What If! joins forces with former Phones4U directors for fast-food restaurant venture

Consultancy What If! is linking up with three former directors of Phones4U to launch two new fast-food restaurant concepts, Bombay Junction and Mad About Pizza.

Mad About Pizza, which hopes to rival Domino’s Pizza and Pizza Hut, is a delivery chain that will use Smart cars dressed up to look like giant cheese wedges. The first site opens in Bolton this month offering unlimited toppings for a set price.

Bombay Junction will offer Indian meal deals for under £5 with free unlimited drink refills. All food will be cooked to order in less than two minutes. The first outlet opens in the Printworks in Manchester this month.

Bombay Junction and Mad About Pizza are both being launched in partnership with Steve Caunce, a former finance director at Phones4U, Shaz Sulaman, the mobile phone retailer’s ex-director of sales and former associate sales director Menaz Sulaman.

The consultancy is also launching a consumer-facing financial services brand, www.warmwelcomes.com, which will act as a “trusted adviser” to people looking to buy property abroad.

While What If! usually acts as an ideas generator for major international companies such as Coca-Cola, Diageo, Kellogg and Unilever, this is not the first time it has invested in launches. In 2000, it partnered Heinz to launch The Little Big Food Company, an organic food company now listed in retailers such as Waitrose. Heinz has since withdrawn, but What If! has recently relaunched the brand.