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Executive Chat
Featuring Troy Hooper, CEO of Pepper Lunch
by Rebecca Patt, SVP & Partner, Wray Executive Search
Troy Hooper is the CEO of Pepper Lunch, a Tokyo-based fast-casual franchisor with over 500 locations across 15 countries. He’s leading a significant U.S. franchising push for a concept focused on delivering a delicious experience and excellent value atop its patented, 500-degree iron plates. Pepper Lunch serves up sizzling hot plates with an array of mouth-watering, customizable menu options.
What has been the most remarkable part of your journey so far as Pepper Lunch CEO?
The phenomenal opportunity to work and travel to Japan and Singapore multiple times, experiencing the incredible hospitality that those cultures offer. The food is fantastic, but getting to know how these cultures operate, both in business and consumer behavior, outside of a tourist perspective, has been eye-opening. I experience it daily and nightly due to the time difference. Tonight, for example, I’ll be on a call for about three hours into the late evening.
It’s been very rewarding to exchange cultures—not only learning about Japanese and other Asian cultures associated with our brand but also sharing American cultural perspectives and insights.
What do you think is most challenging about bringing this brand to the U.S.?
Initially, it’s about educating people on the food and service style. We use various words to describe it, but at the core, it's a 500-degree, sizzling-hot iron plate with protein, rice, and vegetables, or protein, pasta, and vegetables. The food should be familiar because teriyaki and curry are well-known to most American palates.
The challenge is finding the right ways to describe what we are: a very elevated fast-casual concept. We’re essentially serving food that's typically better than many casual, full-service Asian restaurants, but we're doing it in a fast-casual service model and at a fast-casual price point, which makes our value proposition incredible.
How would you describe the experiential element of Pepper Lunch, and how does that set it apart from other fast-casuals?
You receive your entrée on a sizzling hot plate that keeps your food warm for up to 30 minutes, allowing you the freedom to craft your dish as you like. Instead of picking a pre-made dish, we put the control in the customer’s hands. You can add ingredients to our entrées and really craft the flavor and portion to your liking. We offer six sauces, some inherent to specific dishes like teriyaki and curry, but many customers enjoy experimenting by adding sauces to other dishes.
We call it “sizzle it your way,” our tagline, because we want guests to have control over their experience. The sizzling hot plate engages all the senses—you hear it coming, see it steaming, and it’s very Instagrammable. The food is colorful and smells amazing. Each person at the table gets their own creation, making it incredibly shareable and invigorating.
How would you describe the plate? It sounds like an amazing invention.
It’s an iron plate with a proprietary metal core that allows it to superheat quickly—from room temperature to 500 degrees Fahrenheit in just 74 seconds. The plate holds its high temperature for a long time, allowing you to cook a steak, fish, or other ingredients to your liking. Your meal stays warm, if not hot, the entire time you’re eating it. It’s a simple but very cool invention.
How is Pepper Lunch set to grow and evolve over the next few years?
We grow organically across Asia, typically adding 50 to 60 locations a year. By organic growth, I mean we don’t actively advertise or solicit new franchise openings. We have master deals in every country, and they grow through their own networks.
In North America, we are wholly focused on growth in the U.S. and Canada. We expect to sell 300 to 400 locations over the first five years and open 100 to 150 in that time. Right now, we’re on a great path, with about 70 stores sold and many more in development. Over the next 10 years, we expect to have around 600 Pepper Lunch locations in North America.
What do you look for in qualifying franchisees?
We focus on partnering with experienced multi-unit or multi-brand restaurant operators. Fortunately, that demographic has been receptive to Pepper Lunch, and they make up most of our inquiries. We’re particularly interested in operators who can open a minimum of five stores in three years or 10 stores in six, on a DMA-by-market basis.
This approach allows us to be selective, taking our time to vet and get to know our partners closely. We want excellent execution from our partners, so we’re being careful to get it right.
How do you expect consumers in the U.S. to discover Pepper Lunch?
We currently have seven stores in the continental U.S. These initial stores were opened in Asian communities or centers of Asian food culture, like in Las Vegas or Houston. Typically, non-Asian customers are introduced to our brand by an Asian colleague, business friend, neighbor, or family member. They then spread the word to their friends.
As we expand into markets without a significant Asian population, we’ll need to communicate the brand in various effective ways. We’re fortunate that 50% of our U.S. customers are under 30 years old, meaning they’re digitally native. We’re pushing heavily on digital messaging through social media and other platforms.
As new stores open and we experience compounding growth over the next few years, we’ll be well-positioned to micro-message within those markets, attracting a diverse demographic. The younger, digitally native consumer is key for us—they’re interested in trying new, cool Asian concepts, especially those with an experiential, Instagram-worthy element.
Why do you skew so young in your customer demographic?
It’s largely due to younger demographics' interest in and adoption of Asian culture—not just food but also music, art, comics, anime, and more. This interest has expanded into movies, TV series, and other aspects of culture. Another factor has been the relative strength of the Japanese yen compared to the U.S. dollar, which has led to more young people traveling to Japan, particularly Tokyo, and developing an interest in Asian culture.
This digital interaction with young Asians on gaming, streaming, and social platforms like TikTok has fueled their interest in all things Asian. As a result, brands like Uniqlo and Sanrio have grown in the U.S., and food naturally follows.
Asian food has been the fastest-growing segment in the U.S. restaurant business for five years. Most people don’t realize this, but it’s been quietly happening. As these cultural trends continue to grow, our brand stands to benefit.
The menu looks incredible. Could you talk about new menu items and your process for innovation?
We’ve just gotten our hands around the brand in North America, which has been here for about six years under different leadership. Our first step was to look internally at the products, portions, and menu mix. After about a year-long process, we rolled out our updated menu on July 9th, focusing on refining recipes, flavor profiles, and portion sizes.
Moving forward, we plan to use limited-time offers (LTOs) as our innovation lab. We’ll roll out three to four LTOs per year, each running for about one to two months. These LTOs will allow us to test market interest in different proteins—beef, chicken, seafood, and possibly pork, which we’ve never offered before. This will be our innovation pipeline for the next year or two.
In addition, early next year, we’ll launch a new off-premise make line in our new stores, including food lockers and other innovations to enhance the off-premise experience. We’re building an entire off-premise system with specialized packaging to deliver our unique product in the best possible way.
Can you tell us more about the labor model in the stores?
This brand’s labor model was one of the biggest things that caught my attention early on. It was a very low-prep model, and with our new menu rollout, we’ve eliminated 100% of prep. All you need to do when you open a Pepper Lunch is push two buttons to make rice, and that’s it. There’s no more prep.
We can open a store in 15 to 20 minutes before service starts. It’s a low-labor model because we’re not actually cooking anything—we’re just superheating the plate, portioning ingredients, and assembling them in a beautiful way.
Our third labor model aspect is that we require no skilled labor. We need three to six people to run a store at peak times, and none of them need prior restaurant experience. We have a robust training system that takes about a month and 200 hours to get anyone up to speed. This no-prep, low-labor, no-skilled labor model makes operations simple, helps build a strong culture, and increases labor retention, all of which contribute to a strong net profit.
So, all the other ingredients come pre-portioned, sliced, diced, chopped, vacuum-packed, and ready to go?
Exactly.
Any other highlights of Pepper Lunch we haven’t covered?
No, I think you covered all the value propositions. Simple operations, no skilled labor, an experiential fast-casual model, a young demographic, and the rise of Asian culture—we covered everything.
Check out Pepper Lunch here.
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