{"id":512527,"date":"2026-04-04T12:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T12:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/512527\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T12:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T12:44:08","slug":"uk-food-halls-buck-downbeat-hospitality-trend-in-this-impossible-climate-they-shine-hope-hospitality-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/512527\/","title":{"rendered":"UK food halls buck downbeat hospitality trend: \u2018In this impossible climate, they shine hope\u2019 | Hospitality industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beeps chirp through the cavernous Cambridge Street Collective on a busy weekday, as buzzers alert the lunch crowd to collect their sushi tacos, rendang curries or Palestinian chicken musakhan.<\/p>\n

The Sheffield<\/a> food hall is Europe\u2019s largest purpose-built venue of its kind, at 20,000 sq ft, and arrived in 2024 as part of a major redevelopment of the city, which has brought in businesses including HSBC.<\/p>\n

Food halls are on the rise as restaurateurs face a challenging economic climate<\/a> in which rising energy costs have been exacerbated by US-Israeli attacks on Iran ,and labour costs have spiralled as a result of increases to the minimum wage and national insurance contributions for employers. Many diners are also opting to stay at home as the cost of living bites. But while brick-and-mortar restaurants across the UK are closing<\/a>, food halls are making money; in major UK cities they average \u00a35.6m in annual revenue, with year-on-year growth of 10.75%. Eating at a food hall is usually a lot cheaper than going to a restaurant.<\/p>\n

There are 65 new food halls in development all over the country, including a 60,000 sq ft behemoth in Newcastle, in the old Debenhams department store, due to open this June. Manchester already has seven food halls, including the 55,000 sq ft Freight Island complex in an old depot, and Liverpool has a growing scene, including Renshaw Street Market<\/a> which serves dishes from around the world. In London, more keep opening, with four from the Market Halls company, which opened its first venue in Victoria in 2018 and boasts big-name vendors including Roti King and Le Bab.<\/p>\n

Baity Palestinian restaurant has expanded and now has sites at food halls in several cities. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cFood halls have become incubators for new businesses and have given opportunities to operators who can\u2019t even entertain the costs of bricks and mortar sites,\u201d said Matt Farrell, founder of Bold Street Coffee, who has a kiosk in Liverpool\u2019s Duke Street Market<\/a> as well as coffee shops in Liverpool and Manchester. \u201cWe have actually seen restaurants close and become traders, and vice versa. In this almost impossible climate they shine some hope for creativity and growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

In food halls, infrastructure and risk are shared, and in the case of Sheffield\u2019s Cambridge Street Collective, energy costs are paid by the owner, Blend Collective. The company also employs the front of house staff, supplies plates and crockery, and runs the till system across the venue. Vendors pay the owners a cut of their sales each month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to mainly host local businesses,\u201d said James Cowan, the finance director at Blend Collective. \u201cPeople want to come and try something new and support local people, it keeps our offering fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack Yeap opened the Malaysian restaurant Little Penang at Cambridge Street Collective after the Cantonese restaurant he worked at closed during Covid. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Last week, the large, warehouse-style space was packed with people of all ages, including parents with children, who enjoy the sandpit on the top floor. Customers hunched over laptops appeared to be \u201cworking from home\u201d with a bubble tea or a coffee. Cowan said their roof terrace gets very busy in the warmer months.<\/p>\n

At the Little Penang kiosk, the chef Jack Yeap was chopping fragrant herbs and garlic for his mise en place. \u201cI\u2019m Malaysian, but for over 10 years I worked as a chef at a Cantonese restaurant,\u201d he said. That restaurant shuttered during Covid. \u201cBut now I have opened a Malaysian restaurant here, which is much better, it\u2019s my own place but also it\u2019s my own food,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It may have been difficult for him to get funding for a bricks-and-mortar restaurant to sell his cuisine, which is less well-established in the UK than Cantonese food, so opening a kiosk in a food hall seemed like a perfect low risk option. \u201cWe have become popular, I am very happy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Some of the restaurants have made the leap from the food hall to brick-and-mortar sites after proving their concept is popular. Baity, which first opened in Blend\u2019s Manchester food hall, and now has a kiosk in the Sheffield offering, is Europe\u2019s first multi-city Palestinian chain. It will be one of the launch restaurants at Blend\u2019s newest food hall, in the former Bird\u2019s custard factory in Birmingham\u2019s trendy Digbeth.<\/p>\n

Lunch is served at Little Penang at Cambridge Street Collective. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Bao, which now has multiple critically acclaimed sites across London<\/a>, first traded in Netil Market in Hackney. Black Bear Burger has nine restaurants in London, but first operated at the food hall Street Feast, where Michelin-recommended Smokestak in Shoreditch also debuted.<\/p>\n

Kevin Hong started his career as a chef at what he calls a \u201cstandard Japanese ramen restaurant\u201d, but longed to experiment with fusion food so he pitched an idea to Blend, who took it up. Now, he has a ramen bar which marries Japanese and Korean flavours.<\/p>\n

He is also extremely excited about his new sushi taco kiosk, which opened a month ago. \u201cWe are trying something new, a crunchy fried seaweed shell filled with Japanese filling like chicken teriyaki or prawn tempura,\u201d Hong said.<\/p>\n

The Cutlery Works food hall, in Sheffield\u2019s former industrial stronghold. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Hong has now also opened a brick-and-mortar restaurant, serving Japanese barbecue and sushi. \u201cI am delighted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But has the UK reached peak food hall? Cowan disagreed. \u201cI don\u2019t think it has, there is still a lot of growth, and it depends on the area,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is unclear if Sheffield can support more than six, we probably do have enough here, but there are areas around the country which have a lot of growth potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Sheffield\u2019s former industrial stronghold of Kelham, once populated with steel factories, is the Cutlery Works food hall, also owned by Blend. As the name suggests, it is in an old cutlery factory.<\/p>\n

The Cutlery Works in Sheffield is in what was once a cutlery factory in Kelham. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

With exposed brickwork, neon lighting and large windows through which a disused steel factory can be seen, it feels very post-industrial. Last Wednesday, groups of people were gathered to have lunch, with some indulging in a cheeky afternoon pint from the upstairs bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis area is being redeveloped,\u201d Cowan said. \u201cYou can see that big digger out the window, that pile of rubble will be flats.\u201d<\/p>\n

But not everyone is happy with the prospect. A short walk from the Cutlery Works, graffiti scrawled on the side of a derelict building reads \u201cyuppies go home\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beeps chirp through the cavernous Cambridge Street Collective on a busy weekday, as buzzers alert the lunch crowd…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-512527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}