24-25_27 PH Borough Kitchen 2024 FINAL.qxp_Grid 10/01/2024 16:28 Page 1
RETAILER FOCUS: BOROUGH KITCHEN
A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
2023 marked the 10th anniversary of Borough Kitchen, and while co-founders, Justin Kowbel and David Caldana don’t like to talk about success, that’s exactly what the last decade has been for them. PH sits down with the duo to hear about their journey so far, and their plans for the future.
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n 2013, best friends Justin Kowbel and David Caldana were living in the same apartment block, both working in finance and wanting to take a new path in life. Both loved to cook and entertain, were keen foodies and wanted to set up in retail. The pair settled on setting up a cookshop for London-based customers. Justin explains: “I love cook shops and we had ventured into Inset: Comany of them across the world. We had owners, Justin Kowbel, left, accumulated what became the core basis of and David our product range over many years. And Caldana, right. although some of those were available here, we wanted to present them a little more, pull them together and share them with the broader London foodie scene and at-home chefs.” Justin says: “When we opened the Borough They found a small space in Borough Market store, time and time again, I heard Market, and Justin left his customers come in and say '£150 job with a clear focus. He for a knife? I can buy a Inset: Borough outlines: “We knew who our whole set for that'. What we did Kitchen doesn’t run sales, but places customers were. They were is we got it in their hand. We emphasis on being price competitive. people who loved their helped them understand it. And kitchens. They were time we became a strong force in poor, so they wanted selling that brand of knives.” answers and they were At the beginning, David was still internet savvy, so price in his day job, but was on hand competitiveness has to work in the shop on Saturdays. always been extremely He says: “I absolutely loved important for us.” what Justin was doing. It was so One of the most important enjoyable, because this was factors at the beginning of the journey was dealing with real people again. customer service, education and experience. “I loved so much what he was doing that I PROGRESSIVE
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HOUSEWARES
joined pretty quickly. We flew home on a Christmas Eve flight. They poured us into our seats and poured us out in Toronto, and somewhere over the Atlantic, we decided I would quit my job.” David’s first task was to relaunch the website, and then the pair quickly went on to open a second store in Hampstead. Justin furthers: “What the Borough Market store forced us to do was to home in on what we wanted to be for our customer. We didn't have much space, so we were intending to do it anyway, but we heavily edited down the product range. We really understood why each piece was there. “Even though most of our London customers can go for the world's best in a product, they also wanted to find that best of value option, and that meant we opened up to an even broader customer base and when we opened Hampstead it gave us more space.” The space enabled them to build a demo kitchen and after many requests from customers, the pair got in touch with a cook school they’d trained with, and partnered with them to launch their own cook school. About a year later, they opened a third store in Chiswick. The pair then consolidated and concentrated on making the stores and website work harder. David furthers: “There was a lot of focus on the online build