Yo! Sushi leans into kiosk business amid trio of closures

Three Yo! Sushi sites in Windsor, Swindon and High Wycombe have closed suddenly in the last few weeks.

News of the restaurants closing with little to no warning circulated last week, with the Swindon Advertiser reporting the closure of the Swindon Designer Outlet site was so sudden that the branch was still listed on the food app TooGoodToGo.

The Caterer understands the sushi chain has spent the last two years focusing on its kiosk business, which trades at Tesco and Asda supermarkets.

A spokesperson for Yo! told The Caterer: “As part of the normal course of business, we occasionally close sites, while also opening new restaurants or relocating. Yo! remains in a phase of expansion, having opened over 150 new sushi kiosks across the UK in the past year.

“We are actively looking at new restaurant sites where appropriate and also have a pipeline of refurbishments planned for the coming months.”

It is believed there are currently about 50 Yo! Sushi restaurants in the UK, down from almost 80 sites in 2018, and the group has plans to refurbish about half a dozen sites.

In 2020, the group launched a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) to reduce overheads in the UK, which led to nine restaurant closures and 250 job losses.

Last year, Snowfox Group, the company behind Yo! Sushi, sold the business Zensho Holdings, one of Japan’s biggest food firms, for £500m.

Yo! Sushi opened its first restaurant in London’s Soho in 1997 with its signature ‘kaiten’ conveyor belt and colour coded dishes.

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