I used to work at the Pret during my student years. All employees, we were very puzzled by why Pret is so popular and why are they willing to pay so much for the food.
Today with a better-paid job, when in the centre and need to get a quick snack, Pret is often my choice. End of the day they have good food and offer good service.
You hear many stories about people who used to work for McD and they say they will never eat there again. I can confidently say that at Pret, I did not see any red flags that would make me not eat there.
I wonder how the subscription idea will work for them. Pret is a sandwich shop, but most of the profit comes from coffee. When I used to work there, the price of a coffee was £2, and the cost was £0.20. I guess they expect most people to not max out on the offer, which is probably a reasonable assumption.
At the time, we were told the reason Pret does not offer free coffee after N transactions is because they want to make a customer feel special when they get free coffee. That's why all employees are allowed to give free coffee to anyone at their discretion, just not too many :) Sounds like it is about to change.
I guess the coffee deal is mainly to drive footfall. I expect their hope is that when people are deliberating over lunch, those that already have the coffee deal will default to Pret so they don't pay twice for coffee with their sandwich etc.
That free coffee thing. I used to go to a Pret frequently with one of my female colleagues who happened to be very traditionally attractive. She got a free coffee from male staff every single time.
> All employees, we were very puzzled by why Pret is so popular and why are they willing to pay so much for the food.
What's was puzzling about it? They're reasonably nice and fresh sandwiches in a nice room for not a lot of money. And as you knew yourself it seems clean too.
Now that I’m a senior software developer, I earn enough that I don’t need to care how much food like this costs.
When I was a student, during term time (rather than the summer holidays when I had a job and lived with my parents), I made a game out of spending as little as possible on food. My record was 50p per day sustained over an entire term in 2004 (adjusted for inflation, that’s about £1 per day today).
Accounting for disposable income rather than gross income, being surprised that students find £4 sandwiches expensive is like being supposed that someone on €60k doesn’t eat every lunch in €100-a-head restaurants. (Those sorts of restaurants are still “fancy special occasions only” for me).
But presumably these people are aware that there are people who aren't living on a pound a day. They can't be genuinely surprised that most people out there can afford a couple of pounds for lunch? They'd have to be ignorant of the basic economic state of the nation to be surprised by this.
Anchoring bias is a powerful thing. As far as I can tell, most people think of themselves (in the System 1 sense) as representative of normal, no matter how rich or poor they are.
I don't know: as a reasonably well paid software developer I still find the amount people are prepared to pay for lunch surprising. As the article mentions, once you buy coffee+sandwich+pastry+fruit you can easily be over £10, which is something like the price of a new Macbook every year?
Well my rationale is a little different. I tend to buy lunch every day because I like fresh/hot food, I like variety and I like putting money into the local economy (many lower income folks depend on their food service salaries). And I enjoy doing other things with my leisure time than prepping meals.
Nothing wrong with prepping food on the weekends — many find it therapeutic while others do it out of financial need or for dietary reasons - but I personally wouldn’t do it to save a few bucks. I was a poor student for many years, and I’ve had to do it out of need, but I’m glad to be able to live differently now.
The sandwiches are twice the price of a supermarket sandwich, and for many (especially students working at Pret) the idea of buying lunch out rather than making it at home and bringing it in may be a luxury.
If you're on £16k a year, spending £1000 for a sandwich every day for lunch is a lot (£4 sandwich * 250 working days).
Thing is, for most people living in a large city and on a tight budget, it's not the cost of the ingredients that matters but the facilities to prepare them.
I once worked at a large web company located in the center of Paris and that had a free use kitchen. It took me less time (<1h) to go shopping and cook for a few colleagues than it would have for us to go to a restaurant, and cost the same as buying supermarket sandwiches.
Sure, but most people have food prep facilities at home, particularly for those who can't afford to eat out as much, so bringing in food in a lunch box is accessible to most.
First time I reluctantly had one of their sandwiches I was pleasantly surprised. I thought it’s be bad being pre-made but it was fresh and well proportioned.
The only acceptable sandwich lunch is a burger, IMO. These days, even working from home, once a week I ride my motorbike to Netil market to get a burger from the Lucky Chip stall.
I don't understand how people can tolerate buying pre-prepared sandwiches from shops when street markets are an option, fresh hot tasty food cooked right in front of you.
I don’t always want hot food for lunch. Sandwiches are great. Pret sandwiches, although pre-made, are quite fresh. Their bread is good and the ingredients are fine. It’s sort of a “just in time” pre-made sandwich.
Definitely overpriced but you’re paying for the convenience too. A burger here are there for lunch is nice too.
It's like anything else: convenience, quickness, consistency, perception of cleanliness, habits of others around you, and so on.
If it's a group decision - and often enough it is - a place like Pret becomes the acceptable least common denominator. No one might love it, but more importantly no one probably hates it.
I hate it, and I hate what it stands for. I mentally associaciate Pret with bankers, and I haven't forgetten about 2008.
I'm being facetious, but only just... I work in fintech, and I end up associating with a bunch of bankers, and I give those who still patronize Pret a bit of a hard time.
I'm not so sure on the value front. There's a lot of meat on a typical £5-7 hot meal. You can't generally pay that much for a sandwich, and when you buy a cheaper one, it's miserly.
I like the Pret food, but their coffee is awful. Worst thing they sell in my opinion. I'm not a coffee snob - I usually drink starbucks - but I hate the Pret version.
Yeah same here, sandwiches are not bad (better than supermarket equivalents, but should be for the price premiuum), but not a fan at all of their coffee at all. Kind of tastes watery and burnt at the same time.
Being an on and off customer since 1998, I was fascinated by the idea that I can walk in and pick a sandwich out of 20-50-100 combinations (I honestly don't remember how many options were available but I remember it as "oh sooooo many!!!".
I treated it as a snack. Once I moved back to London some years back I was (negatively) surprised that MANY people consider lunch to be: "1 sandwich +1 bad of crisps/chips +1 sugary soft drink". I believe that Pret helped push obesity in the UK (and McD, and KFC, and many more - but Pret definitely contributed).
