Most casual dining brands spent the last three years pulling hospitality out. Cost to serve came down. Menus got tighter. Automation crept in at every order point. The logic was defensible — consumers were squeezed, energy costs had spiked, recruitment was brutal — and the result, across most of the sector, was an experience that quietly got thinner.
Wahaca ran the opposite playbook. Four years ago, Gemma Glasson — then MD, now CEO — launched Wahaca Reimagined: a multi-year, line-by-line transformation of the guest experience. Not a rebrand. Not a marketing campaign. An operational rebuild covering bespoke crockery sized to specific dishes, heavier cutlery, filtered water poured on seating, new uniforms, chefs moved from the kitchen onto the pass, a new colour palette, rebuilt steps of service and a reset of management culture. Every touch point reconsidered on the basis that in casual dining, every detail is a proxy for quality.
In this conversation with Conor Sheridan, Gemma takes us through the full playbook: diagnosing the experience gap, the decision to invest in hospitality rather than strip it out, partnership-led customer acquisition (including the Atis campaign that drove more than £120k of sales with zero discounting), Mexico trips as retention and brand-building tools, scratch cooking as a moat in an era of UPF backlash, and why she's choosing brand momentum over new-site risk in the current operating environment. She also shares her leadership model — clarity built on empathy, blue and yellow energies — and a 2026 strategy distilled to a single line: every guest leaves a super fan.
If you're running a casual dining brand or thinking about a brand transformation, this is an hour well spent.
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