“I don’t expect anyone to know who we are to begin with, but when we come to town we’ve got to make a splash,” says Pizza Express CEO Paula MacKenzie as she discusses bringing US challenger brand Houston Hot Chicken (HHC) to the UK. “We’ve got to be bold, brazen, loud and in your face.”
Certainly, when it comes to HHC’s first site on these shores, which launched over the weekend in Stevenage, no one could accuse it of lacking confidence. Indeed, with fried chicken giant KFC located directly opposite and a Dave’s Hot Chicken, the current market leader in the UK’s emerging US-style hot chicken category, little more than a tender’s throw away, you might think, to borrow a phrase, that Houston already has a problem, but for MacKenzie launching in such a competitive environment reflects the brand’s challenger status.
“We’re the underdog; what we can’t be is quiet,” she continues. “It’s like being the youngest sibling. You’ve got to be unadulteratedly noisy to get attention. That’s what I love about this brand, it’s got real character.”
MacKenzie, of course, is no stranger to the fried chicken market, having served 11 years with KFC UK & Ireland, including five as MD, prior to joining Pizza Express in 2022.
“Maybe there’s an element of you can take the girl out of fried chicken, but you can’t take it out of the girl,” she says with a chuckle when asked what it was about HHC that made it fit into the Pizza Express stable. What ultimately drew her to the brand, though, was the product. She notes that Pizza Express was having conversations with different groups across multiple categories including coffee, drinks and treats, in a bid to grow its portfolio. However, there was something about HHC that she couldn’t ignore.
“When I tasted the food, I knew I was tasting something unique and special. The core offering is delicious. The hot chicken category is far more advanced in the US than it is here. Yes, there’s some entrants in it already, and full respect to them, but with HHC I knew we could do something in a way that the UK hasn’t seen before.”
A quick turnaround
Conversations between the two parties begun around a year ago with a deal for Pizza Express to acquire the master franchise rights for HHC in Europe signed at the start of 2026. Over a whirlwind nine or so months since then, the group has completed R&D of the menu, locked in branding, developed an expansion strategy, secured the first site, stripped and rebuilt it, and got the doors open.
We’re the underdog; what we can’t be is quiet. It’s like being the youngest sibling. You’ve got to be unadulteratedly noisy to get attention
“The way we’ve turned it around so quickly is unbelievable,” says MacKenzie, crediting the efforts of the team around her. “Doing it all at pace is hard. Everything has to go in parallel and there’s not much you can do sequentially, so you’re constantly making leaps of faith.
“It’s been a massive joint effort and pulled together the team like you wouldn’t believe.”
The HHC menu in the UK closely aligns with that sold in the US, majoring in Nashville-style hot chicken sandwiches and tenders served with pickles, crinkle-cut fries and a house sauce. The chicken itself is marinated in a spiced buttermilk blend and hand breaded to order with diners able to choose their level of spice.
The HHC heat ladder ranges from no spice to a signature ‘Houston, We Have A Problem’ level that requires the signing of a waiver when ordering and comes in at two million Scoville heat units; the latter being similar to the Reaper spice level offered at Dave’s Hot Chicken.
MacKenzie openly admits that she is yet to try the highest heat level at HHC, saying she usually sticks to medium – a much more manageable 30,000 Scoville heat units, though still with a kick.
“It’s a point of intrigue, but if you want to do something with your day tomorrow, don’t eat it,” she says, frankly, while noting that the higher heat levels is a major part of the brand’s broad appeal to diners.
“Spicy is one of the top three reasons people love food. It’s a massive driver in their choice, and diners are much more comfortable with eating quite spicy food than they ever used to be.”
HHC was founded back in 2020 by Houston Crosta and Edmond Barseghian, the latter known for being an entrepreneur social media influencer, and race car driver, who developed the original recipe with his sister during the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently, the group operates 27 sites across the US with Stevenage representing its first international outpost.
For MacKenzie, while there are vast differences between HHC and Pizza Express, she believes the two can be ‘natural bedfellows’. “It pays to have your hands in different segments of the market,” she says. “In casual dining we’ve got 60 years of proven credentials. To have something on the opposite end that’s in a small, but growing category, I think it’s wise.
If you want to do something with your day tomorrow, don’t eat the ‘Houston, We Have A Problem’ heat level
“To show you’re multiskilled makes sense to me. And it’s also a boon to your team. It gives wider opportunities to everyone.” A second HHC site has already been announced and is set to launch in the coming weeks at the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury, near Russell Square in London. A third and fourth site have also been secured.
Ambitious expansion
Pizza Express is targeting 50 HHC openings across the UK over the next three years, which MacKenzie admits is bullish, though she considers the group to be more than capable of achieving its aims. She describes the expansion strategy as being ‘opportunity-led’, which partly drove the reason to open the brand’s first site in Stevenage.
The location is directly next door to a newly launched Pizza Express, with HHC’s first London site similarly positioned close by to one of the group’s core brand restaurants. With 360 Pizza Express sites across the country, MacKenzie and her team have access to plenty of data to help inform the HHC expansion strategy going forwards.
Being located close to a Pizza Express restaurant, she says, isn’t a pre-requisite. “The two brands have different demographics and so I’m totally ok with opening a HHC in a vicinity that doesn’t have a Pizza Express.”
There may also be conversion opportunities down the line. “For sure, if there’s somewhere trading as Pizza Express that doesn’t make sense, why wouldn’t we relaunch it as HHC. But our strategy is not coming from that place. The first four we’ll open are all unique sites.”
Beyond the initial 50 site target, there is, of course, scope for HHC to expand more broadly across the UK, but alongside this, MacKenzie notes that she is also being approached now with opportunities to bring other brands to the UK under what she’s dubbed the ‘House of Pizza Express’ banner.
“I like the term of it being part of the House of Pizza Express and who knows where we could go in the future,” she says, when asked about the prospect of future acquisitions.
“There’s plenty of white space for this. We’ve got our hands full at the moment, but never say never to us exploring other opportunities. You’ll have to keep watching this space.”
This article first appeared in Restaurant’s sister title MCA. To subscribe to its daily news feed, click here.