Smoke Shack launches £200,000 crowdfunding campaign to open third site, aims to grow into national chain: Barbecue grill and smokehouse concept Smoke Shack has launched a £200,000 fund-raise on crowdfunding platform Seedrs to open its third site as it aims to grow into a national chain. The company, founded by Darren Isaac and Terry Pritchard, is seeking £199,998 and is offering a 10% equity stake in return for the investment. It currently has sites in Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire and Bedford. The pitch states: “Smoke Shack opened its doors in June 2015 after three years of research and planning. We set out to create a new restaurant experience that combined US barbecue and British smokehouse food with the best aspects of sociable dining. Our view was that customers can get a burger or a rack of ribs almost anywhere, but it’s largely poor quality, bought in from wholesale. We set out to be the best in town cooking fresh, quality produce. The Smoke Shack brand was built around great food, great service, great atmosphere and great times. We won ‘Best New Restaurant in Buckinghamshire’ and opened our second restaurant in Bedford, all within just nine months, again a big success. We believe we have a brand and a formula that can become a successful national chain. In the context of this investment, it will allow us to expand faster by opening our third restaurant. Between the three sites, we believe there should then be enough revenue generation for Smoke Shack to self-fund at least one additional site per year. The Smoke Shack brand is trademarked across almost all areas of the food and catering industry. We have aims to develop the business into a wider event catering proposition and potentially launch, when the time is right, retail products under the Smoke Shack brand. Serving an average of 1,225 customers per week between our two restaurants, turning over an average £24,500 per week since both restaurants opened, with 17,000 Facebook fans, we think we have the solid business foundations, ambition and skilled management team to take the business much further. Our business model is built around establishing sound relationships with local suppliers for our fresh produce, plus central suppliers for our general supplies. We are priced at the mid-premium end of the market and find customers aspire to dine with us and leave feeling they have had value for money; a meal is typically around £20 per head.”