Meet Manchester’s latest Tim Bacon-inspired restaurant entrepeneur

IT’S not long since budding restaurant entrepreneur Karina Jadhav was carving out a career in TV and radio broadcasting.

The 30-year-old businesswoman has just launched the innovative Menagerie Restaurant in Salford’s New Bailey development, and is promising a “vibrant full evening experience” for diners.

This includes live entertainers, including aerial performers, opera singers who can also do Rihanna covers, ballet dancers, electric guitars, DJs and models on a catwalk.

Jadhav is the 67% shareholder in Kiki Concepts Ltd which has invested £1.7m into Menagerie and is planning to launch the restaurant in Birmingham, Newcastle and Liverpool over the next five years.

Brought up in Blackburn, Jadhav went to the University of Manchester where she attained a 2-1 in drama and after landing a job on Granada Reports in Manchester, she looked destined for career on the airwaves.

After a round of redundancies, she departed to work for a raft of radio stations in the North West, before moving on to work in the hospitality sector for four years.

And it was her eventual involvement with the late Living Ventures founder Tim Bacon which her enticed her into the world of food.

She is a former co-founder of Spinningfields restaurant and bar Neighbourhood.

“I wasn’t making much money in broadcasting. As soon as I started working in hospitality, I loved it. Tim gave me a massive push towards opening this place,” Jadhav told TheBusinessDesk.

“He mentored me and built a team of people that were so loyal to him. He gave me confidence and the will to get on with it.”

Menagerie will be no ordinary dining experience, said Jadhav. “It is a vibrant restaurant and it’s about the full evening experience.

“I looked at every aspect of the customer journey and I’m aiming to bring as much theatre and engagement in as possible.”

Menagerie will employ 50 people and cater for 180 covers. Total accommodation will be for 250, including bar space in the 7,500sq ft restaurant.

The food will be modern American and international. “I call it luxury comfort food,” said Jadhav, who brought consultant development chef Olivia Casson on board ahead of the launch.

Jadhav is upbeat about the precise location of Menagerie – ideally placed to capitalise on the coming Ordsall Chord rail link which will link Manchester Victoria and Piccadilly stations and with it Salford directly to London.

Commercial law firm Kuits advised on the opening of the restaurant, while the 13-week fit out was completed by Wilmslow Building Company, which also did Tattoo in Spinningfields, Panacea on John Dalton Street.

Menagerie

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