Julian Metcalfe

Metcalfe met Sinclair Beecham while studying at the Polytechnic of Central London. In 1986, having realized there was a gap in the market for a high-quality sandwich shop, the two opened the first Pret A Manger in Victoria, London.⁠[1][2]

Pret focused on food to take away that was freshly made each day with high-quality ingredients and without genetically modified ingredients, packaged it in recycled cardboard rather than plastic, and donated unsold food to homeless people at the end of each day. Within a decade of opening, Pret had grown to 45 stores, and its growth accelerated after that.⁠[2][2][2][2]

In the winter of 1994 Metcalfe visited Tokyo for the first time and fell in love with the harmony and precision of Japanese food, returning home determined to create a new kind of food place. In August 1997, itsu, which he co-founded with Pret director Clive Schlee, opened its first site in Chelsea, London; “itsu” means “when” in Japanese.⁠[3][3][2][2][1]

In 2000 Pret opened its first overseas store, in New York; in early 2001 McDonald’sMcDonald’sMcDonald’s is a publicly traded restaurant company headquartered in Chicago, known for hamburgers, fries, drive-thrus and its franchise network. Its origins lie in the restaurant opened by Richard and Maurice McDonald in 1940; Ray Kroc expanded franchising from 1955. It operates across more than 100 countries, with the great majority of restaurants run by independent operators.Open the full entry bought a 33% stake in Pret for £32 million, after which Pret accelerated its international expansion, entering Hong Kong in 2002 and Tokyo through a joint venture with McDonald’s Company Japan. Some shareholders objected to the rapid expansion, which they saw as contributing to Pret’s pre-tax losses of £6.7 million in 2001 and £20 million in 2002.⁠[2][4][2][2]

On March 20, 2003, Pret’s chairman and chief executive Andrew Rolfe and deputy chief executive Harvey Smyth left the company, apparently over a disagreement with shareholders about the pace of international expansion; a company spokesman denied that the two had been sacked by Metcalfe, saying they had left after reaching an “elegant agreement.” Metcalfe then returned as creative director, and Clive Schlee, previously managing director of itsu, became chief executive. At the time Metcalfe held 67% of Pret’s shares.⁠[4][4][4][4][4]

Pret’s Hong Kong stores subsequently became profitable in 2005, while Japan proved harder to crack, and Pret exited the Japanese market in March 2004 after opening 14 stores over 18 months.⁠[2][2]

From 2005 itsu added a chain of takeaway shops alongside its restaurants, selling freshly made sushi boxes, hot noodles, and soups; by 2010 there were 22. In December 2006 itsu opened a store at the World Financial Center in Manhattan through a joint venture, but the partnership soured within weeks; Metcalfe later said, “I chose the wrong partner.”⁠[2][1][1]

In 2006 itsu was caught up in the affair surrounding the Russian Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210, contaminating a number of hotels and restaurants in London; itsu’s Piccadilly branch became one of the locations under scrutiny. Metcalfe later said he had been convinced it would be the end of the company; his staff went through a “terrifying” week waiting for the results of urine tests, all of which came back clear, and no customers were harmed.⁠[2][2][2][2]

In 2008 the private equity firm Bridgepoint acquired a majority stake in Pret for about £345 million. In the same year Metcalfe received the Icon award from the consultancy Peach Factory; presenting it, Tony Hughes, formerly managing director of Mitchells & Butlers Restaurants, praised him as “a man of true vision and true values.” As of 2010 he remained Pret’s co-founder and creative director, and Pret had annual turnover of about £200 million, 225 stores in the UK, and further branches in the United States and Hong Kong.⁠[5][1][2][2][2][2]

In 2009 Metcalfe created the snack brand Metcalfe’s Skinny to offer a lighter alternative to unhealthy snacks, with products including popcorn, popcorn crisps, and rice cakes. A separate company he set up, Metcalfe’s Food Co, grouped two brands: itsu Grocery, which took itsu products into supermarkets and delicatessens, and Metcalfe’s Skinny.⁠[6][6][1]

Metcalfe and Beecham had both already been appointed MBE on the back of Pret’s success. In the Birthday Honours list published on June 14, 2014, Metcalfe was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the hospitality industry.⁠[2][7][7]

By August 2014 itsu had grown into a UK chain selling healthy Asian food, with its 50th store open and 30 more on the way; the company had posted earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization of about £6 million on sales of about £60 million the previous year, drew more than one million customers a month, and financed its expansion through HSBC. Metcalfe said at the time that he would not consider turning itsu into a franchise operation, arguing that a business as complex and fragile as itsu had to harness the passion and pride of its management and employees.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