It is sad to see that jobs are on the line, but in all honesty people need to start eating better and stop considering Pret as "the place to get lunch/dinner"
It should be only for a quick lunch for tourists that may want a quick bite before they go from tourist_attraction_A to tourist_attraction_B without spending time and money for lunch.
To the profit point: liquids tend to make most of the profit. Sandwich takes time, effort, material, cost for quality, etc. A coffee (nowadays) is cheap and easy, it won't go bad after 24h. I was reading somewhere (HN? Reuters?) that BP sold 150mil cups of coffee.. easy money for all!
The idea that what’s essentially a regular sandwich shop (and not one particularly notable for pushing “chips” or “sugary soft drinks”) is in any real way contributing to obesity in the UK is laughable.
It really isn't. Small sandwich + crisps + sugary soda or coffee >= 700 calories, which is around twice what someone sedentary needs for lunch unless they start their day with a decent run. Add a chocolate bar and you're over 800. Start with a bigger roll or a wrap instead of a small sandwich and you're over 900.
It's also a huge carb hit, which is not ideal for staying awake later. And it's low in bulk, which will lead to snacking later.
All of this gets worse as you get older and your metabolism slows down. It's sort-of-ok for someone in their twenties, but literally lethal for someone in their fifties.
Pret are at the better end of the spectrum, and they also sell salad-related items which are less of a problem.
But this kind of sandwich lunch culture in general is a huge contributor to obesity. It doesn't look like a lot of food, it doesn't really fill you up, but it is a lot of calories.
> Small sandwich + crisps + sugary soda or coffee >= 700 calories
What are you on about? That's under a third of the daily recommended calories for a man.
Even if you ate this three times a day... you're going to be under.
> around twice what someone sedentary needs for lunch
So a 350 calorie lunch? So that'd be under half the recommended daily intake total even if you ate a large breakfast. So people living on about 1000 calories a day? How does that work? Most people's weights would be in freefall.
People have weird warped views about how many calories things are. For example did you know if you ate a full McDonald's meal with fries and regular Coca-Cola for every meal... you'd be under your recommended calorie count?
I actually ended up on ~1000 calories a day as a tallish guy. My wife asked me to join her on a meal plan and I forgot to look at the details. It ended up being about 3 meals a day at 300 calories apiece. A month in she let me know that I was meant to be having a 'snack' of another 300 too.
But those weights were for her smaller stature, not mine, and she's always been terrible with numbers (we agree that's my job, so I should've known). I actually got used to it surprisingly quick, and I have to say, it worked and I lost 20kg in a few months without much real discomfort. I cheated one or two meals each week which helped keep me sane.
I mostly stopped because we were cooking certain recipes on the plan and it was just annoying and uninspiring after a while. I did learn a lot about food and how much I actually need if I'm just sitting around some days. But I don't think my 1000 calorie diet was healthy or recommended and a lighter touch is probably better.
> how much I actually need if I'm just sitting around some days
If you're a sedentary person then maybe it worked for you, but it's under half what medical professionals recommend for a normally active man. Many somewhat active people (less than an hour run a day) are going to burn half your calorie intake on exercise alone. You do need some calories to simply live and think beyond that.
I think people are out of their minds saying a shop selling 400 calorie sandwiches for probably your main meal of the day is excessive.
I did go to the gym occasionally, but it was more along the lines of pilates type stuff. Also walked the dog each day. So nothing crazy but I wasn't just sitting around.
Somehow I wasn't even underweight when I stopped, but in another couple of month I probably would've been. There is of course a good chance the calorie counting was wrong too.
It really isn't. Small sandwich + crisps + sugary soda or coffee >= 700 calories, which is around twice what someone sedentary needs for lunch unless they start their day with a decent run. Add a chocolate bar and you're over 800. Start with a bigger roll or a wrap instead of a small sandwich and you're over 900.
Basically what you're saying is "eating too much food is bad" which… well, obviously. If you are eating a large sandwich, crisps, a sugary drink, and a chocolate bar for lunch… isn't it obvious that's too much? Eat a regular-sized sandwich, some popcorn, and a banana – like all the people who went to the Pret next to my office did pretty frequently.
literally lethal for someone in their fifties.
This is quite funny. "Sandwich culture is lethal to the over-50s".
I like to eat at Farmer J's. Decent food (quality/quantity), costs around £8. A "lunch" (laugh/cry) on Pret costs £3? £4? People that spent £10-20 per day to commute, £3-5 on dry cleaning, £6-8 for x2 coffees, will try to squeeze every penny. So yes they may go to Pret and save £4 from their "lunch".
I don't blame the shop, they don't sell heroin, they sell sandwiches. I merely focused on the fact that people see it at a "source for nutrition". The fault is to both sides. People prefer the tasty quick-fix (salt/sugar) instead of a balanced nutritional lunch. The Pret is positioning itself in every other block for convenience. The people (especially in the square mile and Canary Wharf) are overworked, stressed, and they need the quick bite/fix and then run back to work. I've heard a million times the line "I got no time and/or money to spend for a normal/decent lunch".
It is a mixture of the above. Plus the revolution of caffeine (no need to eat and sleep well - coffee will fix everything, will keep us going).
So yes, a "sandwich shop" (aka fast food) is also to blame partially (just as McD, KFC, etc.)
It is a hydra with a thousand heads, and COVID helped cut some of them, show how we can thrive with a different lifestyle.
People work from home. They will eat (hopefully) better, caffeine/sugar consuption (I hope) is reduced, the work is done, people will spend 1-2-3h less on trains/buses that they can spend with their loved ones (or sleep).
And yes, a sandwich shop (in every bloody corner) selling cheap junkfood 'packaged' (offered) with fried salty junk (crisps) and sugar (soft drinks) DOES contribute to obesity. Thinking that it doesn't is illogical. It's not a discussion on causality/coincidence.
And yes, a sandwich shop (in every bloody corner) selling cheap junkfood 'packaged' (offered) with fried salty junk (crisps) and sugar (soft drinks) DOES contribute to obesity. Thinking that it doesn't is illogical. It's not a discussion on causality/coincidence.
