Caravan poised to sign on first non-London restaurant site

Coffee and all-day dining brand Caravan has revealed it is about to sign on its ninth restaurant and first site outside of London.

Laura Harper-Hinton, co-founder and chief executive of Caravan, told The Caterer: “We’ve been talking about the project that’s outside of London for three and a half years. We definitely always had the aim to expand, but just wanted to choose the right time.

“Obviously the pandemic put a handbrake on everyone. Pre-pandemic we were talking about getting outside of London, so it’s exciting to be finally able to do it.”

Caravan opened its first site in London’s Exmouth Market 13 years ago. By the end of this year, its portfolio will have grown to eight restaurants across the capital, following the launch of its flagship site in Covent Garden next month.

The team took on minority stake-hold private equity backing five years into the business, which supported the opening of Caravan’s third site in Bankside.

Harper-Hinton told Casual Dining Show in London this week: “For the next phase of expansion, we are looking at what [funding] might look like. I really like the idea of doing more neighbourhood restaurants. [Covent Garden] will be our last centrally located site for a while. We are really excited about the prospect of getting outside of London, but certainly not on the massive roll-out, scale-up-hugely scenario.”

She hinted Caravan’s first regional site will be in a “fantastic city rich in music and sport history” that “reminds us of Wellington, New Zealand”.

The structure of the business has also changed since 2010. Although the three founders are still involved – with Chris Ammermann as managing director for the coffee side of the business and Miles Kirby as chef director – Jane O’Riordan has been brought in as chair of the board and Jo Fleet, who previously held senior roles at Flat Iron and Wahaca, as managing director.

“It’s a unique situation as a founder when you recognise you don’t have the skillset required to grow the business beyond where you’ve grown it to," said Harper-Hinton.

"We recognised that we needed to bring somebody else in, and building that structure and culture is obviously crucially important.

“The board’s fantastic. Our investor director who sits on our board is also a woman, so we’re actually stacked [with] more women on our board.”