Leon

About Leon

A UK-based healthy fast-food chain founded in 2004 by John Vincent and Henry Dimbleby with chef Allegra McEvedy, Leon made its restaurant debut in London’s Carnaby Street and had around 70 outlets when it was acquired by the Issa brothers’ EG Group in 2021 in a reported £100m deal. Of these, circa 42 were operated by the company, while the others were franchises at transport hubs in the UK and five other European countries. It also operates in the US, Ireland, Norway, Spain, India and the Netherlands, but has ceased operating in Switzerland.

In April 2022, EG Group reaffirmed its plans to roll out at least 50 Leon restaurants a year through to 2026, primarily in the UK, alongside wider European expansion. Leon managing director Glenn Edwards said: “Since opening our first counter-style restaurants in 2021, we have been eager to grow this style of restaurant in order to bring Leon to more guests and allow them to experience Leon while on the go.”

In July 2022, Leon opened its first drive-thru restaurant, in Harrogate, and the following month, it closed its three-strong business in Ireland to focus on Europe and the UK. In October 2022, it outlined plans for a 100-strong estate by the end of 2022, and the following month, opened its first 24-hour site in the UK. It also in 2022 launched a Leon Club app and started trialling a new coffee express kiosk format in six sites. It has also rolled out a retail range with Asda and Ocado, and in February 2023 opened its first Welsh site, at the Roadchef Magor service station on the M4.

In October 2023, Asda took full ownership of Leon after completing the acquisition of EG Group’s UK business for an enterprise value of £2.07bn. The company said it would now look to introduce the circa 80-strong Leon brand into its stores. Leon had started selling grocery coffee beans and grounds in 385 Asda stores in 2022 and began rolling out its coffee-to-go kiosks into the retailer’s supermarkets.

In April 2024, Leon opened its most westerly location, partnering with Roadchef for a site at Sedgemoor services in Somerset. The following month, it launched Roast Rewards, which it claimed to “the UK’s cheapest coffee subscription”.

In September 2025, Leon’s co-founder claimed that its new owners are destroying the brand by ditching its healthy ethos in favour of junk food. Henry Dimbleby, who co-founded Leon in 2004 before selling it in 2021, said the company had moved away from its original goal of selling “delicious food that is convenient and healthy” to settle for unhealthy alternatives.

The following month, Propel revealed that Leon and its 71 restaurants - 44 owned and 22 franchised - had been bought back by Vincent from Asda, in a move to “reinvigorate the business and return it to its core values”. He said: “Today I have bought back Leon. For 17 years, it was the greatest gift to build a company dedicated to helping people enjoy naturally fast food. My time away from Leon has given me new perspectives - and I’m excited by what we can achieve for people this time round.

“There will likely be some big decisions ahead, but first we need to take a good look under the bonnet. First and foremost, we have to focus on the basic Leon promise of the best fast food served with the biggest welcome. Making any economic returns now is very tough, and there will be many problems ahead, but I am lucky that there are some diamonds in Leon who will be capable of rising to these challenges.”

The following month, Vincent told Propel: “There’ll be restaurants, there’ll be grocery and there’ll be an e-commerce platform or club that supports people with products, content and community events to enjoy natural health and come together to enjoy it. But right now, the 100-day plan is to stop the company losing the cash at the level it is. I’ve got a couple of restaurants that are losing hundreds of thousands of pounds. Those restaurants have to shut, and there will have to be some roles reallocated in the support team. It’s a question of doing them one at a time, taking one restaurant that I can use as a case study for that.”

In December 2025, Vincent said he expects the business to be back on the expansion trail after its restructuring with plans for as many as 100 UK outlets, mostly in the capital, over the next four years. Vincent also set out his plans to revive the chain, which includes opening more restaurants in service stations, airports and train stations.

He said the high costs of operating in the capital was making business there “incredibly difficult”, with “incredibly high upward-only rents”. He said even though airports in particular take a large slice of a retailer’s takings, a 2% profit margin there “is worth the same as a 6% on the high street”. Vincent said: “You might be doing two or three times the revenue in that airport than you might in a high street location.”

In April 2026, Vincent said he does not intend to rebuild Leon into a vast chain. The brand has shrunk from around 70 sites to roughly 48, and he expects a natural ceiling around 100 UK restaurants. “I don’t have aspirations to do 300 or 400. I want to get as big as we can without losing customer intimacy,” he said.

Why franchise with Leon

• ✓Leon began its franchise roll-out in 2020 after appointing former Burger King chief executive, Brad Blum, to oversee it. The company also signed a deal with US firm HMSHost to manage the initial wave of franchised locations. In March 2024, retailer Asda said it is focused on “leveraging Leon’s heritage as a pioneer and well-established sector brand”. The supermarket operator took full ownership of the circa 75-strong healthy fast-food chain in November 2023 after completing the acquisition of EG Group’s UK business for an enterprise value of £2.07bn. An Asda spokesperson said: “The business is focused on leveraging Leon’s heritage as a pioneer and well-established sector brand, investing to grow its offering through continued menu innovation and the ongoing expansion of Leon in the right locations and formats. We continue to bring the Leon business into the Asda family, where the brand benefits from additional customer insights and data capabilities to deliver on its mission to make it easier to eat and live well.”
• ✓This after Propel revealed that Leon was looking to open new restaurants, review its existing estate and explore new formats, and that its buyout by Asda would give it the opportunity to further expand the brand. Propel also revealed that the brand had closed its two drive-thru sites at the end of 2023. In November 2025, Leon said it would be ending its coffee subscription service.
• ✓Vincent said: “I want to bring Leon back to its original purpose and remove all the parts that don’t feel like Leon anymore. For me, that means getting back to serving food and coffee that's good for you, good for our teams, and good for the planet. Coffee is a big part of that, but the subscription has driven a level of volume our teams are struggling to keep up with. It's affected their day-to-day, and it's affected your experience too. We will return to the famous Leon welcome, the shorter waits, and the feeling that we have time for you. Ending Roast Rewards allows us to put our attention where it needs to be – which is putting quality back at the heart of the business and becoming pioneers on the high street again.”