Greggs and Pret chat 🄪

womp womp

True but it does hold a little weight in some areas, since there is a lot more Greggs up north (we need more down here!)

If you’ve only been in the south a few times it might look pretty accurate

The Isle of Wight has neither. So blank it out.

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Speaking of Greggs can anyone remember this genius marketing and why it was done?

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Something about it reflecting in a shop across the walk in the right way around?

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Yeah in Newcastle every year Fenwicks have a christmas display on in their window and lots of people go to see it. I remember going every year as a kid and it being a really big thing.

So Greggs flipped their sign so anyone looking at the display in Fenwicks window would see the reflected Greggs sign the right way

Found an image showing how popular fenwicks window is and the greggs sign reflecting

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I’m in Hull. Not a Pret to be seen within miles.

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I always thought of Greggs as a very Northern thing (some might say grim Northern, but don’t fight me please!) compared to something like Pret which is definitely a Southern thing. Gail’s is almost entirely in London too.

As somebody who lives not in London but in the southern countryside, I’m not surprised to hear that there are not many Greggs branches in London.

To be honest, a few years back when there was a vegan sausage roll mania, I was actually a bit surprised and confused that people were acting like Greggs was a truly national chain when my own perception of it was that they were more Northern-based, although with some coverage elsewhere too. I’m yet to be convinced that I’m completely wrong about that, and with Monzo skewing towards a ā€œyoung professionalā€ city-living customer, I’m a bit surprised they’ve decided to partner with them.

Unless the vegan sausage roll thing was even more popular than I’d realised previously!

Monzo have trialled free sausage rolls before in their earlier rewards program. Maybe it had a good uptake there too :man_shrugging:

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Yes, it probably did!

Well, I have Greggs near my house and my office, and I very much enjoyed my ā€˜free’ sausage roll … :laughing:

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I had my free decaf flat white on my way to pick up the boss from work… Not bad for a freebie…

Now to use my o2 and Octopus ones

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Pret has gotten out of hand in London, I walked from Oxford Circus to Trafalgar Square the other day and noticed there was one on every corner - looking at google maps I passed a total of 11 in a ten minute walk. Standing at the corner of Trafalgar Square you have three in line of sight, all less than a minutes walk away. I don’t get it either, the sandwiches are the same quality as a supermarket meal deal but way pricier and the coffee sucks.

I am partial to a Greggs though, especially the bacon roll in the mornings!

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I think with the increase in WFH, they should reduce Pret’s in zone 1 (which as you say are sometimes almost next door to one another) and add more in zone 2 and 3.

As for Gregg’s - a few stats (3rd party so can’t guarantee accuracy):

Never realised how fond the Scots were of Greggs.

And here is the same for Pret:

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Surprised by Glasgow having more than London, considering London’s population is roughly the same as that of the whole of Scotland.

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There’s basically a Greggs on every main street around the center. There’s also Greggs outlets so we’re spoilt for choice.

I haven’t checked to see if the coffee voucher can be used in there though.

It’s a very different model to other cafes like Starbucks. At least pre-pandemic, and it worked.

They serve basic coffees (not too many fancy ones) and know that if they combine that with fairly decent food (price aside and your experience may vary) then workers will walk the 2 mins to them.

They put stores everywhere because then you never have to walk more than a few minutes in central London to find one. You’re therefore the ā€œoh I’ll quickly pop out for coffee/lunchā€ or ā€œyou want to take this meeting over a coffee?ā€ defacto option and it worked - stores were full almost all the time during work days.

Starbucks have a larger product range and are the kind of place that some people will actively walk to. They will pass Pret’s to get specifically to Starbucks. So they need less of them. To some extent Greggs are similar.

Of course Pret was probably one of the hardest hit by Covid because their entire business model relied on workers in a dense city centre working from offices. I expect things to change over the years, and they already are - take a look at most Pret opening hours; they are open less and less to cater for the specific working hours of those around them. They are starting to open up on commuter routes now, becoming the cafe you pass on the way to work, rather than the one you go to during work.

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In my experience Greggs nationwide are closer to the Pret model here than Starbucks. There are two Greggs stores within five minutes of my workplace, effectively bookending the town so no-one is now than two minutes from a Greggs.

I’d guess the reason they don’t do the same in London is because London rents be crazy so they get a better return focusing on notLondon? Or Pret have already monopolised the available sites :joy:

Is Subway still big in London? When I used to go up on the regular you couldn’t move without tripping over a Subway, like walking through a videogame with a repeating background.

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There’s still lots of them but I don’t think many people eat in them, most of them are pretty empty.

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True they are really expensive now! They are all on just eat and Deliveroo and I wonder if many people order them on there.

All the ones near me are halal and I don’t like the halal meatballs, they aren’t as good. Last time I had one must have been over seven years ago.

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