28th November 2023
Indian restaurant group Kricket has secured new funding ahead of opening a fourth London site and further UK expansion.
The business, which was founded by Rik Campbell and Will Bowlby in 2015 as a pop-up in a shipping container at Pop Brixton, is due to launch a new site in Canary Wharf next spring.
Opening in Canary Wharf’s North Dock, the new Kricket restaurant will have 85 covers and be open for lunch and dinner, seven days a week. The adjoining Soma will mirror the “minimalist award-winning concept” of the group’s cocktail bar in Soho, with room for up to 50 guests and a license to open late. It comes as the business, which employs over 120 people, generated sales of £7.3m in 2022. As of 30 September 2023, it said that like-for-like sales are up 17% on the prior year.
The business opened its permanent site in Soho in 2016 after receiving an initial injection of funding from WRP. This was quickly followed by the relocation of the Brixton pop-up to its current home on Atlantic Road (2017) and the launch of a new site in West London’s regenerated BBC Television Centre in White City (2018). During the coronavirus pandemic, the group introduced the brand’s first delivery-only concept (2021), which continues to deliver over 2,000 orders a week via an exclusive partnership with Deliveroo. More recently, in September 2021, it launched its debut cocktail bar, Soma, next door to Kricket Soho.