Asian quick-service restaurant opens in Canterbury

Asian quick service restaurant Chopstix opened its new site in Canterbury.

The new Pan-Asian restaurant, located on St George’s Street in the city centre, has created 20 jobs in the local community, including five management positions, with opportunity for development.

Established in 2002 by entrepreneurs Sam Elia and Menashe Sadik, Chopstix is the UK’s leading Asian QSR brand with locations across the UK. The Canterbury site will include striking design elements the brand has become renowned for such as its iconic ‘living wall’, natural wood finishes and its winking anime character that features across all Chopstix locations.

Now in its 20th year, after its humble beginnings at Camden Market, the business comprises over 80 locations through a mix of company owned and operated locations and franchise sites.

Last year Chopstix conducted a complete training overhaul, in partnership with Mapal One, launching a new digital training model, delivering a new induction module & food training, 50% reduction of online training & a ‘Netflix’ style flow platform, which all staff have access to.

Chopstix has also launched a Wok Academy, in partnership with an award-winning London cookery school, which will help chefs earn an accredited qualification. Wok Academy will help polish and fine-tune chefs’ cooking skills, reinforce technical wok skills, and bring an element of theatre to the cooking experience in restaurants.

Darren Traynor, Operations Director for Chopstix, said: “We’re on a real roll with new openings and it’s great to be building such momentum around the brand. As well as investing in expansion, we’ve also invested heavily in our training and development offering, because we know how difficult it can be to recruit and retain people in our sector. It’s great to be able to create these new jobs in Canterbury and have the opportunity to cultivate some great talent, and we might even have hired our next Operations Director!”

In addition, the business also has relationships with delivery partners Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats, as well as several brand extensions including a grocery sauce range, plus further innovations in the pipeline.