I'll leave the fight-club fantasy to one side, but point out that a sandwich from Pret is basically some bread, some salad, and some protein. It's fine. If this is where you're starting as a contributor to obesity, then literally all food is obesogenic.
As an American, I've always been so confused by Pret's sandwiches. Specifically, how they're like 95% bread.
Seriously. You get their "famous ham and cheese" and it's a mini baguette with like a single layer of ham and cheese. Like the ham and cheese is a condiment, rather than filling.
It's a stretch to call what they sell "sandwiches". It's closer to just flavored bread. And remember -- it's not just sugar that increases the risk for diabetes, but massive amounts of processed carbs, exactly like Pret.
I'll take my corner deli please, where a sandwich is more like a balanced meal: an actual full serving of protein inside, with lots of tomatoes, peppers and lettuce too.
It's just the different attitude to Sandwiches in France vs America (notice the name of the restaurant you're eating at).
If France, bread is amazing. A baguette from a boulangerie is so tasty all by itself that all you need is a little bit of French butter (which is also incredible, compared to its English and US cousin) and ham, and you're good to go. Too much meat, and you'd overpower the flavor of the bread, which is the reason we're eating a sandwich in the first place.
Personally, I'm also a fan of the American philosophy, where a New York deli will use a a couple slices of bread as a convenient handle to wrap six pounds of (freshly roasted today in an oven at the shop) turkey, so that you don't get mayonnaise on your hands.
I think the disconnect comes from the fact that Pret a Manger's baguettes aren't really anything special. They're just the kinda tough to chew, bendy crusted thing that you get whenever you try to make one in England or the United States. So yeah, if that's all you're getting, coupled with some boring English butter and a slice of ham, I can sympathize with your disappointment.
But next time you're in Paris, be sure to grab a real baguette from a real boulangerie, along with some Paysan Breton butter and a little pack of ham from the quickie mart next door. You'll see what they're going for.
I had to travel to our London offices from California quite a few times over the span of a couple of years, so I became closely acquainted with breakfast at Pret.
Pret's smoked salmon sandwiches (unavailable at US locations) are moderately filling and utterly delicious. A quick bite at the Holborn Pret in the morning before work is a cherished memory.
By comparison, I actively avoid sandwiches from Potbelly/Jimmy John's/Ike's, because chasing down a lump of pickled and brined meats with a cool glass of mayonnaise makes me queasy for hours.
I've eaten both european and american sandwiches. American ones are certainly better "value for money" but only in the sense that they typically feed a family of four.
They're kind-of excessive. the US didn't invent the foot-long sub for no reason, worldwide obesity scores had to be earned.
I have some family in the UK. A few years ago my cousin came to visit me from England and we stopped by a local pizza place (Mike's Pizza in Fairfield, CT for anyone who cares). I got a regular meatball sub and she didn't want anything. When we got home and I unwrapped it, her eyes popped.
Until then, she thought that the sandwiches she saw on American TV shows were just a joke: she had no idea that our sandwiches were actually that big (yeah, Mike's used to really stuff them, but still). As she explained, back in the UK, you could maybe get one half the size and even then it would be unusual.
I nodded in understanding as I sucked the entire thing down.
That's true of some things at American sit-down restaurants.
But hardly true for a cold sandwich at a sandwich shop. Even a Subway "footlong" club sandwich is just 620 calories. Assuming a 2,000 cal/day diet, that's a little under a third of what you need. Or, in other words, exactly the right size for a balanced lunch if your calorie requirements are on the lesser side.
How exactly does 620 calories feed a family of four? Or how is it excessive at all?
Obviously it goes without saying the sandwich is the complete meal (no adding soda or chips).
Hyper-Bowl would describe typical US portions. The good thing is, that its also common to get "to go" boxes alongside so you can reasonably eat twice for one purchase.
It is very rare (on my personal observation, I have no stats here so its anecdata) for anyone to walk out of a ready-made food outlet without the soda and chips.
I have also felt at times "pret" was a bit stingy. If I get a turkey and brie sandwich, I want the brie to be visible, not hypothetical.
Katz' deli, I didn't have a boy in the army to send a salami, but the thickness of the meat layer in my salt beef sandwich was .. unreal. I think, they do this because its now expected. In most salt beef outlets I've been to which didn't feature in films, they are a bit more reasonable.
There is an Aussie food called "a halal snack pack" which is a heart-attack in a styrofoam box. Its a box of gyros/kebab/doner/shwarma meat, with all the trimmings but no bread: healthy, since less carbs. Oh wait, its poutine too: they put fries and cheese in there...
The pastrami (or corned beef) sandwich thing at the better known NYC Jewish delis is a bit of a Manhattan trope. And, yeah, people mostly either split it (for extra cost) or they take half of it home.
Back in the 80s, I used to get hot salt beef rolls with my Dad in an inner-london cafe when he got off the sleeper from Edinburgh, coming to London to go to meetings. They heated it up with the steam-jet of the cappucino machine...
This is an important point - a 24oz Coke is about 250 calories, and a 1.75oz bag of Doritos is also about 250, so “making it a meal” adds an additional 500 calories on top of any sandwich.
Well sure, but I'm making the point that a standard American sandwich simply isn't excessive. That the notion/caricature of a regular American lunch sandwich being unhealthily large is simply incorrect.
Of course you can get some mega-cheese melt if you want, just like you can get a triple quarter pounder if you want. But I don't see anybody who sees those as examples of a normal portion. Within America they're seen as excessive. They're not representative of a normal American lunch.
I think this is one of those things we're going to disagree about. Within the America I see as a conference attendee seeking lunch outside of meetings in the food malls, portion control is out of control. Overall, yes, you can eat healthy anywhere. There is a "value" proposition which drives a lot of people to order bigger than they need. The same "value" proposition drives food outlets to compete on size for the same dollar cost. Carbohydrates are a cheap way to achieve size/bulk. Adding extra carbs is low input cost, high profit outcome.
