United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Sushi taco Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Australia. Sushi was founded in 1997, by British entrepreneur Simon Woodroffe. The current owner is Mayfair Equity Partners and members of the YO! In 2000, Robin Rowland became CEO, and in 2002, YO!
Sushi opened their first restaurant outside London, in Manchester’s Selfridges. By 2003, the company had twelve restaurants open, and the first franchise opened in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In April 2003, one scene from the movie Johnny English takes place in a restaurant of YO! Johnny English gets his tie stuck in the conveyor belt. Two new franchises opened in 2007, one in Dublin, the other in Moscow. In April 2010, they opened their fiftieth company owned restaurant in Market Place, London. In 2008, they became the first catering group to adopt the Food Standards Agency’s traffic light colour coding system, which allows customers to see nutritional information about the food they are eating.
From 1 September 2009, the YO! Sushi in Whiteleys Shopping Centre launched its takeaway and delivery services, allowing customers to go into the restaurant and order their food or order online to get food delivered to their homes. By June 2014, the company had more than seventy restaurants. In October 2016, the company opened its first American stand alone restaurant in Boston, Massachusetts, and a few months later, in the Flatiron District in Manhattan, in March 2017. Sushi specialises in delivering sushi to customers using the Japanese style ‘kaiten’ conveyor belt method. The belt carries food around the restaurant in a circuit, allowing diners to pick any dish from the belt.