Speaking at Restaurant magazine and MCA’s Generation Next event this week, Andy Lewis-Pratt said it was natural to see a “churn” in operators at the food halls.
He said: “That’s ok, you expect that. If you go for someone with a new idea, they’re not all going to work. The difference is if it fails no one lost a lot of money.
“Yes, we want some churn, two to three traders every 12 months per scheme is what we expect to see naturally occur.
“As yet we’ve not kicked anybody out who didn’t want to go. It’s been a mutual understanding that this concept doesn’t work here…maybe they try it in a different place.”
Market Halls opened sites in London’s Fulham and Victoria in 2018 and on Oxford Street in 2019.
Lewis-Pratt added that there were now “three or four” core food traders in each hall, which he likened to ‘anchor tenants’ in a shopping centre.
When asked about the future of the Market Halls model, he said it was “possible” the concept could explore becoming a ‘competitive socialising’ concept like darts bar Flight Club in future.
But he added this was unlikely given the model was working well in its current form in London.
“If it’s not broken why fix it? Our traders keep changing and evolving, is that good enough? Hopefully. If not we’ll change our [offering], maybe bring competitive socialising in to it, but not for at least a couple of years.”
Market Halls also ran a site at the Intu shopping centre in Essex, which closed in December after six months.
Generation Next is a club for the rising stars in hospitality. For information on how to join or the next club events, contact jo.wattar@wrbm.com
