How To Go From A Pop-Up To One Of London's Most Loved Restaurant Groups

Episode Summary

Most restaurants that feel like overnight successes spent years becoming one. Bubala is no different. In this episode, Mark Summers pulls back the curtain on two years of pop-ups, a six-week first opening, a coffee machine that killed the electrics on launch night, and the slow, deliberate work of building a culture that now spans three sites and a growing support office.

The conversation covers what it truly costs to scale - financially, operationally, and personally - and why the most popular restaurant in the world can still go broke if the fundamentals aren't right. From dropping the set menu back to £39, to hiring a general manager six months before opening, to using data and gut feel in equal measure, Mark delivers one of the most grounded and honest accounts of multi-site restaurant growth you'll hear.

Learnings From The Episode

Mark has built Bubala from scratch - no outside backing, no shortcuts, no safety net. Every lesson in this episode was earned on the floor.

Overnight success takes years

Before Bubala's Spitalfields site opened, Mark spent two years doing pop-ups. Not building hype - testing, listening, and removing anything guests didn't love. Including dishes he personally thought were brilliant.

The lesson: proving the concept before committing to bricks and mortar is not caution. It is the work.

Leave your ego at the door

One of the clearest principles Mark runs Bubala by: if a dish isn't working, take it off. Immediately. Don't push it. Don't try to convince guests they're wrong.

This applies as much to menu decisions as it does to leadership. The operators who scale successfully are the ones willing to be wrong quickly and move on without sentiment.

It's a Middle Eastern restaurant that happens to be vegetarian

The positioning of Bubala was deliberate from day one. Not a vegetarian restaurant. Not a vegan concept. A Middle Eastern restaurant that doesn't serve meat - built by someone who isn't vegetarian himself.

That distinction changes everything. The menu is built around texture, umami, and flavour profiles. Guests regularly finish a meal without realising there was no meat on the menu. That is the goal.

Veg-led gives you a margin buffer - but it doesn't make you immune

Vegetables are cheaper than meat. That gave Bubala a slightly stronger starting margin. But six years of cost inflation wiped that advantage out entirely. The set menu went from £30 to £46 with no extra profit at the end of it.

Mark's response: drop it back to £39. Because value perception matters as much as the number itself. Guests who leave saying "that was a no brainer" come back. Guests who leave feeling overcharged don't.

Culture doesn't scale itself - you have to build it intentionally

Going from one site to two, Mark made the decision to hire the General Manager and Assistant General Manager for Soho six months before opening. It was costly. It was also the best decision he made.

Those two senior hires had time to understand what Bubala stands for before a single guest walked through the door. The culture at opening was strong because of it. By King's Cross, the management team was drawn almost entirely from existing Bubala staff - people who had lived the culture for at least a year before being asked to carry it somewhere new.

You are the culture at one site. At three, you need a system.

At a single site, the founder's energy carries everything. Scale beyond that and culture has to be documented, taught, and hired for deliberately.

Bubala is now working to define exactly what they look for in leaders - moving beyond gut instinct toward a clearer framework for identifying the people who will carry the culture forward as the group grows.

Winning Happiest Workplace was the proudest moment - not a food award

The Happiest Workplace award was voted for by Bubala's own team. Mark describes it as the proudest moment of running the business - not because culture was the original goal, but because the team chose to say so themselves.

In an industry defined by high turnover and burnout, that vote of confidence from the people doing the work every day means more than any critic's review.

Tech is only useful if you actually use it properly

Bubala uses Tenzo to aggregate data across all sites into one place. The insight it delivers has changed how decisions get made - but Mark is clear that data alone is not the answer. The combination of gut feel and data is what works. Tech that isn't used to its full potential is almost useless.

The upcoming addition of All Gravy for internal communications reflects a deliberate choice: no WhatsApp groups, clear boundaries between work and personal life, and a do-not-disturb culture that protects the team when they are off the clock.

The most popular restaurant in the world can still go broke

Food, drinks, and service are necessary but not sufficient. Utility bills, payment processing rates, lease terms, storage constraints, prep costs - the ecosystem of a restaurant is enormous, and any one of those variables can quietly erode a margin that looked healthy on paper.

Mark's advice: know your numbers. Not just the headline ones. All of them.

Be prepared for chaos - and mentally rehearse it

Mark's approach to every service is to walk in asking "what's going to go wrong today?" Not from anxiety - from preparation. Operators who walk in hoping for a smooth service are the ones who panic when it isn't. Operators who expect something to go wrong are already composed when it does.

The opening night at Spitalfields - coffee machine flooding the electrics, no EPOS system, handwritten checks, candlelight in the kitchen - was not a disaster. It was a story. One that still gets told with a smile.

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