Would you order your evening meal from Pret? The beleaguered sandwich chain is hoping you will as part of its plan to bounce back from the coronavirus crisis.
It's no secret that COVID-19 has hit Pret hard. Once a lunchtime favourite, especially for people working in central London, the chain has seen sales fall dramatically as more of us continue to work from home.
In July, Pret announced that 30 of its stores were closing were good, causing at least 1,000 people to lose their jobs. Then in August the chain announced even more drastic measures to cut more than 3,000 jobs, which amounts to around a third of its workforce.
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To tempt people back into its stores, Pret has already launched a coffee subscription service allowing you to order up to five hot drinks a day for just £20 a month. Around 16,500 people signed up on its launch day.
Now Pret's CEO Pano Christou has revealed that the chain is developing a hot dinner menu with a view to entering the evening takeaway market.
Pret previously experimented with offering a hot dinner menu at its Strand store in central London. Offering table service, the store served small plates including spicy meatballs, baked herby falafel and sweet potato wedges.
However, Christou said the experiment wasn't "overly successful" and said that the new evening dinner menu will be delivery-only.
“Let’s be honest, nobody’s going to go and have a nice dinner in a Pret shop," he told The Guardian. "So I think this would just be an online delivery dinner proposition.”
Christou offered no further details on what might be on the evening dinner menu, or when Pret is planning to roll it out. But the chain has already proven it can respond quickly to our changing lifestyle habits during this very strange year, so watch this space.
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