Our Story

Our journey into the world of street food and markets began with a humble chicken wing. 

In 2018, after working in office jobs for close to 10 years, we decided to pursue our dream of becoming street food traders specialising in Buffalo Chicken Wings. On a family trip to New York (in 2016) we discovered the chicken wing to beat all chicken wings: The Buffalo Wing. 

On our return to London, we trawled food markets across the city we called home, and even dared to venture outside of the capital on our quest. What we discovered at the time: less than a handful of street food outlets exclusively offered chicken wings, and fewer still specialised in the tangy New York Style, Buffalo Wings that we had come to crave. 

Over the next two years we took our Buffalo wings across the best markets in London. As a small, independent, food trader we learned the true value of passion, determination, hard work, and love of the craft – especially on the bad days. Furthermore, we learned what worked well at markets, what didn’t seem to work at all, and perhaps most importantly – what we would do differently. There is value to a knowledge learned through trial and error, through meeting fellow traders and the market organisers, security guards and punters, and to persevering and growing when challenges cross your path.

In 2020, after our second year of successful trading at markets across the capital including iconic London locations, respected lunch time markets, featured at specialist ticketed wing events (yes, they’re a thing), survived a fruitful six-week pub residency and when we’d just started to hire our first staff, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Our story is unfortunately not unlike so many others in our industry, but we were determined to find a safe outlet for the industry we loved. So, after the first lockdown as we headed into summer and the lockdown restrictions eased, in a local playground in South Norwood, we started a weekly Sunday market and put into practice all that we had learned from the past two years. It turned out, there was still a lot more to learn! 

We set out to create a trader friendly market that prioritised local businesses looking for a platform to either launch or trade locally to our community. With the ethos clear in our mind, we began the process of converting a large hardcourt playground on South Norwood Hill into a weekly pop-up market. Overtime the market became a brand that reached beyond our neighbouring communities, and once out of lockdown we featured in TimeOut Magazine as a market to visit ‘Off the eaten track’. One success story we are particularly proud of is a first-time trader, Little Mouse, who started during the pandemic at our market and have now opened their first brick and mortar shop in South Norwood high street. We believe that this is indicative of the power of great food, and how it can ‘feed’ the community and local areas and businesses in more ways than one through social economic growth and innovation. 

Six months later, we opened our second market at Beckenham Place Park. We’ll continue to support and give a platform to local business and start-up traders with high quality produce and food. We’re lucky enough to work with such a diverse and exciting collection of local traders and look to further champion fantastic organisations such as Breadwinners (one of our regular traders) and Refugee Café which support and provide jobs to refugees and asylum seekers whilst initiating them into our welcoming and inclusive community through the power of great food.

Family, community and a passion for great food and high-quality products are at the heart of everything we have been fortunate enough to achieve so far, and the journey is far from over.