What began as a hobby has become a viable way of breaking into the restaurant world proper. Is the food van the new weapon in securing a successful bricks ‘n’ mortar operation?
Yianni Papoutsis is worried. We’re shooting at MeatLiquor, undoubtedly the coolest burger spot in the UK at the moment, and the co-owner and founder is concerned that our idea of photographing his food against a posh backdrop - we’ve brought with us a tablecloth, wine glass and silver salt ’n’ pepper shakers - will send out the wrong message.
“You’re not going to make us look like we’ve got delusions of grandeur, are you?” he frets. “I don’t want people thinking we consider ourselves special. I’m not a chef. I’m just a person that likes food and can cook.”
Papoutsis’s concern is genuine. Just a couple of years ago he was serving burgers from an old van, dubbed the Meatwagon, in a car park in Peckham, south London. Today, alongside co-owner Scott Collins, he is responsible for two burger joints - MeatLiquor and more latterly MeatMarket - which have exploded on to the London market like a hydrogen bomb.
Both have the edgy feel of the Meatwagon’s humble beginnings and continue the original philosophy of high-quality, no-frills food. Yet make no bones about it - more experienced restaurateurs would saw off their right arm for a piece of the buzz the pair have created surrounding their burger business.
So why the posh props? Their role is to emphasise not only Papoutsis and Collins’s move from moveable van operators to permanent patty protagonists, but also the growing trend for many other concepts that started on the street to cross over into bricks ’n’ mortar.
Recent examples include PittCue, which began life as a barbecue trailer parked under Hungerford Bridge on London’s South Bank, and which now has a restaurant off Carnaby Street, and Lucky Chip, a Hackney-based burger van that will soon take permanent residence in Soho, under the guise of Slider Bar. Then there’s mobile burrito van Daddy
Donkey, which is seeking a permanent restaurant venue to set up its Mexican grill in the capital.
At a time when many restaurants are failing across the UK, investors are scrutinising the street-food scene for the next profitable, even scaleable concept. Business angels are rumoured to be backing an increasing number of the new street start-ups, in the hope they too might cross over.
The reasons for this are manifold. For a start, street food is now the height of fashion, with food markets such as Borough, Maltby Street in Bermondsey and Whitecross in Barbican more popular than ever before.
The popular hawker tradition in Asia, where stalls are packed together to create a space with an excellent reputation for serving traditional food, is also having an influence over here. Not only has this ‘food court’-style trend evolved in shopping malls such as Westfield’s two London developments, where groups of operators riff on the street-food theme, but it has also taken to the streets.
Eat St, a thrice-weekly ‘micro-market’ in King’s Cross, features a rotating roster of food traders, from Lucky Chip, Big Apple Hot Dogs and The Ribman to Hot Rocks Pizza, Hardcore Prawn and Pizza Pilgrims, while Northern StrEats is a similar collective of traders in the north of England.
Moreover, rather than sifting through thousands of untested investment opportunities from wannabe restaurateurs, the money men can see first hand the potential for a concept, how it is received by the paying public and the passion its owners have for their product. Someone with the gumption to get out there and flog food is becoming more attractive to an investor than he who hides behind a business plan.
The backers that some mobile operators have attracted is testament to this. MeatLiquor counts former Clapham House Group chairman David
Page as a shareholder, while Richard Turner, executive chef at Hawksmoor, and business partner Simon Anderson, owner of The Albion pub in Islington, are investors in PittCue. Anderson is also involved in Roost, a new restaurant concept from some of the new street start-ups, in the hope they too might cross over.
“David [Page] came and queued up and kinda got it,” says Collins. “He hadn’t heard of us, and he knew nothing about us, but he really liked it. Having him on board gives us the opportunity to do things, but it’s a two-way street. He says it’s the most exciting ‘restaurant’ he’s opened in 30 years in the business.”
Page was even instrumental in finding the location for MeatLiquor - underneath a car park, above a strip club off London’s Oxford Circus - which Collins describes as “a dog of a site that no one wanted”, but in which Page instantly saw the potential. Page admits it is the edgier food concepts, street food or otherwise, that offer scaleability in the industry in the near future. “I would look at Brixton to see where the restaurant successes of the next 10 years will be, not Kensington or Dubai,” says the seasoned restaurateur.
Yet most important of all is the overall quality of mobile catering, which has risen to such a degree that restaurateurs are even starting to sit up and notice. Whereas a mobile food van used to mean processed sausage carts outside clubs at 3am and pre-cooked burgers being flogged down the local car boot sale, many of today’s offers - from banh mi to hot dogs - can rival any mid-market restaurant.
So much so, in fact, that the lines between what’s street food and what’s restaurant-quality fare have become blurred. London-based Big Apple Hot Dogs has a van that travels through the capital and tours festivals, and has gained a strong following for its high-quality 94% to 98% meat dogs - and its product is now also served in Russell Norman’s latest venue, Mishkin’s. Likewise, Lucky Chip’s burger has featured on the menu at Giant Robot in Clerkenwell.
