Activities

Ask Restaurants is a pizza and pasta restaurant operator owned by Gondola Holdings PLC.

The company  owns and operates restaurants across the UK under two key brand names – the mid-market Ask brand and the more upmarket Tuscan-style Zizzi based around traditional wood-burning ovens. Its line-up also includes Jo Schmo’s (a US-diner-style line of grill restaurants), Lupo (pizza takeaway venues) and Bar and Grill outlets.

Ask was founded by Adam and Sam Kaye and the name is a combination of the initials Adam+Sam+Kaye. They are the sons of property developer Philip Kaye, who founded the Garfunkel’s restaurant chain and has backed both Ask and the Prezzo pizza group founded by his nephew Jonathan Kaye.

Timeline

• 1993: Brothers Adam and Sam Kaye open the first Ask restaurant in Belsize Park, London.
• 1995: In September, the nine-strong Ask Central group floats on the Alternative Investment Market for 35p a share. It also launches the It’s Café pizza and pasta brand which grows to 10 branches before being discontinued in 2003. Outlets are closed or rebranded as Ask restaurants.
• 1997: The group, which now has 20 restaurants, raises £5.3m to roll out 15 more sites. At this point, all but two are in London.
• 2000: Ask launches the more upmarket Zizzi brand.
• 2003: The first Jo Shmo's grill restaurant opens in Wimbledon, south-west London, in August. Others follow in Guildford and Kingston in Surrey
• December 2003:  City Centre Restaurants (now The Restaurant Group) tables a friendly £168m takeover bid for Ask, which is accepted.
• 2004: In January, Ask receives a £213m bid from venture capital firms TDR Capital and Nando’s owner Capricorn Ventures International. The deal is accepted and completes in February. Ask delists from AIM in June.
• May 2005: Merrill Lynch is called in to conduct a strategic review of the companies within Altia Holdings, which include PizzaExpress, Ask and Zizzi.
• October 2005: Ask opens its first Bar and Grill, which focus on British dishes, in Leamington, Warwickshire. It also sells the last of its three Nimmo's branded restaurants. Owners TDR and Capricorn announce plans to float Ask and PizzaExpress on the London Stock Exchange before the end of the year, although they intend to retain a majority stake in the businesses.
• November 2005: Gondola Holdings, the holding company for PizzaExpress and Ask, floats on the London Stock Exchange. The offer price of 320p per share raises £135m and gives Gondola a market capitalisation of £431m. TDR and CVI's stake reduces from 80% to 51.4%, while employees hold a 7.2% share.

Contact

20 High Street
St Albans
Hertfordshire
AL3 4EL

Tel: 01727 735800
Fax: 01727 735899

E-mail:
Website: http://www.askcentral.co.uk