Stepping off the Bakerloo line onto the bustling Edgware Road in central London, hungry passersby are met by no shortage of lunch options.

The stretch up the road from Marble Arch and its surrounding area have been a magnet for new arrivals from the Middle East since the 19th century and the time of the Ottoman Empire.

Now home to dozens of restaurants and takeaways boasting Lebanese, Greek, Egyptian and Turkish cuisines, among many others, the area known at one time as ‘Little Beirut’ is perhaps best known for one dish in particular – kebabs.

The humble kebab has been a staple of Britain’s takeaway scene since at least the 1980s and Edgware Road is among the most crowded markets you’ll find anywhere in the country.

A strange choice, perhaps, for a challenger from a culture that has until relatively recently been alien to the British kebab scene – Germany.

German Doner Kebab – or GDK – chief executive Simon Wallis admits some initial surprise when he learned a franchisee was opening an Edgware Road branch.

‘But this store trades really well,’ he says over a chicken doner wrap, complete with chips, dip and a soft drink (£13.48 from the Tooting branch, according to Deliveroo, though prices vary in some franchises).

‘The area has some affinity with the product,’ Wallis adds, but he doesn’t see the local high street kebab vendor as a direct competitor.

‘We’re a quick service restaurant (QSR) brand, but we're a premium QSR because our pricing is a bit higher than McDonald's, for example.

‘There aren't many QSR brands that can lay claim to have more than 100 restaurants in the UK and take more than £20,000 per store per week.

‘It’s a short list of McDonald's, Domino's, KFC, probably Burger King - and us.’

If GDK’s popularity is surprising - it made a £1.3million profit in 2023 – it matches the pace of its growth and the scale of the brand’s ambition.

The brand had grown to 177 stores by the end of 2024, propelled by 50 expanding franchisees, and it plans to open another 25 this year in the UK alone. It is Britain’s second fastest growing restaurant brand behind Wing Stop.

There are roughly 15,000 independent kebab restaurants in the UK, but GDK might be the first to make a success of the franchise model.

‘GDK has the opportunity to do with kebabs what McDonald's did to burgers, what KFC did to chicken, what Domino’s did to pizza or Subway did to sandwiches,’ says Wallis.

Changing perceptions on kebabs

Doing so will require further work to breakdown surprisingly strong British convictions about exactly when and where it is appropriate to eat a kebab.

‘Essentially, the great British public have got this association [with kebabs] that you only ever eat them at about 2.30am,’ Wallis says, reflecting on polling data conducted a few years ago.

Winning hearts and minds required a stylish ‘Doners Worthy of Daylight’ campaign launched in autumn, designed to ‘reverse those national stereotypes’, Walls says. It featured glossy images of young and fashionable models eating a kebab in the daytime.

In reality, just 4 per cent of GDK’s trade comes after 11pm and it has had early success with the launch of a breakfast menu – though the group is looking to expand later trading hours with some franchise partners.

GDK has also built brand awareness and a growing customer base with tie-ups with musicians - including partnerships with the likes of Steel Banglez and Krept & Konan – a well as local fashion and sports scenes.

The offer of signature sauce and spice mixes will be familiar to kebab lovers, but GDK differs from a typical high street kebab in some crucial ways.

Most obviously, the customary lamb doner meat is replaced by beef or chicken shavings, while the kebab is served in GDK’s signature waffle bread.

Salad – very fresh on This is Money’s visit - is locally grown and prepared on site, while GDK is dipping its toes in healthier menu options and even offers a post-workout option with its Doner Gym box, which contains ‘up to 40g’ of protein.

‘It's important to stand out,’ says Wallis. ‘Particularly in the UK where you have so much independent competition’.

Coming to America

While GDK counts the UK as its home market, the brand also trades in Sweden, Saudi Arabia, the US and Canada, each of which presents its own challenges to meet local appetites.

In Saudi Arabia, for example, GDK portion sizes are smaller and there is a greater focus on value, while the US market required the launch of a now-popular salad bowl option.

‘It’s really important for a brand to understand what it stands for and what its position is,’ says Wallis, who joined GDK in 2023 after 13 years with Domino’s Pizza .

‘But a brand should always localise its flavours and taste.’

From a financial perspective, the push into North America has been the most challenging part of GDK’s growth story.

The most recently published financial accounts for GDK’s Edinburgh-based parent group Hero Brands shows the brand absorbed losses of £1.4million in the US in 2023.

‘It’s important to be pragmatic,’ Wallis adds. ‘If you're going into a new market, it's going to take a bit of time to get it right.

‘Those losses have been incurred because we've set up a supply chain, head office infrastructure and the legal framework to allow us to franchise in all the states we want to franchise in over there.

‘To get it right and unlock the opportunity in the States and Canada, it’s about keeping focused on the economics, improving our franchisee profitability, and demonstrating equally compelling economic model to sell those channels.’

Robots to ‘master the meat’

The pace of GDK’s expansion, particularly in the UK, has been impressive. But Wallis is in no rush.

‘I've definitely turned down more new store opportunities in our monthly investment committee meetings than I've approved,’ he says.

‘It's really important for us to only open in the right location, with the right franchise partner and in the right format moving forward.’

The immediate focus instead is turns to cost and store profitability.

‘We saw franchisee profitability improve last year, and we expect franchisee profitability to improve again this year, and that's been done by driving down our food costs,’ says Wallis.

‘And we expect franchisee profitability to improve by around £480 pound per store per week this year, because there are further changes we're making to try and offset the impact of continued labour inflation.’

Wage inflation for businesses remains frustratingly high and was running at 5.9 per cent in the final three months of 2024, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.

And, as labour inflation continues to weigh on the hospitality sector across the country, businesses will also shoulder a higher national living wage and national insurance contributions from April.

For GDK, the response will include removing as much labour from its franchisee's payrolls as possible. It has set a target of being 20 per cent more productive with its labour force this year.

This means greater reliance on self-service kiosks, a ‘smart kitchen’ back-of-store operating model, and attempts to have some tasks performed off site and earlier in the supply chains.

But some jobs are not best suited to a human workforce.

Wallis says: ‘We are in trial this year with more robotic shavers - these are robots that will cut the meat.

‘We want to put ourselves in a position that we will mandate any new restaurant that opens in 2026 will only have robotic shavers, and that drives a huge labour benefit.

‘A robot cuts the meat the same every single time. In our business, mastering your meat is the key thing that's going to drive profitability.’