Nor is it just the investors who can see street food’s potential. From an operator perspective there are plenty of advantages in using a mobile van to get a foothold in the industry.
Start-up costs are comparatively low, as are running costs, and former street-food operations needn’t splash out on glitzy restaurant fit-outs, either. PittCue’s diminutive Newburgh Street site cost just £150,000, while MeatLiquor came in at £200,000 - both very low by London standards.
“Those who came to the truck tend to understand I’d rather buy a beautiful pig than shiny taps. That’s the backbone of what we do,” admits PittCue co-owner Tom Adams.
Restaurateurs are also starting to use the momentum of the street-food movement to plan future ventures. Cass Titcombe is soon to launch his chicken restaurant, Roost, in central London, but in advance of its opening he is taking to the streets from this month with his Roost food van, which will give customers a taste of what’s to come. Roost’s focus will be free-range British chicken and its van will offer a pared-down version of the final restaurant menu, including buttermilk-fried chicken, chicken noodle soup and two types of burger. “With the van, we’ve basically got a development kitchen that we are trading with,” says Titcombe. “We can develop the Roost brand and test opinion, things you traditionally do only when you’re open.
“We always wanted to have a mobile van, but the order in which we did things hadn’t been decided,” he says. “The timetable to secure our restaurant site has lengthened and we didn’t want to lose our momentum, so we are putting it into something solid in the meantime.”
Titcombe is feeling the benefits of having a van even before it is up and running. “Once news of the van came out agents have been calling with news about potential sites. Before, I had to approach them but now they are coming to me. I don’t know whether it’s because they think I’m more serious about finding a restaurant now, but it’s been useful.”
In theory, then, street food sounds like the perfect platform for dynamic young chefs to move on to greater things. There’s a fashionable scene, low start-up costs, investors circling and the opportunity to popularise and market-test a product before opening a quirky, inexpensive permanent site. Yet there are pitfalls to avoid. First, customers unaware of the original street concept might find a permanent equivalent jarring. “Those who didn’t come to the truck sometimes don’t really understand why we’ve chosen a 25-seat site with hardly any décor,” admits PittCue’s Adams.
Then there’s the reality that not all street concepts will transfer to a permanent site - its very nature is that it’s often food not served in a restaurant. Could the new wave of offerings - kebabs, French dipped sandwiches, hot dogs - make the leap? The answer: possibly. New concepts such as the imminent Bubbledogs in Fitzrovia are giving it a go, but it is no dead cert.
Papoutsis also believes street food is more of a mentality than a product, something that has to be retained after the switch from market stalls to plaster walls. There’s little point launching on the street if your bricks ’n’ mortar site will immediately distance itself from the original concept, he says.
“What we serve is not really street food. Roast beef sandwiches can be street food, but if you serve them in a carvery they’re not. What we do here is fulfil the purpose of street food, which is giving local people something that’s convenient, hot, easy to eat and good quality.”
Whether the success of the likes of PittCue and MeatLiquor will spawn a generation of cheap, rough ’n’ ready restaurant sites is also a moot point. Writer and broadcaster Richard Johnson, who champions the street-food movement and founded the British Street Food Awards back in 2010 is sceptical “It won’t revolutionise the way we eat,” he says. “I don’t think you’ll ever do away with comfortable seating and an ability to book.
I’m of an age where I’m not prepared to queue for two hours. So, pray to god it never does away with the wonderful restaurants.”
PittCue’s second site will be bigger to reduce the queues and Papoutsis and Collins’ next opening might take bookings for the first time in response to criticism of its queues - the movement is as much about evolution as revolution, it seems.
There is also a question mark - as established restaurants spin off street food operations - over how long the street-food scene can remain so cool and energetic. Wahaca has its mobile Mexican Street Kitchen, Byron a glamorous burger van, Pizza Express a long-standing presence at festivals. Will such professionalism kill the scene’s buzz, and therefore the potential to use mobile units as a springboard to permanence in the future?
Tellingly, one of the major factors behind the success of those operators that have made the move has been a lack of ambition for permanence. “I never set out with any particular goal in mind,” says Papoutsis. “I just thought I could make more money with a van than it just sitting in an ISA. This attitude has permeated everything we’ve done since.”
Indeed, despite now having a fixed address, a transient nature to the burger business remains. MeatLiquor has only a six-year lease with three-year break clause and the Jubilee Market space will be redeveloped in the future, eventually sounding the death knell for MeatMarket.
PittCue’s Adams adds a note of caution. “I’d be wary of having a restaurant as the sole incentive and end-game. We honestly thought it’d be a fun way to spend the summer. Starting as a hobby is a good way to go and is what makes street food great. If too many chefs get involved it may undermine this. I’d prefer to eat with someone who lives for what they do, rather than someone looking for a fast-track into a restaurant.”
* This article first appeared in the July issue of Restaurant magazine.
