David Campbell: discounting can be ‘dangerous’ for casual dining

Hospitality veteran David Campbell has issued a warning against restaurants over-relying on discounting to draw in customers, saying it can be a “dangerous place to go”.

He told the Casual Dining Show that when he took over as chief executive of PizzaExpress in 2020, more than half the menu was sold at a cut price.

Campbell said: “A bête noire of mine is discounting. If you get too far stuck down that road, it’s a horrible place. At the PizzaExpress I inherited, 55% of everything was discounted… so more was discounted than not.

“It gets into a very dark spiral because then everything’s discounted – what am I going to do with that? Well, I’m bringing in less revenue, so I’m going to put prices up. You put prices up and there’s pushback from consumers about higher prices, so you put in more discounts, and so it goes. It’s a really, really dangerous place to go to.”

Campbell led PizzaExpress from 2020-2021 and was previously chief executive at Wagamama and the Ivy Collection. He also headed up AEG Europe when it launched London’s O2 arena. He has been non-executive chairman of Rare Restaurants, owner of Gaucho and M Restaurants, since May.

When asked what pushed operators to offer discounts, he said there was “a lot of pressure, partly driven by private equity owners”. He added: “How do you drive sales? You drive sales primarily by footfall. How do you drive footfall? You put offers out there and off you go down that merry road, but it can go wrong. 

“It’s not a terrible thing to give people offers and value, but it’s got to be in the right context at the right time.”