Head of the chain Pano Christou announced the move as part of a push into more outlets opening at motorway services and airports, adding there was potential for 300 to 400 Pret travel locations
The first Pret A Manger drive-thru is set to open in the UK in a bid by the company to go head-to-head with coffee chains like Costa and Starbucks who introduced them several years ago.
Head of the chain Pano Christou announced the move as part of a push into more outlets opening at motorway services and airports, adding there was potential for 300 to 400 Pret travel locations in future.
The first Pret drive-thru is scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2026, no location has been confirmed but it is likely to be at a motorway services, he said.
“We are exploring it,” the Pret boss said, discussing the move towards opening drive-thru outlets. “Because we think our offer [of fresh products] is so different to everyone else.”
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The company said there were no more detailed plans at this stage, Christou confirmed in an interview with the Sunday Times.
The creation of drive-thru locations will put Pret alongside the likes of big coffee chains Starbucks and Costa, who have opened hundreds of them around the UK.
Starbucks’ first UK drive-thru opened in Cardiff in 2008 while Costa opened their first one in Nottingham in 2011. Both brands now boast more than 300 of the sites each across Britain.
Pret, meanwhile, opened its first shop in 1986 in London and has since expanded to more than 700 sites across 21 countries.
This is not the only change coming to Pret as the business announced they wanted to start offering meal deals with trials expected to take place towards the end of this year. Supermarkets like Tesco and Sainsbury’s have been offering meal deals for years but recent inflation has seen them hike prices on the popular lunch option.
The price of Tesco’s standard meal deal went up from £4 to £4.25 without a club card, the clubcard price went up from £3.60 to £3.85. Sainsbury’s premium meal deal went up by 50p from £5 to £5.50. Pret has yet to reveal the price of its own meal deal offering.
“Back when I joined Pret, which as you know is a long time ago, we had very much kind of a white-collar worker customer base,” Christou said. “We have [evolved] a much broader base of customers and I think the brand has democratised itself.”
He said he had begun as an assistant manager at a central London branch of the retailer in 2019 aged 22 and worked his way up to being the head of the chain.