From one passion to another, SLW ventures into QSR space

By Rahul Banerji

From events around the sport to creating a country-specific loyalty programme, Thai Golf Pass, Sports & Leisure Worldwide is now venturing into the food business.

After biryani, pizzas are amongst the most popular takeaway items as indeed in the quick restaurant service (QSR) domain. Now, SLW promoter Anil Dev is out to create a “base” for himself in the pizza space.

The “toppings”, one is sure, will come along in due course.

SLW, which has operated in the golf domain for the last 20 years, has recently launched a chain of outlets called ‘PizzaBox’, targeting a Rs 100 crore turnover in the next three years.

The company is a domain expert in the golf business through event management, travel and media verticals. It also publishes the only golf magazine in the country called GolfPlus, a monthly.

“We started the golf business as we were passionate about the game and are well established in the domain,” said Anil Dev.

New frontier

“The time was right for us to expand and grow our business so we chose another passion – food,” said Dev, who is also editor and publisher of GolfPlus.

“We launched our first flagship store in Sector 45 Noida in November 2020.

“The store has seen steady sales, crossing Rs 1 crore till date. We’re focused on pizzas as our core area and already have a base of about 3,000 regular customers.

“One of our regular customers has ordered 86 times in a year and the largest number of people catered in a day was 276,” Dev added.

SLW Pizzaworld has a separate team to look after the business under the leadership of chief executive Rishi Tomar, a specialist in store expansion, franchising and store management.

“Rishi brings on board his experience of working with Samsung, RPG and Hutch that will be valuable in our quest to expand to 150 stores in the next three years,” Dev said.

PizzaBox completed an 18-month trial run in April and has established proof of concept with a well-accepted robust menu to reach out for an ‘Angel Round’ of funding for its next 10 outlets.

Also read: Season 5 of Thai Golf Pass launched with events on the cards