Nowadays, especially after the long Covid-19 crisis, people want to change atmospheres, new impressions and experiences. Therefore, now more than ever, pop-up restaurants are trending. With their unique locations, designs, offers and services, they satisfy the people’s need for variety. But what exactly is a pop-up restaurant, what are existing sustainable pop-up restaurant ideas and concepts, and how can I start my own pop-up restaurant?
What is a pop-up restaurant?
As it already says, pop-up restaurants pop-up at unique and various locations and disappear again after a certain amount of time. Hence, they are not like traditional restaurant concepts, where you stay in the same location for years and might even serve the same dishes over years. No, they are dynamic, flexible and adjust to new situations and locations.
Furthermore, due to the limited amount of time, they create a feel of exclusivity. If you do not go there right now, who knows, maybe you will not be able to go there ever again. Hence, people feel positively pressured to visit the pop-up restaurant before it vanishes again.
Additionally, due to climate change and recent global developments, many pop-up restaurants create sustainable food concepts. Hence, they source their food from local suppliers, use only seasonal products, minimize food waste, and so on.
The combination of the two trends: pop-up restaurants and sustainability, results in a promising basis for a successful food concept.
Sustainable pop-up restaurant ideas: the more unique the better
Pop-up restaurants offer unique and fast changing food concepts at various preexisting places like a park, gallery, garden, plaza, museum, exhibition or another restaurant.
Therefore, the fantasy has no limits, the more unique the pop-up restaurant concept is, the better.
According to TouchBistro, some of the most famous pop up restaurants that offer a sustainable food concept are the following:
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Outstanding in the Field, global
The founder of Outstanding in the Field had the vision to bring people to the place where their food comes from. Therefore, he invented the concept of a huge pop-up dinner table at various locations like on farms, gardens, mountain tops, beaches and so on. This concept highlights fresh and regional food served right at where it has grown.
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Seadfood Stories, USA
Seafood Stories stays true to its name. They offer pop-up dinners, where they tell stories about crucial topics concerning the served food, like the impact of climate change on the ocean or the overfishing of the sea, during the different courses. Hence, next to serving sustainable, local food, they teach people how to support healthy oceans by their eating behavior. Hence, they use their food concept to educate people.
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WastED, USA
The pop-up restaurant WastED, a sub-restaurant of the famous high-class restaurant Bluehill in New York, solely uses food waste in order to create menus to be served and to spread awareness about food waste. For example, the pop-up serves a salad called “Dumpster Dive Vegetable Salad”. Hence, it displays a sustainable and fresh usage of healthy food. “Running a pop-up serving this kind of food is innovative and impressive on its own. Putting a "Dumpster Dive" vegetable salad on the menu at one of the most respected and high-end restaurants in New York City is even more so.”
These examples show that there are trillions of different sustainable pop-up food concepts which can be executed. Be it as an educational experience like seafood stories, or a paradox like the high-class Bluehill restaurant with its pop-up restaurant WastED that serves a dumpster dive vegetable salad. Sustainable pop-up restaurants can be very successful if the idea is unique and coherent.
Establishing a sustainable pop-up restaurant
Starting an own sustainable pop-up restaurant is an enormous challenge. You need to know the market and the target segments, you need official permits from the responsible authorities, the infrastructure needs to be planned, designed, and built, the finances have to be calculated and of course a food concept with local suppliers and unique, sustainable recipes must be in place. Hence, establishing a sustainable pop-up restaurant needs more than just an excellent chef.
Students of the EHL Campus Passugg accepted the challenge and have tried to create a sustainable pop-up restaurant themselves. Within a school project, they have established a sustainable pop-up restaurant in close cooperation with the 5-star Grand Resort Bad Ragaz. The pop-up restaurant, called LeftLovers, serves freshly processed byproducts within and is located in the beautiful green park of the Grand Resort Bad Ragaz in the middle of a local art exhibition.
The future of pop-up restaurants
The pandemic has hurt many pop-up restaurants as they had no steady income anymore. However, the crisis gave time to create new pop-up concepts, new trends have emerged, and pop-up restaurants will be the first ones who can adjust to that due to their dynamics and flexibility. Furthermore, pop-up restaurant owners expect that after the crisis, more than ever, people will search for experiences instead of just food. Hence, even after a tough time for pop-up restaurants, the future looks bright and many new ideas are on the way.