New Loughborough cocktail and slider bar comes to town
The dream for a quirky cocktail and slider restaurant has become a reality for two hospitality high-flyers thanks to funding from Enterprise Loans.
Tim and Rebecca Garratt launched Slider Town, located on Clay Pipe Jitty in Loughborough, after more than 28 years combined experience in the food and drink industry helping to open restaurants for other brands.
The bar and restaurant, which draws inspiration from street food across the world, offers sliders (small burgers) that vary from cheese burgers to fish and chip butties to Vietnamese style pork belly. The cocktail offering is equally inventive with choices from Plant Pot Punch to Pot Noodle Pain Killer.
Tim said: “Sliders and cocktails are a great combination and we are constantly playing around with ingredients to create new ideas and flavours. As for the location, we really wanted to create a secretive, speakeasy feel to the place as we are tucked away off the beaten track, so have added frosted glass and limited signage to create that experiential style of visit for customers.
“Both myself and Rebecca have been working in the restaurant trade for 13 and 15 years respectively. I’ve helped set up venues nationally and internationally and Becky was operations manager at Porky’s BBQ. Together we were partners of Shaker & Company so we have plenty of experience but we always knew we wanted to set up our own restaurant.
Slider Town selection of sliders
“We got married this year and it just felt like the right time. Rebecca is from Leicestershire so we knew that we wanted to move back up here from London – we looked at various locations around the Midlands but this venue and Loughborough just seemed like the perfect fit.”
Enterprise Loans provided £30,000 in funding from business finance solutions which helped Slider Town with the exchange of the business and the quick refurbishment turn around.
Tim added: “The whole process from finding the location to exchanging was done in six weeks and that was largely down to the help we received from Enterprise Loans. They were also fantastic in helping define and develop our business plan.”
Sukhveer Chirrimar, loan fund advisor at First Enterprise, said: “We were thrilled to support Tim and Rebecca with the funds they needed to set up Slider Town.
“The restaurant has been open for a few weeks following a soft launch and has been really well received by the people of Loughborough which is fantastic. They have a really solid business plan and strong identity for the business so I am confident that they will be a total success.”
