M 64
atteo Pichi’s background isn’t what you might expect from the founder of one of the quickest- growing new fast casual chains in Europe. He started his career as an investment banker in
London, before creating Foodinho, a food delivery platform based in Milan. After becoming the market leader in 11
months, Foodinho merged with Europe- wide food delivery app Glovo, Pichi was appointed the country manager for Italy and, as he worked on driving the platform’s growth, he noticed a trend he couldn’t ignore. Poke bowls – customisable, healthy, tasty and colourful – were out-performing most other food categories. In November 2018, less than three years after joining Glovo, Pichi and his business partner Vittoria Zanetti, had opened the first Poke House store in Milan. And less than three years after that – even with a global pandemic decimating much of the foodservice industry – it has grown to a 43-strong chain with restaurants in Italy, Portugal and Spain. “We took the typical super-ambitious start-up/scale-up approach,” Pichi says. “Hopefully by the next interview, we will have stores in many more countries.” While many poke brands are either
grab-and-go or, at the slightly more formal end, poke bars, Poke House offers a full sit-down experience, designed around its philosophy: Hawaiian taste, Californian soul. Diners can enjoy the traditional Hawaiian poke bowl, which is a colourful, and customisable, mix of proteins, fruits, vegetables and homemade sauces, prepared daily by chefs using high quality ingredients, in a similarly colourful setting. Think neon lights, natural materials and comfy white cushions. “It’s a very California vibe – hospitality, but in a chilled way,” says Pichi. “We want to offer a happy place in various corners of Europe.” In addition, his background in food delivery has instilled in him the importance
of two things: providing diners with a variety of different ordering channels – Poke House’s ordering system is seamlessly integrated with third party delivery platforms including Deliveroo, Bolt and Uber Eats – and data. In every store, every day, its proprietary
customer relationship manager (CRM) delivers at least 100 pieces of data, telling managers, how much time each staff member took to prepare each poke, how customers rated each one, how many orders were missing items, and more. “We use data to understand our clients and improve their experience,” he says. “This gives you full control over your business. If you focus 10 minutes every morning on what happened the day before, you can understand what’s going on and improve it.” Pichi’s focus on online food has also
allowed the company to scale more easily than a traditional food business, even during the most challenging time the hospitality sector has experienced in recent memory. “From one day to the next, we had to
shut down everything and wait. But our ratings told us very fast where we needed to open and if an investment was safe or not, allowing us to open restaurants at a speed that probably wouldn’t be safe in another way,” says Pichi. “Because of our data, we know what people want, we understand quickly if something is not going in the right
Above: Matteo Pichi and Vittoria Zanettil. Opposite page, clockwise from top: A Milan outlet; the first store in
Milan; an outlet in Lisbon; a poke bowl using autumn seasonal ingredients; another Milan store
direction and we can correct it. This also allows us to focus on the experience and the food.”
Continuing something magic Poke House started its life in Italy, where it now has 27 stores. The brand then branched out into Portugal, where Pichi initially teamed up with a Portuguese chain of the same name, which was founded in 2017. “The country had all the vibes we wanted – it’s like the California of Europe,” he says. “So, it was easy to match our vision in Portugal.” There are now seven Poke House stores in Lisbon. Spain was next and following a 20 million EUR Series B funding round in April, the brand has now launched in France and is making its UK debut in partnership with six-strong Ahi Poke, which first opened its doors in 2016. “We knew that the UK was a very important market and when we got this opportunity, it felt like a great fit as Ahi Poke in some sense wanted to join the Poke House movement,” Pichi says. “It wouldn’t have been easy to go to the UK and start from scratch, but we now have big plans for the future and cannot wait to start from
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132