Super-size-me as a film required the market to exist. They didn't make the problem up.
Technically sandwiches are often sold at a loss and are just there to sell customers on the high-margin items like drinks and fries. So you're partly right but it doesn't really make for a motivation to increase sandwich size without limit. They'd still rather sell smaller sandwiches.
Sandwiches in the UK are a scandal. Pret got huge in part because their sandwiches we so much better than the other options. Imagine that!
When Pret launched, your options were a packet sandwich from Boots or something, which would be stale sliced bread with a single layer of tasteless waxy cheese, or something from a sandwich shop, where the choices are (1) tuna mayonnaise that has been there since yesterday (2) a cheese bun wrapped in cling film and kept in a fridge (3) a (one piece of incinerated) bacon, (limp) lettuce, and (tasteless, but mercifully thinly sliced) tomato.
Things are a bit better now, but to be honest, still terrible. You can wander around New York or Madrid and find a random sandwich place on a street corner that would be in the top 10 in London.
My theory is that this a manifestation of a broader cultural weakness of (most) British people, which is that they can't imagine that a better world is possible. Nobody looks at that "famous ham and cheese" and thinks, "okay, but what if there were five slices of each of those, and the bread tasted of something, and there was lashings of a delicious wholegrain mustard dressing?". Because they don't imagine it, they don't demand it, and Pret keeps on churning out abysmal lunches.
I'm not sure I agree with this AT ALL. I've spent most of my adult life split between New York (5+ years), California (5+ years), and also Berlin and Paris for a few years. I'm originally British and live in London now. I've eaten sandwiches in all of these countries (obviously).
Pret's sandwiches hold up to any sandwiches I've had in any of those countries. I've had the occasional better sandwich (especially in Paris), but I would take Pret's sandwiches over most of the crap sandwiches I ate in New York. New York sandwiches tend to assume that packing in TONS of shit quality meat makes the sandwich better. I don't actual like to eat through an inch of American-quality processed meat to mask the fact that the bread is crap.
French style sandwiches have less total filling but the filling itself is high quality and tasty, including the butter. Also the bread tends to be extremely delicious by itself.
The only sandwiches I would get in New York are freshly made bagels from the better bagel places in Brooklyn. However, this is comparing apples to oranges because this whole discussion is about pre-made sandwiches which you get off a shelf and go, not freshly made sandwiches.
I currently live in London and eat Pret all the time.
I have easily found better sandwich shops than Pret in NYC, Boston, Chicago, LA, Berlin, Paris, SF... I could go on.
Specifically in NYC there are some amazing sandwich places all over Manhattan (though that's not to say the other boroughs don't have excellent shops as well). My favorites are generally the Italian-style sandwich shops which have great Italian cured meats.
In response to your last paragraph, I think that's part of what people are complaining about – there are precious few places in London where you can get a freshly made sandwich, and for being pre-made, Pret isn't much cheaper than a lot of the fresh-made sandwiches you can get in other countries.
Also I think fresh-made is maybe giving a bit too much credit to that idea, as Subway is freshly made but I'd much rather have a Pret.
Dude those bodega deli sandwiches in NYC are mostly shit. Cheap bagel, cheap bread, cheap meat. The only good thing is the "value for money" since you get basically an inch of meat, but the meat is the cheapest bottom of the shelf quality meat you can buy.
Trust me, I spent years getting those bodega sandwiches in New York and sure, when you're drunk they seem good, but it's not quality fare by any stretch of the imagination.
That's not my experience, every office I've worked in has had a nearby sandwich shop where you could choose wholegrain bread and a wide selection of fillings and watch them make it for you.
My theory is that this a manifestation of a broader cultural weakness of (most) British people, which is that they can't imagine that a better world is possible.
Your comment made me laugh out loud. It's so true, and even worse in the regions than in London.
As with most things in the UK, price comes before quality. Sainsburys, who used to be my "Thank God there's an okay sandwich" place when on the road switched to a lower quality supplier, to an online backlash [1]. I can vouch for the quality drop; after that there wasn't much difference between the major supermarkets.
A friend of mine from France was here in the USA and we got sandwiches. When he opened his he was shocked and disappointed on the overstuffed size of it. “What is this? How can someone eat this? This is ridiculous”
Or words to that effect. He was genuinely confused by the size. And couldn’t believe how terrible the bread was.
To be fair they weren’t great sandwiches in general. I sort of agree with him though that a French proportion on a jambon buerre is better than a typical ham and cheese sandwich here.
These sort of places prey on people who have no idea what a proper amount of protein looks like. A single slice of ham is so small an amount it’s practically a rounding error in the overall scheme of a balanced diet.
You're basing that, I assume, on the US Recommended Daily Allowance for protein which is 0.8g protein/kg body weight -- or 65 g for your example of a 180 lb person.
But this metric is widely misunderstood [1] -- "it’s the minimum amount you need to keep from getting sick — not the specific amount you are supposed to eat every day."
If you follow the link, you'll see that doctors actually recommend around double that for full health, and that Americans on the whole actually consume too little protein in comparison. The idea that we consume too much protein is actually a long-popular myth.
So no, the Pret sandwich is nowhere even close to half the protein you should be consuming daily.
"Rodriguez was among more than 40 nutrition scientists who gathered in Washington, D.C., for a “Protein Summit” to discuss research on protein and human health. The summit was organized and sponsored by beef, egg, and other animal-based food industry groups" I mean...
Yes, and here is what's at the end of the linked paper:
"She has received research grant support from The Beef Checkoff and the National Dairy Council and compensation for speaking engagements with The Beef Checkoff and the National Dairy Council"
My guess from chatting to some of the people in the stores is there's gonna be a bloodbath. Your average food shop is running on what kind of margin? Maybe 20% at best, 15% more commonly?
I chatted with a guy who says his business is down 90%. The guy at Subway said something similar. Before the apocalypse, the business made sense because of the sheer number of people walking by. You could pay for the food, the labour, and the landlord, reliably, because there are so many jobs based in central London.
