Pop up restaurants have been popular since the noughties, offering gourmet dining at affordable prices. They create a large amount of excitement and it’s no wonder more chefs are getting in on the action. Seen at festivals and big events, pop up restaurants have the ability to appear and disappear when needed.
Figure out your motivation
Lee Skeet
For a successful pop up restaurant, you need to be passionate about what you are doing. That means finding something that will motivate you.
“It might be money, it might be the hours. But whatever it is, find your motivation and don't lose sight of it," says Lee Skeet of Lee Skeet Seafood.
“For me it was that I just wanted to cook my own food and succeed or fail on that. If I could only cook someone else's dishes I'd rather just quit cooking, but pop ups have given me a way to do what I want.”
Your motivation could even be customer based, ensuring you create a memorable experience. Make sure that your pop up restaurant is eye catching and connectable so that you stand out against the competition.
Tom Shepherd of the Development Kitchen, who is now head chef at Adam's in Birmingham, tells us, “Another tip is to ensure you sell a story, or a product of interest. That could be the chefs, venues or menu style.” Get that thinking cap on!
Venue is Key
No matter where your pop up restaurant is situated, whether it be big events or festivals, the placement is everything.
“You have to launch your pop up at an exciting, busy venue that matches your ethos and style”, says Tom.
Alongside his colleague Adam Degg, the Development Kitchen was set up in a different restaurant each month.
“Also get them [the restaurant] on board to help you launch, sending an email out to their database is vital when setting up."
Some pop-up restaurants are in less conventional venues than a pre-existing restaurant, which can add to the experience.
“We've cooked in all sorts of places, from breweries to old farmhouses to busy bars, to abandoned army barracks, to the beach, to a festival. Sometimes we have an oven, sometimes we don't. Regardless, the food is the same standard," Lee tells us.
“I'm not interested in posh dining rooms or stuck up sommeliers, but the food we do in an abandoned building is the same I did up in London and I love being an anomaly."
Don’t underestimate the workload
Even if you are a pro in the kitchen, a pop up restaurant is a completely different experience. Meals need to be prepared beforehand, and depending on your venue, this could be harder than you think.
Lee told us, “If you don't have a commercial kitchen at home, which I don't, you'll spend days prepping hundreds of courses in a tiny domestic kitchen before transporting everything, sometimes for hours to your venue. Some venues I've never even seen before we arrive! You'll have to unload, run a normal service and then pack everything up and disappear again.”
Private dining chef, Craig Floate has a helpful top tip for an extra pair of hands: “Build a relationship with the venue first. It’s always good to have some helping hands, and a venue that can help and support you is a perfect base for a successful pop up restaurant."
“It's hard, and there'll be times you hate it. But generally just when I think it's going badly, something amazing will happen," says Lee.
“We'll be stressing about money, and then we'll get a booking of Michelin-starred chefs who are idols to me, that want to eat our food. We've never had a pr company or anything but we will sometimes just get a call from a national paper or TV channel to do a story. Every now and then something amazing will happen through nothing else but hard work and persistence and it makes it so worth it.”
However, the experience does not end once you have opened your pop up restaurant. You need to move fast. Ensure you build a network- quickly. A website, social media accounts, the lot. Prepare those customers for your next pop up restaurant. Allow them to share the experience with friends.
“We launched the website, ticket tailor, MailChimp, business cards - the lot after our first one!” Tom shares. Was this successful? “We sold 80 seats in two weeks for our second one, all on social media.”
Not every one can fly by the seat of their pants and Gary Usher's idea to just “wing it!” won't work for everyone but chef Wayne Sullivan was able to successfully run his pop up restaurants that way!
At The Staff Canteen, we love a good pop up restaurant, so let us know if you are planning on having one and we could feature you in an Instagram takeover, something Tom Shepherd enjoyed! Just comment on this article and we'll be in touch or email [email protected]
By Sian Bennett
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