Fancy some ‘drive-thru’ sushi?
St Pierre’s Sushi is expanding its restaurant footprint, with up to five more stores set to open this year.
The sushi chain started in Wellington almost 40 years ago and has 69 restaurants spread across the country. It has begun diversifying its business in recent years.
It opened its first St Pierre’s ‘‘drivethru’’ sushi shop in Onehunga, Auckland, 12 months ago, and construction on its second drivethrough location will begin in middle of this year, with a third planned to follow a year later.
The second drive-through St Pierre’s is expected to open in Hastings in mid-2024.
St Pierre’s will open two more regular-format stores this year, in Hamilton and Timaru, and has plans to secure more stores in Palmerston North and Dunedin.
St Pierre’s has been diversifying its business in recent years.
Its Bento Bowl business serving hot food was set up in 2000 and in recent years has been in expansion mode, opening up more outlets in new St Pierre’s locations and food courts.
There are 30 Bento Bowls today with more to be rolled out with future St Pierre’s openings.
The brand began establishing its ‘‘sushi train’’ restaurant concept K10 in 2019. It has two restaurants under that brand – one each in Newmarket and Ponsonby.
Nick Katsoulis, managing director of St Pierre’s Sushi, said the Onehunga drive-through store was performing very well and more than half of orders it received at that site were via the drive-through. He said people tended to buy more at the drivethrough.
Christchurch could also house another drive-through store in the future, although no plans had been cemented, he said.
‘‘We’re quite cautious. We’re not a big company with huge financial backing. We’re quite conservative in our approach, but we’re definitely enthusiastic about the next [drivethrough store] in Hastings, and we have earmarked a couple of other potential areas that we are looking at for more too.’’
St Pierre’s is yet to open a store in Dunedin, and still does not have a footprint in every town and city across the country.
It recently opened its firsts stores in Tauranga, Ashburton and Nelson, and another Auckland store Karaka in South Auckland after closing its Pakarunga and one of its Queen St stores last year.
Katsoulis said St Pierre’s planned to have 100 stores operating over the next five to 10 years.
He said it could perhaps make an overseas debut, although there were no plans at this stage.