Now that WFH has been "discovered" it's doubtful. I mean if everyone works from home just one day a week, that's 20% fewer sandwiches they will need to buy.
Now that WFH has been "discovered" it's doubtful. I mean if everyone works from home just one day a week, that's 20% fewer sandwiches they will need to buy.
I’m not so sure. Just because you’re working from home, that doesn’t mean you want to spend a significant amount of time shopping for and preparing lots of different things for your lunches. If you were OK with that, you could easily have taken a packed lunch to work before and probably saved quite a bit of money, but the existence of the sandwich shop as a concept suggests that plenty of people prefer the convenience and variety they offer.
What I do expect to see now is a rebalancing of where these places are found. Not so long ago, we moved from a busy area of Cambridge (UK) to a village a few miles outside the city. Life is different here, but better in most ways. We don’t have a Pret sandwich place or a Wetherspoons pub here. We do have a couple of local cafés and a baker, though, and several other pubs. We also get something I had only noticed in passing while living in the city, which is the food trucks that travel around and set up in a different spot each evening. Each truck typically has its own speciality cuisine and they’re great if you want something interesting for dinner.
As far as I can tell, these are all independent small businesses, often run by the owners. We were worried for them during the months when almost everything was closed down because of the virus, but fortunately they made it through and now they seem to be thriving, presumably because they’re well placed to serve a suddenly-larger local market.
I have nothing against Pret. I've eaten there many times when I’ve been travelling for work or shopping for a while in a big place. But almost everything is better about those local businesses I mentioned. If the strange circumstances this year cause a permanent change in our lifestyles and if that makes local catering more viable at the expense of the big convenience chains aimed at a commuting workforce, I find it hard to see a downside, at least in the long term after a possibly disruptive period of change. The trade and jobs will probably still be there, just in smaller businesses serving their own communities.
Well you're certainly right that the economy will move. If it wasn't for the virus, I would have done even more business at one of the village pubs around here. I can see more than a few people just bringing their laptops to lunch, your local gastropub is nicer than Starbucks.
The food trucks thing makes sense. I've also spoken to some people who run that type of business, and they probably have the best outcome of all the food businesses.
Several of them do this thing where they will book a popular spot in town centre on certain days, then the commuter belt on the weekends. They are of course not bound by long term rental contracts, so it's easy for them to simply not book the expensive now-empty locations on their apps. They also seem to sell out wherever they go (great inventory management), so they can simply adjust their locations.
Agree almost everything about the family owned experience is better. I'm not sure it will be so easy for Pret/etc to move out to the suburbs. Name recognition is all they bring, nobody thinks a Pret sandwich is particularly good. There's also more options for people who are at home: you can cook, you can meet someone for a proper lunch at a pub, you've got the food trucks, the supermarket also sells sandwiches and you might go there anyway, and you've got farm delivery. Pret might be worse off but the rest of us are better off.
The food trucks thing makes sense. I've also spoken to some people who run that type of business, and they probably have the best outcome of all the food businesses.
That makes sense. Out here in the villages, having the trucks visit is mutually beneficial, too. They provide a diversity of takeaway options that wouldn’t otherwise exist in the smaller communities. We provide lots of small markets who are generally welcoming when they’re coming to visit, and because they move from day to day, they can be successful with a smaller menu that makes sense to offer from the truck. Everybody wins.
I'm not sure it will be so easy for Pret/etc to move out to the suburbs. Name recognition is all they bring, nobody thinks a Pret sandwich is particularly good.
I doubt it will be businesses like Pret that come out well from the change in lifestyle, assuming it does happen as we’re imagining here. The brand represents a safe bet when you’re visiting somewhere unfamiliar, and that probably has a lot of value. But if many of us are staying closer to home, we’ll probably get to know our local places pretty quickly anyway, and then that name recognition for the big brands and their franchises just isn’t that important any more. As you say, the likes of Pret might be worse off, but the rest of us will probably be better off.
I used to eat out every day, because who wants to carry food to work along with a laptop, and then brave the kitchen microwave etiquette. Now I'm home I can just go down to the kitchen and pop something in the microwave, or make a delicious ad-hoc cheese plate with prosciutto and figs (literally yesterday), depending on my mood.
We're trying to support our local pub by showing up for social distance weekend brunches, ordering booze and food and massively overtipping, but downtown is a wasteland.
I am happy to spend the 10 hours less in travel a week on cooking a proper meal as I am less tired from the travel so enough energy to cook. Also during the day I can do prep work like cutting veggies during a short break or watch over the soup stock boiling.
During my last London trip, I had the impression that they mostly employ young people from all over Europe. I suspect they will all be gone end of year.
Can't EU/EEA/CH citizens living in the UK before the end of the transition period apply for settled or pre-settled status depending on how long they've been there? There's no reason they would be forced to leave, if so, although of course some may choose to do so anyways.
I doubt it's career sandwich makers -- people may currently qualify through continuation but are probably doing the job as a short term (eg working through Uni). When they finish the next tranche of workers won't have established residency and so won't qualify for visas.
That aside, if someone is here under freedom of movement that doesn't mean they qualify for a work visa, surely? No low-skill jobs would meet the income threshold needed to get a visa?
I think he means forced to leave because they lost their jobs at Pret/etc, not because of immigration law. In fact he might just mean they'll be gone from those shops.
To be cynical, that's what it looks like when the status quo chooses its victims. This time it hits close to home for everyone because we're all familiar with this sort of loss.
American here (work in downtown Chicago), I used to get Pret several times a week as one of their stores was right next door to my office. They have delicious sandwiches, bakery items, and fruit cups, but it's very expensive - a croissant and a breakfast sandwich ran close to $10.
It's a great place if you want to eat healthy and have a short lunch time, but there are better options to deliver from if you're WFH.
I was working on a side project with a friend and after work we would meet at the Pret by Union Station and have a cup of coffee and discuss. Just before Pret closed someone would come in with a large plastic bag and clear out all the racks of sandwiches. I assumed these were donations for a food pantry or shelter. I couldn’t believe the waste. It made me feel like they wouldn’t be so expensive if they weren’t throwing so much away. It’s probably a fraction of their operating costs but it made a huge mental impact on how I view their business.
