The Little Door & Co. is looking to open its next site in London, with the view of continuing to open one site per year, co-founders Jamie Hazeel and Kamran Dehdashti tell MCA.
The London-based four-strong group, which runs house-party inspired bars, recently reported record trading over Christmas, with overall revenue up by 116% at £1.3m across the estate in December 2022.
“Rail strikes had a quantifiable and distinctive impact,” Hazeel says. “We would have reported even more sensational numbers if not for the strikes.”
“We managed to recuperate some of the value of lost bookings by negotiating people to come back in January,” Dehdashti adds.
While the brand’s estate is concentrated in residential areas – Notting Hill, Fulham, and Clapham – its newest site, The Little Scarlet Door in Soho, did “sensationally well.”
“While our neighbourhood venues continue to be much loved, The Little Scarlet Door is performing as well as other venues,” Hazeel adds. “We want to have venues all over London, both residential and otherwise.”
Any dips in trade have been due to strikes, with no evidence of recessionary behaviour yet, according to the founders. The business has seen post-Christmas trading as well.
“Trade is pretty bang on where we want it to be,” Hazeel says. “People perceive our venues as a special place to go.
“We thought about having a recession-proof offer, but we’re confident we’re already offering the best value for money.”
Following the Soho opening, the founders consider the brand as proven in both neighbourhood and city centre locations, and are looking to open another London site in the coming months.
“With The Little Scarlet Door, we pivoted to New York-style apartment and retested the brand,” Dehdashti said.
“There’s a huge possibility in our brand’s ability to create venues that are distinctly Little Door & Co. and homes away from home,” Hazeel added. “There’s definitely scope beyond London, within or outside the UK.
“We wondered how many London venues we can open without being a chain. Now we’ve gotten to four, and there’s still nothing uniform in what we do.”
