Pret serves wine and evening meals

Upmarket sandwich pit-stop Pret A Manger is trialling sit-down evening meals along with an accompanying wine and beer list in one of its flagship London premises.

The trial features a full sit-down menu and wine list (Photo: Twitter / Clive Schlee)

The chain, famous for its lunchtime staples of coffee, boxed salads and crusty “artisan” sandwiches, is hoping to tap into the dinner market as it trials the “Good Evenings” concept at its Strand store in London.

The menu, which will be served from 6pm-11pm, is complete with starters, sides, salads, soups and toasties, and can be washed down with a choice of two craft beers, a Prosecco, or three different red and white wines.

Pret currently has no plans to extend the trial to any of the other 300 UK outlets, but it will be monitoring the performance of its Strand concept closely, according to the London Evening Standard.

With most large dishes priced around the very reasonable £5 mark, all served speedily and with crockery, the hope is that the evening menu will attract theatre-goers heading to the nearby West-End who would like to have a relaxed but swift sit-down meal before the curtain is raised.

Chef Nick Sandler told the Evening Standard, “If they come in and say ‘we’re in a real hurry we’ve only got 20 minutes’ because they are going to the theatre we tell them they’ve got plenty of time to order, sit down and have their meal.

“But equally if someone’s got a bit longer to have a glass of wine and spend an hour with us that’s fine as well, we’re pretty relaxed about it,” he said.

Reviewing the concept, the Standard‘s Anna Dubuis said, “With a backdrop of sandwiches stacked in fridges, it perhaps won’t ever top London’s most chic restaurants, but I can see Pret’s Good Evenings catching on.”

In February, rival coffee-chain Starbucks began rolling out its evening meals menu across the UK that also features wine and beer.

The revamp began at the company’s London Stansted Airport venue, with meals and shareable hot and cold snacks such as chorizo and prawn skewers with chilli ketchup, truffle mac and cheese and braised British beef served alongside a selection of premium wines and beers in stemless, plastic glasses.