‘Healthy investment’: Pita Pit owner brings new hospitality brand to NZ
The people behind Pita Pit have brought a new restaurant chain to New Zealand.
Duane Dalton and Chris Henderson, owners and co-chief executives of hospitality operator Mammoth Brands, have established Vietnamese restaurant chain Roll’d in New Zealand, alongside business partner Matt Holdich.
The Australian-founded fast casual restaurant that specialises in rice paper rolls and Vietnamese dishes opened its first restaurant in Auckland’s Sylvia Park shopping mall, in the same area as the soon-to-open Ikea store.
Roll’d operates 125 stores across Australia, and was founded in Melbourne by Bao Hoang in 2012.
The Sylvia Park store is Roll’d’s first international location.
Dalton told The Post Mammoth Brands planned to open at least 50 Roll’d restaurants across the country, beginning in Auckland, and then expanding through a franchise operating model.
“We’re looking to replicate that growth we’ve had with Pita Pit,” Dalton said of the 74-store lunch brand.
“We think we can definitely get to 50-plus [locations]. We’re going to be starting in the main centres, but growth will come about from where we get inquiry and where we get presented new sites.”
Roll’d is the second hospitality brand Mammoth has acquired the local rights to, having first brought Canadian-founded Pita Pit to the market in the mid-2000s.
Duane Dalton and Chris Henderson, founders of Mammoth Brands, which has brought Roll’d to New Zealand
It also operates school lunch business Tuckr, and Bowl’d and Egg’d; brands which it founded and started through the Covid-19 pandemic. The business has also recently acquired New York Bagels out of liquidation.
The next Roll’d locations are planned to open at St Lukes, and Auckland Airport – it is currently tendering to be in there, along with other airports.
Expansion into other cities will begin next year, when it will start looking for franchisee operators.
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story written by Aimee Shaw – Senior Business Journalist, Stuff
