Pop-up Dining Experiences: The Hottest Catering Trend

A world of space

In part, this is simply due to the number of commercial buildings currently gathering dust. In London alone, an estimated 2,000 commercial properties are now lying empty, and with the prospect of a recession looming, this number is likely to increase.

For enterprising pop-up proprietors, this grim economic backdrop provides the glimmer of opportunity; from car parks to shipping containers, the acres of empty commercial space provide a smorgasbord of culinary enterprises. For commercial landlords struggling to let their facilities, this provides a vital injection of income. For the restaurateurs, it’s an opportunity to bring life to a site which has been left behind.

From Sublimotion, the Ibiza restaurant which serves food on a replica version of the Orient Express (and charges guests €1,500 for the privilege) to Glaswegian restaurant Porter and Rye, which has created a ‘steak and jazz’ night for its guests, immersive dining is now everywhere.

These experiences, a hybrid of the romantic dinner and the edgy night out are powered by digital technology: George Bennett, who heads up the immersive team at Manchester agency LOVE, says that today’s dining experience is being reshaped by everything from projection-mapped rooms to AR projection, virtual reality and augmented reality.

Pop-up restaurants, which offer their creators a blank canvas to create practically anything they want, provide a natural home for these experiences. What’s more, they have no legacy or traditions to hold them back. The restaurateurs can try any technological trick to push the immersive envelope.

Fit for the FOMO age

Indeed, the sheer novelty and adaptability of pop-up dining experiences make them ideally suited to today’s straightened times. With so many people worrying about their financial future, pop-ups take all the risk out of running a restaurant. Restaurateurs can trial a new cuisine without having to worry about launching a new restaurant (and the rise of fusion cooking means they have carte blanche to create anything they want).

If the idea takes off, the restaurateur can build it into something more permanent. If not, then no worries, they can move onto the next trend. This nothing-to-lose spirit captures the current zeitgeist perfectly.

We’re living in the FOMO age, a period in which our world is constantly changing and everyone is desperately trying to keep up. A restaurant which can surf this constant wave of change, and keep reinventing itself as people’s tastes evolve, will continue to prosper.

The pop-up restaurants we see around us may be only temporary, but the concept is very much here to stay.

Featured image: Decorated Table via unsplash

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