To celebrate opening its first European store in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport this summer, naturally fast food chain Leon has announced it is to open a second store, airside at Schiphol. The first store, operated by HMSHost International, opened its doors to guests at Schiphol’s Plaza earlier in July and has been smashing its sales targets ever since.
LEON first opened in London in 2004 and shortly after was awarded Best New UK Restaurant by the Observer national newspaper. Since then the founders, good friends John Vincent and Henry Dimbleby, have opened 35 more stores in the UK.
LEON’s mission is to help everyone to eat and live well. The two founders decided that the best way to achieve this was to ask themselves 'what would fast food be like in heaven?' They have always seen fast food as an international business and (like McDonalds back in 1971) picked Amsterdam as the launch site for their European journey.
The LEON Schiphol menu gives guests the opportunity to try dishes that have been on the menu since the first restaurants opened...such as the Moroccan meatball hotbox, the signature fish finger wrap, and the original super food salad. As well as its menu, LEON will also be exporting its meticulous sourcing policy; all the ingredients (apart from the Spanish chorizo) will be sourced in the Netherlands. As in the UK, meat will be to higher welfare standards, all eggs will be free range and local and the milk organic.
Speaking at an event in Schiphol to officially open the store, LEON founder John Vincent said: “I spent many a happy childhood holiday in Holland and the sun was ALWAYS shining so I’m very happy to return and bring LEON with me. Earlier this month HMS and LEON won the ‘Oscar’ for fast food at the international airport food awards, which shows that bringing people food which tastes good and does them good is especially welcome for travel weary passengers. This is a magnificent site in Schiphol and we’re thrilled to have landed.”
Joining him, Walter Seib, CEO of HMSHost International said; "We're delighted to bring the successful LEON brand to the Netherlands. We're confident that the Dutch audience will highly appreciate the fresh and flavourly LEON dishes. It's a great opportunity to reinforce our cooperation with this great company.
LEON Schiphol is located at the centre of the Plaza, landside, near the train station. It will give travellers, Schiphol airport workers and plane-spotting day trippers a healthy fast food option for the first time. The second LEON will be airside and will open early in 2017.
Store Manager Melchior Biemolt said, “The first opening weeks have been very promising. Our most popular items have been the LEON baked fries and chargrilled chicken burger, showing that people like our version of the fast food classics, which taste good and do you good. Most importantly we’ve had lots of enthusiastic comments from customers, so I think that LEON’s Naturally Fast Food is going to be a huge hit in the Netherlands."
HMSHost already run seven franchise sites for LEON in Britain at Kings Cross, Euston, Eurotunnel, Stansted, Heathrow (T2 and T3) and East Midlands airport.
"I am very lucky to be partnering with the team at HMSHost to make this happen. They know Schiphol like the back of their hand and they take special care of those who travel through this incredible airport," added John Vincent.
