Seven Dials food hall making it easier to customise guest drink orders

The UK knows how to do a food hall, and KERB, who incubate and accelerate street food businesses, are the go-to experts for multi-vendor hospitality venues. We chatted with Molly (Floor Supervisor) and Ola (Bar Manager) at Seven Dials Market, a London food hall with 20 independent traders two bars, in the heart of Covent Garden.

“We are one of the best food markets in the world,” Holly said with a bang out of the gate.

“me&u basically helps us get orders really, really easy. Just a little QR code on every single table in the venue which means as our customers can order whatever they want. There's loads of options, they can add notes for differences on their drinks and things like that. 

“It's been really helpful, and it's definitely increased our sales”

Seven Dials Market is a KERB location, which comes with many benefits for the vendors.

“As part of KERB, we have an inkerbator programme where we basically pick up food traders. They start doing events, and we kind of coach them through that, and then they come to us at Seven Dials Market and we just give them a bit more training on bricks and mortar, how to run a business, and then we release them into the big wide world to go and hopefully flourish.”

As well as being senior staff, Holly and Ola also enjoy what’s on offer at Seven Dials. What are their favourite vendors?

“I’d have to say Bad Boy Pizza Society. To be fair, Arnabeet - they are amazing,” Holly said.

“At the moment we’ve got two bars open, each with pretty different menus,” Ola said.”The downstairs bar like the classic cocktails, and we’ve got a few of our house ones. The upstairs bar has our Summerhouse Sour, which is my favourite drink at Seven Dials. A nice cucumber gin sour with some plum sherbet and hibiscus.”

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Incubating and accelerating street food businesses

KERB started with one lunch market and a vision to make it normal to enjoy good food on the streets of London. 

Today, KERB focuses on four areas: membership, business incubator, food hall operator and event caterer. On a mission to create opportunity and joy through great food, from the kerb up, KERB lured Holly over by not being corporate.

“I love hospitality,” Holly said.

“I love speaking to people, but I was really conscious that the jump had to be right. I didn't want to leave my cushy office job to come and work for just anyone. So when the opportunity came for KERB, I just absolutely grabbed it by both horns. I want to work here.

“With other food halls, they've now gone very corporate, or maybe there's less of a focus on helping independent traders. Whereas at KERB, that is a huge part of our values, Which is, quite honestly, one of the main reasons I'm here.”

To get started with me&u’s food hall sales and marketing tool, click here.

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