Find & launch a kitchen residency
We help you find a new home for your concept. You run the kitchen. The venue runs the bar and front of house. Simple revenue share model, launch support, no big setup costs, no long leases.
Free to apply. Every operator is vetted before they join the club.
Are you a venue? Find a kitchen partner →
Case studies
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Why do a residency with Plate Club
On your own
DIY residencies
- Cold-emailing and calling venues that ghost you
- Guessing what your food revenue could be
- Haggling commercials with no benchmarks
- Relying on handshake agreements or flaky contracts
- Working out all the launch logistics yourself
- No one to support you if something goes wrong with your venue partner
- Having to do it all again each time
With Plate Club
Residencies with Plate Club
- Join, then browse a platform of quality venues if you're approved
- We share the current food sales, no inflated estimates
- We negotiate for you and make sure the deal is fair
- Simple contracts that cover the edge cases
- We share our launch blueprint to help you get off the ground
- Ongoing support and a point of escalation throughout your residency
- When you want to move on, we line up your next one, no gaps
How it works
- 1
We find your venue
If you're approved, browse a platform of quality venues and apply to the ones you like. When a venue shortlists you, we arrange a site visit, then if you like them and they like you, we negotiate a fair deal on your behalf, from commission to break clauses. Simple contracts, no nasty surprises.
Quality venues + simple contracts
- 2
We help you launch
We share our ops and marketing launch blueprint and a pre-launch plan so you open with a bang, plus offer further support with PR, photography and social from our black book of trusted partners.
Make the launch smooth
- 3
End-to-end support
After launch we keep close with check-ins, shared sales data and a month-one review. If it is flying, we help you build on it. If there are areas for improvement, we help you dial things up. When you are ready to grow, we help you move to your next site or add another location.
Keep on growing
Commercial overview
Forget about scary fixed term leases, rent premiums or finders fees. You just pay the venue a percentage of net food sales which comes out of your takings each week.
Most matchmaking takes 4 weeks to get to contract signing, then another 4 before getting into the kitchen. But, we've gone from first call to first service in as little as 3 weeks.
Our average residency runs well over a year: an initial ramp-up period whilst you settle in, but you're on a flexible rolling break clause so you can move venue if you'd like to.
It costs nothing to browse and apply for venues with Plate Club. We only charge a fee once you begin a residency. You pay a low % of sales on a monthly basis.
FAQs
Residencies are a way to run your own business, being responsible for your own concept and menu development. You'll be hiring your team and working with your suppliers. It's so much lower risk than opening your own bricks and mortar site, because you're plugging into a venue that already has customers coming in and drinking.
Besides the obvious (quality food in a quality venue), the best residencies have a few things in common: 1) a transparent, high-trust relationship between you and your residency partner, 2) operators that are actively investing in growing their brand, pushing content on socials, building hype and attracting new customers to the venue, and 3) venue partners that support the resident to succeed and see them as a true partner, not just an outsourced kitchen.
Anyone really! Our roster includes chefs working in restaurant kitchens; supper clubs, pop-up and residency brands; independent restaurants and kitchens; multi-site operators. That said, we are selective and look for operators with a track record of working in great kitchens and/or an established concept and the operational capacity to run a residency reliably. These are the things our venues are screening for. You don't need to have tonnes of followers, but we need a sample menu, photos of your food and details of your previous experience. If you apply to join, we ask you to share a link to your Instagram to show us your food, or if you're not big on Instagram, to tell us your career highlights and why we should consider you.
You need a proven concept and the operational capacity to run a kitchen residency. We work with everyone from first-time bricks-and-mortar operators with a strong pop-up track record through to established multi-site brands.
Once you apply to a venue, they decide if they'd like to shortlist you and meet you at the venue. They normally meet 3 to 4 operators. If you like them and the venue, and they choose you, it typically takes a couple of weeks for contracting. In this time you set a go-live date, which is normally 4 to 6 weeks in the future. But we have gone from site visit to first service in under a month.
Most of our residencies are now structured as indefinite partnerships. We've found this works best: rather than having a fixed end date, they roll on as long as you and the venue are both having a good time and making money. Each deal can vary, but we typically have a minimum lock-in of 3 months at the start, then move to a rolling 2-month break clause.
If you apply and are selected to join, it's free to browse and apply for opportunities. You only pay Plate Club once you're up and running in a kitchen. We charge operators 1% of net (after VAT) food sales, on a monthly basis.
We share an Ops and Marketing launch plan via our platform and hold a pre-launch meeting with you and the venue so you launch with a splash, from making sure the POS is set up correctly to the launch party. We share lists of publications and influencers you can approach for launch coverage. We run a review after month 1 to look at what's working well and what can be improved. And we share data from the venue POS throughout, so you have visibility into performance.
Yes. Many operators run residencies across multiple sites at once. The platform makes it easy to manage applications and opportunities in one place.