I did love the graphic design on their marketing. It was very creative.
I’ve had pret in London on a brief visit. I had the Peking duck wrap. It was delicious and I had it as often as I could during that trip.
I came back to nyc with a healthy respect for pret and often ate from there at my last job. I will miss it, personally speaking, but I understand when others see it as unworthy of eating.
That is why a market with variety is so important, different tastes are served by those who serve them best.
Pret and Itsu (same founders) have been my default shops for many years because you simply don't have to think, walking in and out in under 2 minutes is absolutely to be expected, and if you're a bit autistic and enjoy routine, can have precisely the same choc bar + coffee + salad + sandwich with identical consistency on every single visit
Their food is hardly amazing, but it is wonderfully consistent. Truly hope they survive and flourish once more, London simply would not be the same without them
Dominic Raab (currently the UK's foreign secretary) is (in)famous for having the same Pret meal for lunch every (working) day: a chicken caesar and bacon baguette, with a pot of fruit and the same smoothie.
I saw these all over New York in Christmas 2019. Ended up grabbing a bite to eat and was pretty impressed with the food. Definitely fills a market gap for fast, small, semi-healthy food. No oversized combo meals there.
I can honestly say that, aside from "good pubs", Pret a Manger is the thing I miss most having moved from London to San Francisco. There's just nothing like it for quick, easy, good coffee-and-premade-food (or I just haven't found it - in which case, please consider this a masterful invocation of Cunningham's Law).
I think of onigiri as a Japanese variant of the Cornish Pasty. I imagine it does have similar roots: making an edible wrapper for food that preserves it until lunch.
3) Just read the blogs etc. that London women write about Pret a Manger. In their minds it's the kind of place where they can get good food and also find 'the man of their dreams'
4) very little real competition
5) most people have a decent amount of disposable income. You can eat utter rubbish at a fast food joint, or you can terrible tasting food from a convenience store, or you can eat at a good place like Pret a Manger
6) Quick
*
They do a lot of things right
If your target audience has money, then providing them a high quality service and pricing it higher is good
It's also a big help if the pricing ensures that only upwardly mobile people can afford it
Go into a fish and chips in london and you have half of East London in there, innit?
go to Pret a Manger and it's people you wouldn't mind having a pint at the pub with
1) matter of taste I would say; I find it quite horrible. Miles removed from something like Le Pain Quotidien, but yeah matter of taste. When working for a client in London I would rather skip lunch vs eat the plastic Pret serves. Or, you know, actually go to the pub and have a pint.
> matter of taste I would say; I find it quite horrible. Miles removed from something like Le Pain Quotidien, but yeah matter of taste. When working for a client in London I would rather skip lunch vs eat the plastic Pret serves.
It's just bread, salad, vegetables, meat, butter, prepared conventionally.
You're talking about it like it's some kind of synthetic replacement? It's just normal fresh ingredients. I'm not sure it's possible for them to be doing it so bad as to justify your reaction.
I'm talking about that it all taste horrible and fake to me. I know they say it's handmade and fresh but all I had (in center of London and on Gatwick airport) tasted tired and artificial and it being wrapped in tons of plastic does not help. This compared to other places (around the corner usually), where it's freshly prepared (so the baguette or sandwich cut and your toppings added, not premade) in front of you and put in a paper bag or in nothing if you eat it straight away. If you put the condiments on the sandwich and wrap it and put it in a cooler (like Pret does), the moist will make it just soggy crap.
Even my local supermarket bakes baguettes all day long instead of 'driving them in' in the morning and being 'maximally 1 day old' according to Pret (which is contested all over the web but let's say 1 day old max is true); 10+ hours is far too old for bread with toppings wrapped in plastic), IMHO. I understand this should be much cheaper to run, but, for instance, my supermarket is cheaper still and nicer, so the cheap (looking, feeling, tasting) factor of premaking everything does not reflect in the prices.
Which is, again, the matter of taste; some people like those soggy things. Maybe you do too or you have a different experience because you went to a US one or one that has different facilities (maybe in other countries they are better; I cannot believe French or Belgian people would eat this quality food while surrounded by freshness)? I went more than once to different ones and it was all equally bad. Especially when you are in London, there are far more superior places around every corner (even at the airport; Jamie's / Wagamama are next door, why would you ever...). I just rather skip a meal than eat a bad one, which is fine I think.
Even most of the images make me cringe [0]. And most of these images are pro images and promotion images; the soggy gunk in my hands didn't look this 'nice'. This for instance [1] would be a reason to go; however, they pulled it because this pic is not real; the real thing was... not good, hence they pulled it (ofcourse the bread is bad if you trying to emulate a french feel but then prepack it). While the Le Pain version [2] is always spot on; nice baguettes, consistent quality and not premade.
Disclaimer: I can only speak for the London Prets as I worked close to one (at a bank) there and went a few times with my colleagues until deciding it was too horrible to actually eat. And only went to the HK Le Pain; I didn't know they had them in London, but seems they do (at least before Covid). If you only care about how quick it is, then, yes, it's quick; I don't however; I care about the taste and quality.
And like I said; it's taste, can't really agree/disagree (or justify as you say), just chat about it; you have a different taste than I have; that's fine; it's not worse or better or whatever; it's probably more convenient (I am very picky about what I eat; it has to be good always, which is why I cook/make most of what I eat myself for the past 20 years, including baking bread (not bread machine; by hand)) to be you, but I seek convenience/saving time in other things.
Nothing conventional about it unless you mean mass manufacturing, added chemicals and storing it for a day are conventional for a fresh made sandwich with toppings. Maybe they are in some places, not here though.
Do you realise all food contains added 'chemicals'? Adding a sprinkle of salt is 'adding a chemical'. It's not true that the food is literally 'plastic'.
I always thought their almond croissants were really good. It makes sense they are from London because Europeans, even the UK seem to take baked goods more seriously than the US.
