By Ian McConnell
HOSPITALITY entrepreneur David Hall, a former general manager of Edinburgh boutique hotel Tigerlily, has teamed up with ex-Hearts FC footballer George Wright to launch a business which aims to “revolutionise the way Scots enjoy takeaways”.
The pair’s Tribe Kitchen business will launch in the north of Edinburgh on Thursday – working with restaurants as it aims to capitalise on demand for high-quality meals for home delivery – after an initial investment of £250,000. Investment has included the creation of a central “smart” or “cloud” kitchen. Tribe Kitchen declared this concept is “big in the United States”. The kitchen will be overseen by executive chef Duncan Adamson
Tribe Kitchen also revealed plans to launch in other parts of Edinburgh and, subsequently, in other Scottish cities.
READ MORE: Brexit: Ian McConnell – Time to take off blinkers and deal with alarming crisis
Diners will be able to choose from dishes from a variety of “carefully selected independent restaurants” and from Tribe Kitchen’s own range of brands.
The whole order is then prepared by a team of professional Tribe Kitchen chefs. Tribe Kitchen will have its own delivery staff, on e-bikes.
Punjabi street food business Pakora Bar and Mexican restaurant Bodega are among those to have joined Tribe Kitchen. Their menus will sit alongside Tribe Kitchen’s “own range of restaurant-quality dishes”.
Tribe Kitchen said its brand range had been “inspired by cooking styles from around the world such as buttermilk chicken burgers from Saucy Birds, Asian fusion dishes from Soul Bowl and healthy delights from Naka”.
READ MORE: New directorship for Baroness Ruth Davidson revealed in Companies House filing
It added that it was “looking for more entrepreneurial foodies and restaurants to join the Tribe”.
Explaining its business model, and setting out what it believes will be the benefits for partner restaurants, Tribe Kitchen said: “In a fundamental shift from the current delivery model in Scotland, there is no cost, capital outlay, staff, or logistical issues for the high-quality local independent restaurants that have signed up to be part of Tribe Kitchen.”
It added: “The team of Tribe Kitchen chefs work with partner restaurants to design and agree on a delivery-focused menu and the restaurant receives a revenue share of any sale in which their cuisine is included in the order. This resolves the current hardships many restaurants experience in which much of the margin is taken by delivery platforms and all of the delivery complaints sit firmly with the restaurants.”
Hospitality sector veteran Mr Hall, who also owns Vesta Bar & Kitchen in Edinburgh, said: “At a time when small restaurants have limited staff resource and must focus on satisfying existing in-restaurant demand, we can support them with additional revenue from those who aren’t eating out, whilst promoting their venues. It is a win-win concept.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here