Joel Braham, Oded Mizrachi and Theo Lewis have secured a former Ladbrokes site in Church Street, Stoke Newington and said Hackney Council is assisting them in securing a permission for a change of use.
The Good Egg began as a street food concept based around eggs but has morphed into a focus on brunches, Middle Eastern food and Jewish deli fare. Their 40-seater restaurant will also have a strong focus on craft beers and cocktails.
Braham, who has spent time in the kitchens at Ottolenghi, Arbutus and Divertimenti Cookery School, told M&C Report he wanted their first site to have the feel of a “family run New York deli”.
The trio, backed by Kitchenette, have launched a fundraising drive on CrowdCube for the £180,000. They hope to have planning permission secured in January and to open in late February/early March.
Braham said: “The building was a Ladbrokes for 30 years and has some really lovely features. What we want to do is to expose some of the beautiful brickwork there. Our aim is for it feel like it’s always been a part of that community. We’re really conscious that we want this to be a neighbourhood restaurant to start with before it can be a destination.”
On future growth plans Braham said: “In the short term we would be mainly looking at London but also places like Brighton or Bristol.”
He added: “I think we could grow to eight, maybe ten sites. We want to expand but we don’t want to get to a stage where we lose what we’re all about.”
Good Egg pop-up
The Good Egg began in January 2013 and has featured at a number of major food markets as well as running a pop-up in London for eight months serving 100 customers a day in a 20-seater cafe.
Braham started cooking in in pub kitchens aged 14 but most recently managed a team of software engineers at visual effects company, The Foundry. He said he came up with the idea for The Good Egg when working in Soho, as he could never get the hot, delicious and healthy breakfast he wanted. Oded is a trained lawyer who worked as pastry chef for Ottolenghi for two years. Braham said Oded’s upbringing in Tel Aviv has had a strong influence on the Good Egg menu. Lewis has had stints at Sydney’s Quay and Buon Ricordo and was most recently head chef with Soho House, opening their Pizza East restaurants in Kentish Town and Portobello.
The group’s business model is based around opening for breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days week, with an average spend of £11, targeting an average 110 daily customers during day and 40 at night.
They say their target customers are young professionals, local people working the media/creatives and local residents who include young professional families.
The investment will fund capital expenditure on the kitchen, bar, furniture, construction works, garden and pre-opening costs including professional fees such as lawyers, rent and costs during fit-out and architects.