'Each Leon should be magical' Co-founder returns to revive fast food chain's fortunes

John Vincent is going back to the future.

- Sarah Butler

Four years after selling Leon, the fast food chain named after his father and founded in 2004 with two friends, he has bought it back with hopes of reviving its fortunes.“In a crisis you need a pilot in full control,” he says, speaking from Leon’s headquarters near London Bridge. The martial arts fan is putting on his metaphorical trainers to “outrun the lion” as he ploughs his efforts and his own money into reviving the chain.

The former management consultant bought back Leon for arumoured £30m to £50m - significantly less than the £100m he sold it for - from the supermarket chain Asda in October, 21 years after the first restaurant opened in Camden. It was a self-funded, debt-free deal that he hopes will turn around the company he co-founded with friends Henry Dimbleby, who later became a government food tsar, and chef Allegra McEvedy. Their original mission was to make seasonal, high-quality fast food available to everyone.

Vincent says he now wants to run Leon “as a family business, almost like running your own corner shop”. He says it will be fuelled by a “founder’s mentality”, pondering problems from the early hours of the morning to late at night.

The first step is to renegotiate leases and shrink the group. The plan includes the possible closure of two outlets by the end of January, taking the total number to 50. Leon had 68 outlets at the time of the buyout, including 43 directly owned and operated.

Under a turnaround plan, it is shifting out of unprofitable locations such as Brighton and Manchester to focus on its owned stores - of which there are currently 29 - in London. Franchisees will continue to operate locations in, for example, motorway service stations around the country. After that shakeup, Vincent expects to be back on the expansion trail with plans for as many as 100 UK outlets, mostly in the capital, over the next four years.