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In 1997, Simon Woodroffe opened YO! Sushi on Poland Street in Soho, London with £200,000, a vision and a 100-meter conveyor belt. For the first two weeks, nobody came. By week three, there was a queue around the block that would last for three years, and a British icon was born.
But Simon's journey to that moment was anything but conventional. Expelled from boarding school, arrested for drugs at nineteen, and serving time in a young offender's prison, he spent his twenties and thirties careening through the music business - from roadie to stage designer, building sets for rock legends and working on Live Aid in 1985. By his early forties, after business failures and divorce, he found himself in the wilderness, nearly broke and wondering if he's ever amount to anything.
Then came fire-walking. Lunch with a Japanese businessman. A crazy idea about conveyer belt sushi. And the decision to risk everything at age forty-five.
YO! MAN is the brutally honest, hugely entertaining memoir of how Simon Woodroffe built not just one but multiple iconic brands - YO! Sushi, YOTEL and the YO! brand itself - while navigating bankruptcy scares, difficult partnerships, celebrity relationships and becoming on of the original Dragons on BBC's Dragon's Den.
This is a story about reinvention, resilience and robots that swear at customers. It's about the Creative Britannia moment of the late 1990s, when anything seemed possible and a restaurant with Japanese technology and rock'n'roll energy could capture the imagination of a nation. And it's about what it really takes to build something lasting: the sleepless nights, the near-misses, the moments of pure terror when everything hangs by a thread.
Written with unflinching honesty about both triumphs and failures, mental health struggles and relationship disasters, YO! MAN offers a masterclass in entrepreneurship while never forgetting to entertain. Whether you're forty-five and wondering if it's too late, or nineteen and wondering if it's possible, Simon's story proves that the most unlikely journeys often lead to the most extraordinary destinations.