Is it that surprising that Europeans have higher standards for European foods, or at least the ones local to them? Foreign imports will always be seen as specialty items that tend to be overpriced and usually few and far between. You might find good European bread options in the US if you're willing to spend far more time and money to travel to that one bakery in town that has higher standards, but most people won't bother.
One nugget: the lunch sandwich was invented by M&S in the early 1990s, and it was immediately hugely popular. Yet management missed the chance to capitalise on it by opening standalone sandwich shops.
A lesson in organisational inertia, leading to a business missing a huge new opportunity right under their noses. My view: businesses should compensate for this by doubling-down by default on any form of enlargement that works, deliberately not considering overall strategy. The limit to consider strategic implications should be higher than it currently is.
I never understood the British sandwich culture. I'm currently living and working London and the number of times people will just go for a quick sandwich, which typically means some depressing mayo filled abomination with a packet of crisps and a softdrink is depressing when there are genuinely nice places to have lunch, for not much more.
What is even more mind boggling is when you work with British people abroad at places with genuinely great food culture, like Tokyo or Singapore, and they then lament that there is 'no where around to get decent sandwich`, by which they mean their industrially produced cardboard tasting abomination, since typically you can get actually good sandwiches in those places as well as a variety of other thing.
It is not clear to me whether you are referring to Pret's sandwiches. I am not British, but when in London for work I tend to love Pret's. I found their offering healthier and tastier than basically any other fast food alternative in any other place in the world.
What's to understand? I saw people at lunch eating wrapped rice things in Japan from the 7/11 which weren't that great compared to other places I could eat (especially the 'fresh' ones which were easy to find), but people still ate them.
In Singapore there were amazing food centers, and I saw Singaporeans eating at McDonald's! Why were they doing that when there were so many good options about?
I've never understood why people are so judgemental about what others eat.
Sorry, yes it came across as judgemental. I guess it's because food, especially lunch, is such an important thing in my life, pretty much the highlight of the day, it just makes me a bit sad when it's not the case for others.
For some people, perhaps a lot of people, many meals are just fuel. Those sandwiches are an acceptable unit of fuel, they come in an acceptable variety at acceptable prices and can be bought in an acceptable amount of time.
You don't have to make decisions about what to order, you don't have to queue (or at least not for very long), it's acceptable fuel.
Even if people continue to WFH in the long term, I think many would still like to buy Pret a Manger (and others) products because it's not because people are at home that they necessarily want to cook their lunch every day or don't want to buy snacks.
So there may be an opportunity to adapt and perhaps we'll have Pret a Manger vans driving around in residential areas like ice cream vans do on sunny weekends.
People have been saving on this and the hugely expensive train fares (around London) and realise how much more cash they have left at the end of the month, which also explains why they don't want to go back to office. But that means that there is an opportunity for new services to make people spend that cash.
man i am so happy not to have to spend for overpriced tiny sandwiches for lunch when i can cook something at home which is both healthier and cheaper - combined with the crazy expensive transport i am saving on, i wish WFH continues as long as possible!
> So there may be an opportunity to adapt and perhaps we'll have Pret a Manger vans driving around in residential areas
I actually love this idea but I question whether Pret will be the people to do it. They're set up all wrong now: they have a huge number of retail properties in locations useless for residential area delivery! I'd suspect the market is open for a new challenger to arrive with no such overhead.
I couldn’t see that making up the shortfall. For starters a great many of London’s workforce don’t live inside the M25 so wouldn’t be eligible / viable for delivery. Then you have the issue that a lot of people would still prefer to cook for themselves. And this isn’t exactly a new market either, thanks to the likes of Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat. So there’s already a lot of competition.
Fast eats like this are total rubbish in the UK. Don't know why. SF is so much better. Walk downstairs, grab a quick sandwich at Working Girls, or Specialty's (now dead), or Chipotle. Pret is like 7-Eleven food. Probably for the best that it dies.
Fortunately, lots of food carts out in London that'll benefit.
I’ve eaten at several Pret a Mangers in London and they were ok, nothing to write home about but not bad. Better than a grocery store sandwich. Similar to an Amazon Go sandwich. Better than Subway. Here in Chicago we have a chain called Potbelly that’s pretty good and Pret is definitely below them. (Also it seems the only Pret still open in the US is the one on the UChicago campus)
I couldn't possible disagree more. Pret is orders of magnitude better than Specialty's - their breakfast sandwiches were 90% grease. Working Girls is certainly better than Pret, but Pret wins on convenience of being premade. And Pret does coffee too!
I lived there. I ate at Pret often enough because they were frequently close by. Every one of those was worse than a Tesco Meal Deal. Disaster of a chain.
First time I saw one was when I was interviewing in NYC. I walked in and grabbed a sandwich and couldn't believe what dry flavorless garbage it was. 7-Eleven is honestly a step up.
It's like someone saw bottom tier airline food and said "You know what? This would be great in a store". As far as I can tell, they leverage store location.
I was recently informed by a friend in Shanghai that a lot of KFCs have closed down, presumably due to covid-related business slowing. (There used to be about 1 KFC per city block.)
That seemed understandable, until I learned a lot of them had been replaced with other fried chicken places.
They were expanding heavily on a bet that the economy would grow. COVID19 hit, they were forced to shut, their primary income streams were in places where they counted on office workers (who now stayed home). They were one of the earliest COVID casualties.
Except 7-11 (and other convenience stores) sandwiches are pretty good (sometimes great) in Japan. It's all about what customers will accept, if people will buy crap that's what will be offered.
I never understood the allure, especially in a city with so many other options. It was a reliable place to get in out of the cold during our trip to London.
Toast racks are not to cool toast, they're to stop it from going soggy.
If you stack toast, the moisture from the toast below in the stack makes most of the stack soggy. Racking it lets the steam escape. You still eat the toast warm, just not wet.
If you find yourself without a toast rack, you can lean them against each other as if you're starting to make a house of cards to keep them crisp.
