The passion, attention to detail and simplicity of operation that he bought to that first site in Soho lives on across not just PizzaExpress but many brands and concepts that came in its wake. We should all raise a drink, preferably a Peroni, and salute the man who made a lasting and positive impression on this industry, one he did more than most to shape, and for starting this country’s love affair with a simple “round object from Naples”, we owe him a lot.