Eat 17 offers franchise opportunity to socially-distanced pubs and restaurants

The chain is planning to open new stores around the capital and is on the hunt for retailers, as well as pubs and restaurants, who are looking to diversify and utilise space opened up by social distancing.

Eat17, which combines elements of a convenience store with eating out, has achieved rapid growth and has an annual turnover of around £10m. It has outlets in Walthamstow, Hackney, Hammersmith, and Bishops Stortford.

The retailer, which started in 2006 in East London, and has forged a partnership with AF Blakemore to combine Spar branding with Eat17 to create a high-end convenience store. Each store also offers a dining experience with menus focusing on locally-sourced fresh produce and tastes from across the globe, working closely with street food vendors.

Eat17 co-founder, James Brundle, said: “Our concept has been working well in our four stores for 14 years and it’s a model that can easily be applied to businesses that have struggled over the last three months. It’s a combination of a food retail outlet and in normal times, restaurants and places customers can buy quality street food. That model could work well with those businesses that have found things tough during lockdown. Most will already be set up with a proper catering kitchen meaning restaurant quality food is going to be a possibility.

“Where it isn’t or they want to diversify, that’s something we can help with. The same with the retail side of the business. We partner with Spar on our retail outlets. We can get into businesses and give the advice and support they need to get the retail side off the ground. We can also offer a large selection of foods we create ourselves from scratch including butchery items, wraps, sandwiches, sourdough bread, and top quality ready meals.”

During the pandemic Eat17 has had to diversify its business to work around lockdown and the restrictions in place. Home delivery has been introduced for the food retail and street food sides of the business.

Brindle added: “The last three months have undoubtedly been tough for retailers and we’re having to find new ways to do business and reach customers. Home delivery has very become part of our core offering and restrictions have been put in place in-store to ensure our staff and customers remain safe.

“For other businesses, the pandemic has hit much harder and they’re the people we want to reach now and help them create a new stream of revenue with a unique offering for their local area.”