Idealistic chefs and caterers settle into a spot, set up their wares and are gone a short time later, leaving behind only the sweet smell of Italian tomatoes or authentic Texas barbecue and a few customers gathered hopefully around the empty spot, wanting more.
Restaurants come and go. That’s the nature of the hospitality industry, and nowhere is that statement more prevalent than Cardiff’s pop-up restaurant scene.
A GROWING TREND
The Drunken Sailor’s banana waffle. Harris takes the traditionally American breakfast food, beefs it up with unusual combinations and sells the result as a gourmet experiment.
This trend has skyrocketed in recent years. Pop-up restaurants can spring up anywhere from a stall outside St David’s to a bricks-and-mortar kitchen, and can stay in one place for a month to as little as an afternoon. They can be part of a much larger event, such as the Bratwurst Kitchen that is incorporated into the Cardiff Christmas Market each year, or they can be very independent, such as the upcoming waffle-shop The Drunken Sailor. But how successful is this temporary business model?
“It all depends on how you define success” says Jordan Harris, entrepreneur and the brains behind the Drunken Sailor. “In my opinion success isn’t necessarily about making the big bucks; it’s becoming a part of the community. It’s about utilising the wealth of produce that is right here on our doorstep, interacting with your food and the people who cook it or produce it. For me, I won’t class Drunken Sailor a success unless I bring a smile to someone’s face as they stuff it with a waffle.”
A FREE TRIAL
The staff at the Brulee Bar torch their wares in front of a lucky Alt.Cardiff reporter!To consider success in such terms is a refreshing change of pace, but this seems like a remarkably idealistic standpoint in an era in which so many restaurants are struggling to turn a profit. Simon Thomas, of gourmet sausage pop-up Haute Dogs, looks at pop-ups as a path to something greater.
“The whole pop-up concept is gaining traction now,” says Thomas. “It’s now a viable route to market for start-ups.”
“I would say that the pop-up concept is just as expensive to run as setting up a full on bricks and mortar business” adds Matt “the Hat” Lawton of Dirty Bird, a new speciality chicken pop-up and part of the team behind the Depot’s month-long new event, Street Food Feast. “The one thing it does do is give you the freedom to trial ideas and concepts without being locked into a long lease and we have used this freedom to launch brands and test concepts, which in turn have brought us success.”
The idea of the pop-up as a limited trial, simultaneously “road testing” a business as well as making audiences aware of it, has merit. But the shadow of the economic crisis often continues to put off prospective entrepreneurs.
“In the current economic climate, it is incredibly hard for someone to enter into the culinary industry”, Harris agrees. “The people who own pop-ups may also not be able to take an immediate plunge straight into owning a restaurant and quit their current job. Pop-ups are the perfect foot in the door.”
“The pop up arrangement offers a relatively risk free opportunity for entrepreneurs to road test concepts and ideas, which is important in depressed markets” says Thomas.
A SOCIAL STORY
Customers dig in at the Depot. The low lighting and art installations make for an ethereal setting.
A big factor in ensuring pop-ups will be sticking around is to have people willing to order to get a business off the ground, despite the “depressed market” of the hospitality industry. But pop-ups first need to draw some footfall away from their competitors: the high street chains, other vendors and established bricks-and-mortar restaurants. Like most of industries, it runs the danger of becoming a battle of competitors, with big business in one corner and the start-ups in the other. How do the entrepreneurs see this side of pop-ups?
“I don’t see it as competition so much” says Thomas. “These pop up temporary projects are just offering diners and clubbers an alternative to the main stream proposition.”
“Customers like the social story of being the first to experience something, or being part of something special” adds Lawton. “This concept, the pop-up, give them that story. Going to the high street for dinner is not exciting full stop.”
The low-lit hipster hangout The Depot certainly delivers on that story. Artfully decorated and buried in Cardiff’s industrial district, Street Food Cardiff offers delights such as nachos topped with slow-cooked steak and the Brulee Bar torching their product in front of hungry punters, it’s delightfully original and genuinely exciting.
The hospitality industry is the same as any other – it thrives on innovation, and as long consumers are being given access to new foods in exciting new ways, innovation remains. As long as those idealistic chefs keep materialising where we least expect them, the pop-up looks likely continue to thrive in Cardiff.