In January 2016 Kettle Foods, a subsidiary of Snyder’s-Lance, bought a 26% stake in Metcalfe’s Skinny; on September 1 of that year Kettle Foods announced that it was acquiring the remaining 74%, taking full ownership of the company. The previous owners, Metcalfe and Robert Jakobi, said they were delighted that the brand could expand with the support and expertise of Kettle Foods and Snyder’s-Lance.⁠[6][6][6][6]

On May 29, 2018, Luxembourg-based JAB Holdings announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Pret from Bridgepoint and other minority investors in a deal valuing Pret at more than £1.5 billion including debt. The deal gave Metcalfe and Beecham a final exit from their remaining investment in the chain they had founded 32 years earlier. By then Pret had grown from a single shop in London into a global chain of 530 stores, with revenue of £879 million in 2017.⁠[5][5][5]

itsu opened its first New York branch in 2018. Results published in September 2019 showed that itsu’s 2018 revenue rose 9% to £116 million while its pre-tax loss narrowed from £8.9 million to £6 million, which the company attributed largely to continued investment in its US expansion; at the time itsu had more than 70 sites in the UK, and Metcalfe held a 54% controlling stake.⁠[8][8][8][8][8][8]

On October 29, 2020, Metcalfe, then chief executive of itsu, urged the government in a Daily Mail article not to impose another COVID-19 lockdown, saying “Society will not recover if we do it again to save a few thousand lives of very old or vulnerable people,” and that the young people of the country would be paying for it for the next 20 to 30 years.⁠[9][9][9]

After the comments were published, social media users called for boycotts of Pret and itsu. A Pret spokesperson promptly issued a statement saying that Metcalfe had not run the business for over ten years, that Pret did not agree with his opinion, and that steps must be taken to stop the spread of the virus.⁠[9][9][9][9]

In January 2022 the private equity firm Bridgepoint announced an investment in itsu. Under the new partnership, itsu planned to open 100 new outlets within five years, creating 2,000 jobs in the UK alone; total group sales for 2022 were then forecast to be well in excess of £170 million.⁠[10][10][10]

On September 27, 2026, The Venture RoomThe Venture RoomThe Venture Room is a UK entrepreneurial media brand centered on the YouTube channel @theventureroom. Through long-form interviews with founders and street interviews such as “Asking Millionaires How They Got Rich?”, it presents entrepreneurs’ stories and advice to aspiring business owners, and runs an entrepreneur community and brand partnerships.Open the full entry released an episode visiting three founders, in which Metcalfe took the hosts back to the site of the first Pret before touring an itsu restaurant and the company’s offices. He said Pret had not found a gap in the market but made one; he said Pret started with £17,000, that the first shop was finished at six in the morning and opened at seven, and that it lost money for three years until the team made it work through sheer hard work. He summed up itsu’s idea as East Asian food made on the premises with really good ingredients, sold at prices everyone can afford, with self-service to save customers time.⁠[11][11][11][11][11][11][11]

He also described the four qualities the company looks for and develops in people: wanting to grow, caring about what you do, taking pride in doing a good job, and building trust. These four are also the “itsu qualities” in itsu’s company values.⁠[11][11][11][11][11][3]

As of October 2026, itsu freshly made Asian-inspired dishes in 83 restaurants, and its chilled, frozen, and ambient products were also sold in supermarkets across the UK and Europe.⁠[12][12]

“Most businesses are old ideas done better.” Using the sandwich as an example, he noted that sandwiches had existed for a hundred years and Pret invented nothing new; the key was to add value (at 22:42 in the video).⁠[11][11]

“Find out what your customers are missing, what they would value, and then do it.” He believes there are gaps in the market in almost everything, and cautioned never to take customers for granted: look after them and they will come back (at 25:25 in the video).⁠[11][11][11]

“You’ll never get anywhere unless you can build trust with your customers and the people you work with.” He stressed that even in a tiny business you cannot lie or rip customers off (at 28:03 in the video).⁠[11][11]

“Always try to employ and work with people better than you; aim high and be brutal with your product.” He recalled that in Pret’s early days famous people were invited regularly to eat the food and say how to improve it, and that itsu enlisted a renowned cook to help improve its noodles (at 29:25 and 29:44 in the video).⁠[11][11][11]

“Sell the feeling, not the features.” Taking the idea of a dream tattoo parlor as an example, he suggested thinking through every one of the dozens of things that frustrate customers and then creating the whole experience (at 30:24 in the video).⁠[11][11]

itsu: Official website: https://www.itsu.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[12]