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Leon (branded as LEON.) is a
fast food
Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredien ...
chain based in the United Kingdom, established in 2004. The company had around 70 outlets when it was bought by
EG Group
EG Group is a British retailer headquartered in Blackburn, United Kingdom, which operates filling stations, convenience stores and fast-food restaurants in Europe, the United States and Australia. The group was created through the combination o ...
in 2021.
History
''Leon'' was founded by
John Vincent and
Henry Dimbleby
Henry Richard Melville Dimbleby (born May 1970) is a British businessman and cookery writer who is a co-founder of Leon Restaurants and the Sustainable Restaurant Association. He was appointed lead non-executive board member of the Department ...
with chef
Allegra McEvedy
Allegra Sarah Bazzett McEvedy MBE (born November, 23 1970) is an English chef, broadcaster and writer.
Early life
McEvedy was born and raised in Hammersmith. Interviewed by ''The New York Times'', she said, "Mine was all about what we’d h ...
.
The business was named after Vincent's father,
and opened its first outlet in
Carnaby Street
Carnaby Street is a pedestrianised shopping street in Soho in the City of Westminster, Central London. Close to Oxford Street and Regent Street, it is home to fashion and lifestyle retailers, including many independent fashion boutiques.
Stre ...
in 2004.
Six months after opening, Leon was named the "Best New Restaurant in Great Britain" at
''The Observer Food Monthly'' Awards.
[
In 2008, ''Leon'' became a founding member of the ]Sustainable Restaurant Association
The Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) is a not-for-profit, membership organisation, based in the United Kingdom, which aids food-service businesses to work towards sustainability in their sector and guides customers towards more sustainabl ...
.
In March 2009, McEvedy gave up her role at ''Leon'' to focus on writing and television work, but remains a shareholder. In 2014, John Vincent took over from Henry Dimbleby as CEO, and Dimbleby then left the board in 2017. He also remains a shareholder.
By 2015 Leon had 57 restaurants. In January 2015, HMSHost operated six Leon locations in airports and railway stations in southern England, and Leon announced an expansion of its relationship with HMSHost in 2018, including a franchise agreement in airports and railway stations across Europe and the Middle East. The company hoped to reach an international clientele through these outlets, and help create demand ahead of further overseas openings.
In June 2016 the first Leon outside England opened in Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
. Other overseas openings followed, including restaurants at Utrecht, Oslo, Gran Canaria, Dublin and Leon's first restaurant in the United States, in Washington, D.C.
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, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
The latter's style was described as " fast-casual Mediterranean" in the local press.
The chain was named in the 2017 ''The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' Fast Track 100 list. Leon was backed by Active Private Equity and, in May 2017, Spice Private Equity became a major investor to support further global expansion plans.
By 2018, the company had 61 sites. In the first quarter of 2019, 53% of the chain's food sales were plant-based or vegetarian.
In March 2020, Leon set up the "Feed NHS" initiative to deliver 5,600 free meals a day to National Health Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
critical care staff at London hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. Other restaurant chains
A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate the retail and dining markets and many service categories, in many pa ...
became involved, including Franco Manca
Franco Manca is a sourdough Neapolitan pizza business operating around 70 pizzerias in the UK. It was founded in 2008 by Giuseppe Mascoli and Bridget Hugo. The first store opened on Market Row in Brixton Market. Initially sites were in the Londo ...
, Tortilla
A tortilla (, ) is a thin, circular unleavened flatbread originally made from maize hominy meal, and now also from wheat flour. The Aztecs and other Nahuatl speakers called tortillas ''tlaxcalli'' (). First made by the indigenous peoples of Me ...
, Tossed, and Wasabi
Wasabi (Japanese: , , or , ; ''Eutrema japonicum'' or ''Wasabia japonica'') or Japanese horseradish is a plant of the family Brassicaceae, which also includes horseradish and mustard in other genera. The plant is native to Japan and the Russian ...
. A JustGiving
JustGiving is a global online social platform for giving. The firm's headquarters are located in Bankside, London.
History
In 2000, Zarine Kharas and Anne-Marie Huby founded JustGiving, (initially clickforaction.com) a company to provide on ...
page was created to raise funds.
Leon USA Inc. filed for liquidation in February 2021, citing low customer numbers because of the Covid-19 pandemic. It had three outlets in Washington and a fourth nearby in Fairfax, Virginia
The City of Fairfax ( ), colloquially known as Fairfax City, Downtown Fairfax, Old Town Fairfax, Fairfax Courthouse, FFX, or simply Fairfax, is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth ...
.
Purchase by EG Group
In April 2021, the company was sold for a reported £100m to the Issa brothers' EG Group
EG Group is a British retailer headquartered in Blackburn, United Kingdom, which operates filling stations, convenience stores and fast-food restaurants in Europe, the United States and Australia. The group was created through the combination o ...
, which also operates fast food franchises and had recently agreed to buy the Asda
Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of York ...
supermarket business. At that time, Leon had 71 outlets, of which 42 were operated by the company; the other 29 were franchises at transport hubs, in the UK and five other European countries.
Other activities
''Leon'' has published several cookbooks, and developed a cookware and tableware line with retailer John Lewis
John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville ...
.
Policies
In the United Kingdom, ''Leon'' implements equal pay, for both age and gender. The company pays the over 25s rate of the minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Bec ...
to all hourly paid employees, including those aged below 25.
One of the founders of Leon is Henry Dimbleby, a strong supporter of Vote Leave
Vote Leave was a campaigning organisation that supported a "Leave" vote in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. On 13 April 2016 it was designated by the Electoral Commission as the official campaign in favour of leavi ...
in the 2016 Brexit referendum, who spent the results evening with Michael Gove
Michael Andrew Gove (; born Graeme Andrew Logan, 26 August 1967) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations since 2021. He has been Member of Parli ...
.
References
External links
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{{Restaurants in London
2004 establishments in England
British brands
Fast-food chains of the United Kingdom
Restaurant groups in the United Kingdom
Restaurants established in 2004
Restaurants in London
2021 mergers and acquisitions