Dragons turn American-style cuisine into hot stuff

THE millionaire entrepreneurs of TV’s Dragons’ Den have fuelled one of the country’s fastest-growing sectors of the food and drink industry.

And according to Manchester-based Dawnvale, the dragons have boosted the expanding Southern Pride commercial meat smoker division of their restaurant design and build business.

It was the dragons’ television encounter with Levi Roots that turned the British-Jamaican reggae musician into a multi-millionaire businessman.

And it was to Dawnvale’s design centre near Manchester that Roots went to buy an imported American Southern Pride smoker for his Caribbean Smokehouse restaurant in London.

A year later Dawnvale sales executive Scott Tunnacliffe has just supplied another Southern Pride wood-burning smoker for Texas Joe’s in Bermondsey. They made headlines in 2013 when they left Dragons’ Den empty-handed but with valuable national TV exposure.

“One way or another those dragon guys have done so much to make this style of American-style cooking even more popular in the UK,” said Tunnacliffe. “And they have given us a leg-up, too, to establish ourselves as a leading UK supplier.”

Dawnvale’s full restaurant build for Texas Joe’s involved stripping back the site to a shell finish and completing a full shop fit-out including kitchen and bar design with all building and finishing works.

The imported Southern Pride wood-burning smoker became a huge front-of-house feature of the kitchen installation – specially repainted in powder coated orange to match the restaurant’s colour theme.

“We are now talking to Texas Joe’s about future projects,” said Tunnacliffe.
 
Other Dawnvale smoker installations this year have included The Smokehouse – Grimsby’s first American barbecue restaurant – Blue Smokehouse at Slough, Hotbox in London’s Spitalfields, the London based Caribbean barbecue specialists Barbecoa, Grand Central Restaurants and the New Orleans-inspired Smokehaus in Birmingham.

Hickory wood and gas-fired Southern Pride smokers increase smoke penetration to enhance the meat flavours and an imported range has been installed at Dawnvale’s demonstration kitchen at its design centre just outside Manchester.

“The smoker displays, along with bars, kitchens and restaurant furniture, is a great selling tool for us,” said Tunnacliffe. “It’s part of our 25,000sq ft of display and resource space over two floors. And it’s become the largest design reference outside Chelsea Harbour for designers, architects, hoteliers, restaurant and bar operators.”