People choose to become their own boss for a variety of reasons. You might have been hit by the financial crisis and need to create or supplement an income, or you may simply wish to escape the nine-to-five existence to work on something closer to your heart.

Whatever your reason, opening a Pop Up Takeaway with hungryhouse.co.uk will mean you're able to enjoy minimal setup costs (so often a stumbling block for budding entrepreneurs) and begin earning within one month of deciding to take the plunge. You'll be working evening hours that you set yourself, so whether the plan is to earn a little extra cash, or to grow your restaurant over time and eventually leave the rat race, you'll have the flexibility to achieve whatever you wish... Remember, you're the boss!

Earning Potential

Obviously, choices that you make on what type of food to offer will affect the demand for your menu. This means that earning potential is variable between individuals. However, at hungryhouse we see trends across all types of cuisines and areas of the UK, and have based these forecasts on realistic expectations.

For a new restaurant coming online, the main thing that decides success or failure is customer satisfaction. Because of this, when you are new and have no reviews, you should not expect a sudden flood of orders. Business is likely to start slowly - perhaps only 1 order in an evening - but stick with it, get your first few orders and reviews under your belt and business will soon grow into a bigger and more reliable stream.

Your aim has to be to consistently attract '4 out of 5' or '5 out of 5' reviews from the start. If you can do this, you'll begin to build a positive reputation for your Pop Up Takeaway. Grow a good base of reviews, and customers will gain confidence that you're reliable. You could then expect around 3 orders a night (Thursday - Sunday). Depending on your prices, 3 orders in a night should average out to somewhere between £30 and £50.

Growing business beyond this, it's a combination of putting together a menu that there's good local demand for, and maintaining your standards. With a few months of trading history, 30 or so really good reviews, and a group of loyal customers, you could easily be getting 5 orders per night over the weekend - £50 or even £100 in sales in a night!

Many of the most successful businesses on hungryhouse attract 20 or more orders per night. There's nothing to say that you can't go much higher than our estimates!


Find out how you would get business from hungryhouse