“No more street food, and no more shipping containers": Why CookDaily has closed its final site

Owner Chef King closed the business’s Croydon outpost last September, and its east London site closed on Sunday.

The restaurant announced that the Shoreditch Boxpark site was to close just hours before the final service, and King says that he had good reason for keeping the closing date, which had been planned for around six months, under wraps.  

“I didn't tell anyone the closing date or make a big deal out of it because I didn't want to become too overly busy and lose the quality,” he says.

“If we announced exactly when our last day was, every day there would have been a queue out of the door and down the road. I wanted to keep the quality, and didn't want to stress the staff and the team out.” 

The chef says that he has closed the two sites in order to launch a fully independent restaurant without the restraints that come with being a part of a street food development such as Boxpark.

The new restaurant, set to launch in January 2019, will act as the headquarters for King’s brand, and will allow his business to produce more podcasts, merchandise and a radio station.

“No more street food, and no more shipping containers,” says King.

“This is going to be a sit down restaurant in our casual, CookDaily style but a bit more refined. I need to take the next step, and I need to push the culture. It will be the biggest move of my career.”

The location of the new site is yet to be announced, although King says that the reason the business initially left its Croydon site was because to allow it to focus its attention on east London- his “home”.

The now-closed Shoreditch site gained a reputation for being a favourite of celebrities​​​ including Professor Green, JME and Nick Grimshaw, and often had a long queue outside. 

“There are big plans for the future, to maybe roll out 10 or 20 restaurants in high streets, going back to the shipping container style, but for now the big move is about building an independent, sit down restaurant in east London, and making it the HQ.”