While I agree with other posters here that Pret has overpriced mediocre food the standard coffee they offer is IMHO better than at every other similar place. That includes Starbucks, Nero, Costa etc
OTOH, I havent bought a single cup since March since Im getting my beans from Pact.
Honestly, and I appreciate that this might be controversial, but the best quality to price ratio coffee I have ever found, belongs to McDonald's - while it might not be the best, it's perfectly drinkable and it's consistent store to store, country to country. (Though, it is gross with whatever 'milk' they use - I only drink it black)
In Silicon valley there was a chain called Specialty's Cafe and Bakery. They shut down permanently after the pandemic but it was very common place for offices to order meals for lunch meetings. The sandwiches were bland but the cookies were always nice.
English misreads confuse everyone, not just Brits and Americans, because for better or worse, English is the international language. Lingua franca, to make an obvious pun.
OT: 'Lingua franca' might be my favourite term. AIUI its a Portuguese term to refer to the 'Frankish language', the Franks being Germanic (not Gallic; somewhat akin to the situation of Angles and Britons) and somehow it's used normally to refer to English [not exclusively ofc, there are many lingua franca].
We could just say 'common tongue', but that's just not the English [Language] way - far too simple.
I don't normally like sandwiches, but Pret a Manger has managed to make many of their sandwiches very tasty. I think they manage to balance the right flavors. Off the top of my head e.g. pickled red onions for sour, cheese/meat for salty, roasted tomatoes and chutney for sweet.
Ingredients they use aren't necessarily fancy or expensive, but they balance them appropriately and consistently.
When I was in London on vacation nine years ago, Pret shops were a godsend. I think at least half of my lunches and dinners were Pret sandwiches, as I was generally running around and didn't have time or energy for much else. After they became popular in NYC a few years later, I tried them a couple of times but didn't find nearly as good a selection of healthy options as in London.
I would love to see pret move out a bit further where people live and WFH, or even have a delivery truck which works the local area.
My partner and myself both WFH in Peckham, we would love to buy a couple of sandwiches and coffees from pret via an app. We get the occasional falafel wrap on just eat but there are not enough quick delivery options for healthyish lunches.
Just in case people don't know, although the name sounds French I've literally never seen one in France. I guess it's like Mexico's Taco Bell or something
Up until 20 years ago a foreign language was compulsory in UK secondary schools through the equivalent of US high school. The default foreign language that virtually every school would teach was French, with other languages usually being a nice to have. There’d be the occasional school that taught German but not French. Up until very recently it could be assumed that virtually every educated Briton could read French to a low level. And up until the 70s at least not being able to speak French on some level would have been vaguely embarrassing for middle class strivers. Writing things in French is not a claim to be from France, it’s a class thing.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe, speaking multiple languages to a useful level is completely normal. They really are much better at that than we (Brits) are, and the decision to drop the language requirements we did have in schools has always seemed like a backward step to me.
I doubt Pret’s name really makes much difference to who it appeals to, though. It’s a well-known brand, but if you’re selling sandwiches and coffees for those prices as an everyday thing, you are clearly aiming for a certain type of customer anyway.
> Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe, speaking multiple languages to a useful level is completely normal.
If they were more useful many more Brits would speak foreign languages to a useful level. I can get by in French and German and I can read Spanish. It’s been of extremely limited use to me except when I lived in Germany. English OTOH is the world’s favorite second language and the language of science and international business. If the British had a land border with people who spoke another language many more would speak that, and if fewer people spoke English more Britons would be motivated to learn a foreign language. Learning foreign languages is great but it’s kind of a giant waste of time for most English native speakers on any monetary level. Most people never live abroad and holidays are an atrocious reason to learn a language considering the enormous time investment necessary to get to passable never mind fluent.
From a purely utilitarian point of view, I can’t argue with that. If almost everyone speaks English and your only goal is to be able to communicate effectively, a native English-speaker gains little from learning any other language. I suppose the benefits I have found in studying other languages are more subjective.
For example, I enjoy travelling and exploring other cultures. If I’m going to be spending some time in someone else’s community, I feel both a little vulnerable and a little… inconsiderate?… if I haven’t studied at least the rudiments of their language and culture before I go. Sometimes the locals seem to appreciate it if we’ve made the effort as well, even if we’re obviously tourists and only able to do basic things like ordering lunch or simply being polite and friendly using their language. And of course, not everyone speaks English, particularly once you move away from the main tourist areas.
Sometimes I also find it interesting to see foreign perspectives on current events. Brexit is the obvious recent example given I’m a Brit, but more generally, I think it’s healthy to see different views of international relations or global issues from time to time, and sometimes also to understand the domestic politics of our geographic neighbours and our foreign partners in trade or other matters.
As a rather different point to end on, I think studying languages in school can also be helpful just for expanding the young mind. It requires being able to see things from different points of view and to think logically, and I think those are healthy characteristics to develop in general. IMHO, school at that age shouldn’t just be about memorising raw facts and figures and about learning economically valuable skills.
In most countries I’ve visited, multilingual public signage was the norm, especially in tourist areas but often beyond, like in public transportation and such.
London signage is the most unilingual I’ve seen anywhere. In the US you will often see Spanish, and in Canada you sometimes see French but in the UK, nope, just English. I guess it makes sense... what other language would one put on UK signage?
The name is a pun on the fashion term "prêt-à-porter" which is often used in English. See https://www.net-a-porter.com/ for another example of a brand that riffs on the term without being French.
I wanted to say the same. I will add that because "prêt-à-porter" is a fashion term, it would be somewhat familiar to London city office workers, especially the upscale demographic they target with their prices and marketing.
I wonder how the subscription idea will work for them. Pret is a sandwich shop, but most of the profit comes from coffee. When I used to work there, the price of a coffee was £2, and the cost was £0.20. I guess they expect most people to not max out on the offer, which is probably a reasonable assumption.
At the time, we were told the reason Pret does not offer free coffee after N transactions is because they want to make a customer feel special when they get free coffee. That's why all employees are allowed to give free coffee to anyone at their discretion, just not too many :) Sounds like it is about to change.