Salsa Shop Sets Sights on Ambitious Expansion
This year, Salsa Shop is celebrating its ten-year anniversary. Childhood friends Louis Wesseling and Steven Visser opened their first store in Amsterdam’s Amstelstraat in 2014, and it turned out to be a big hit.
Thanks to their fresh Mexican dishes and quick service, Salsa Shop has grown into a chain of sixteen locations across the Netherlands.
The ambition to expand into Europe is strong.
With a combination of common sense, drive, hard work, and gathering the right people, Salsa Shop has grown into one of the most well-known Dutch fast-casual brands. “The secret? Fresh ingredients, authentic Mexican recipes, efficient work processes, fast service, and an experienced team.”
Salsa Shop’s goal is to reintroduce good Mexican food to the Netherlands. For many Dutch people, this cuisine still represents unhealthy eating. Salsa Shop has been working exclusively with fresh and nutritious ingredients for their quick burritos, tacos, and salads for ten years.
The concept offers six homemade salsas, ranging from mild to extremely spicy, giving each meal its own twist. The concept was an instant success, which gave founders Louis Wesseling and Steven Visser the opportunity to grow significantly.
Recently, Wesseling and Visser hired a senior team to help achieve their growth objectives. There is also a constant drive to improve operational systems and enhance scalability. One of the most successful innovations was the introduction of self-service kiosks.
These strategically placed kiosks, especially those near the windows, have led to a significant increase in the number of young guests aged fourteen to eighteen, with a surprisingly positive impact on the average order value.
In addition to these physical innovations, Salsa Shop continues to strive to optimize the online guest experience and use the most modern point-of-sale systems. Through these ongoing investments in people and technology, Salsa Shop remains not only competitive but also increasingly attractive to a growing audience.
Louis Wesseling: “There is a lot of potential in the concept, as examples from abroad also prove. Salsa Shop is fresh and for everyone—from young to old, and from construction workers to lawyers. We score incredibly well on taste in customer surveys.”
The growth potential of Salsa Shop leads to high ambitions for the entrepreneurs. Guests can visit sixteen Salsa Shops in the Netherlands by 2024, and international expansion is on the horizon. Now that the foundation is in place, they are working on rolling out the brand across Europe.
The goal? Thirty locations on the European continent by 2027.
