Kaspa’s Brand Guidelines: Croydon’s 2012 Dessert Parlour, Its Own Gelato & a Soho Flagship

A South London dessert parlour turned franchise.

Kaspa’s, which also trades as Kaspa’s Desserts, is a British chain of dessert parlours. It began in Croydon, South London, in 2012. The trade title Restaurant Online reported in July 2024 and again in August 2026 that the brand was founded by Azhar Rehman in Croydon in that year, and English Wikipedia gives the same town and year. The company’s own timeline on its website starts at 2012, with the words “Founded to create happiness.”

The business was built on franchising. English Wikipedia describes a model in which the Kaspa’s concept and branding are licensed to other companies that run the parlours, and Restaurant Online wrote in 2024 that the brand “has expanded by way of a franchise model.” The franchise company, Kaspas Franchise Limited, was incorporated in February 2013 and has its registered office in Croydon, Companies House shows.

Store counts vary with the date and the source. English Wikipedia, citing the company’s website, gave 104 locations as of June 2021, mostly in the United Kingdom. The company’s own timeline marks 100 parlours in 2022. In July 2024 Restaurant Online reported that a new site in Soho would be the brand’s 109th store in the UK, while its August 2026 survey of UK dessert parlours listed Kaspa’s with 78 sites and called it “one of the UK’s largest dessert-parlour brands.” The franchise page on the company’s website, read in November 2026, says “circa 100” stores across the UK.

The brand left the UK in 2018. Restaurant Online reported that Kaspa’s opened its first international site that year in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, and the company’s timeline marks the same step as its first branch abroad.

Gelato made in-house, and a long list of hot desserts.

Gelato is the core of the Kaspa’s menu. The company says its gelatos are “made by hand, in-house, the Italian way,” and produced in “our very own factory in the UK.” It names locally sourced pasteurised milk and cream, and lists hazelnuts, pistachios and lemon from Italy, Alphonso mangoes from India, passionfruit from Ecuador and cocoa from West Africa among its ingredients. It also says that developing a single flavour can take up to four months and that each gelato is assembled in layers by hand, and puts daily output at 750 to 800 Napoli pans, or around 3,500 litres. These are the company’s own descriptions and figures.

Beyond gelato, the menu covers hot and cold desserts. Restaurant Online lists gelato, waffles, crêpes, shakes, smoothies and sundaes; the company’s own menu adds cakes and puddings, cookie dough, bubble tea, frappes, hot drinks and mocktails, and its website mentions collaborations with confectionery brands. In November 2026 the home page was promoting autumn and festive specials.

The brand’s line on its website is “The King of Desserts,” and its copy leans on wordplay such as “Kraving Kaspa’s?” with a K. The company describes its parlour designs as “fun, enticing, comfortable, colourful and exciting,” and says its stores are “instantly recognisable” from high streets to retail parks.

Kaspa’s offers franchisees more than one format. Restaurant Online reported in 2026 that the company had developed Kaspa’s Classic, Kaspa’s Kiosk and Kaspa’s Dark Kitchen so the concept could suit different sites and levels of investment; the company’s franchise page lists the same three, with two parlour designs and a delivery-only kitchen. It also says its own distribution hub has tripled in size as the chain grew, and its timeline lists a “BFA top 100 franchises” listing in 2024.

How dessert chains present themselves.

Ice cream, gelato and frozen-yogurt chains sell something that melts within minutes, so much of their identity sits in the shop itself. The counter, the cabinet of flavours, the cone and the cup are the brand’s most visible surfaces, and the companies’ own pages tend to describe their shops, their kitchens and their ingredients before anything else.

Serving style can become a signature. Amorino, the Paris gelato chain, shapes its gelato into a flower with a spatula, according to French Wikipedia, and in 2012 the business magazine Capital described its shops in tobacco tones rather than the bright white then common among its rivals. The guides in this series look at how each chain describes its own counters, cups and cones, in the words the companies publish.

Names carry a lot of the work. Gelato chains may keep Italian flavour names on their menus, as Capital reported of Amorino, and some chains tie their story to one place. Grom, the Turin gelateria, describes its history through a single founding square, Piazza Paleocapa, and a single central laboratory near the city, and says its shops churn the gelato each day.

Ownership is part of the story too. Some chains grow through franchising, some stay with their founders, and others pass into large groups: Unilever announced its purchase of Grom in 2015, and Grom says it has been part of The Magnum Ice Cream Company since 2025. Each guide in this series sets out who founded the brand, who owns it now and where its products are made, and marks clearly what rests on the company’s own word.

From suburban high streets to central London.

For most of its first decade Kaspa’s grew outside central London. On 30 July 2024 Restaurant Online reported that the brand would make its central London debut with a flagship on Dean Street in Soho, its 109th UK store. The company’s global franchise director said Soho had been chosen for its nightlife and described the aim as a place where “friends and family can enjoy authentic desserts together.” Restaurant Online confirmed in August 2026 that Kaspa’s had made its central London debut with the Soho flagship in 2024.

Kaspa’s now sits in a crowded UK category. The August 2026 survey placed it beside Creams, founded in 2008 with its first café in Southall in 2011, and a group of younger parlour chains, most of them grown by franchising and serving broad menus of ice cream, waffles, crêpes, cookie dough, shakes and coffee. The same piece reported that Kaspa’s had developed its range of formats to support that expansion.

The company’s website points to the tools behind that growth: a rewards scheme, click and collect, delivery partners, its own gelato factory and a distribution hub. Its franchise page describes a customer base that spans families, with large groups of young adults choosing a parlour as a place to meet. Those are the company’s words, and the store counts above show how much the estate has moved between 2021 and 2026.

For a design guide, Kaspa’s shows how a franchise brand can keep one name and menu across a kiosk, a full parlour and a delivery-only kitchen. Compare Creams, the other large UK dessert café franchise, and Häagen-Dazs, another ice cream brand with a guide in this series. For this guide we use royal violet, honey gold and strawberry pink with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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