“It was terrifying,” says Paul Campbell, the man who helped turn PizzaExpress into a national chain, about the period after the UK government announced all restaurants had to close because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“No restaurant business had any idea when its next pound of revenue was coming. Whilst we’re not in that situation anymore, it is still incredibly unpredictable how the sector comes back from this moment,” he told Private Equity News in an interview on the phone.