Pop Up Restaurant

Pop Up Restaurant Success Stories [2024]

Pat Walls

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Updated: October 8th, 2024

Are you passionate about food but daunted by the complexities of running a full-scale restaurant? Consider a pop-up restaurant.

A pop-up restaurant is a temporary dining experience that sets up shop in unique, often unexpected locations for a limited time.

It's a fantastic way to test culinary concepts, build a following, and create buzz without the hefty investment required for a permanent establishment. You can focus on the quality of your menu and the dining experience, rather than long-term overhead costs.

Whether you’re a seasoned chef or an aspiring foodie entrepreneur, the transient nature of a pop-up lets you play with flavors and themes to gauge public interest. With careful planning and the right marketing strategy, a pop-up restaurant can turn your culinary dreams into reality, offering an innovative and flexible path into the food industry.

In this list, you'll find real-world pop-up restaurant success stories and very profitable examples of starting a pop-up restaurant that makes money.

1. Urban Smokehouse ($1.5M/year)

Andrew Buehler, founder of Urban Smokehouse, came up with the idea for his business after noticing the growing market trend and opportunity for online delivery of perishable items during the COVID-19 lockdown. As a foodie with a background in financial services, Buehler saw the rising demand for BBQ, a food that tastes great but is often inconvenient to make, and decided to create a digitally native BBQ brand that offers pre-cooked and sauced ribs that can be easily prepared at home in under 20 minutes. He launched Urban Smokehouse as a Kickstarter project and quickly surpassed his goal, raising over $30,000 in pre-orders.

How much money it makes: $1.5M/year
How much did it cost to start: $15K
How many people on the team: 5

How We Hit Our Goal Within 24 Hours On Kickstarter And Raised $30K+ Worth of Preorders

Andrew Buehler launched Urban Smokehouse, the world’s first digitally native BBQ brand, through a Summer Kickstarter campaign, raising over $30,000 in pre-orders; since then, the company has achieved monthly sales of over $5,000 split between their website and in-person pop-ups and events, relying heavily on word of mouth and organic social media.

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