Target reached!
The initial £20,000 will go towards furnishing and decoration of the restaurant and ...
Foxy Wings Restaurant and Bar in Bedford!
Bedford, England, United Kingdom
Aim
Foxy Wings is a home kitchen now taking on the biggest project yet: To scale our humble beginnings into a restaurant and bar in Bedford, UK.
Here's the dream...
On the beautiful shimmering Great Ouse river, in the heart of Bedford town, slap-bang in the middle of the Riverside development between Zizzi and Wagamama.
The restaurant will have:
- Outdoor seating on the wide pavement for relaxing and catching up with loved ones while enjoying big flavours and refreshing drinks - all summer long
- A bar to sit at, to try a big range of dynamic craft beer, to suit your taste buds. Our bar will be buzzing with cocktails, handpicked soft drinks, hard-shakes, wines. Even chilled filtered water on tap.
- A large restaurant area kitted out in Foxy fashion for all your gatherings. You'll be able to see our crew doing what they do best in the kitchen: fast, fun, and fresh food.
- A collection point for those who want to get food on the go or just want a quick bite to eat. (Oh, and deliveries will continue to bring our food to your home if getting out is an issue or your house is just too damn comfy.)
- A community space where we can host food and design centred events, live music evenings, creative workshops, and all in all be a hotspot for inspiration, entertainment and culture. We also want to progress movements we have a special interest in, like green and local business, and we are looking forward to having space and means to get involved in community initiatives.
The Foxy Story
Matt is always a man on a mission. And over lockdown, he only wanted one thing: to create the perfect chicken wing. Life is a bit of a rollercoaster ride and shortly after his triumph of conquering a cracking wing, he was given a redundancy notice. Never one to wallow, Matt saw this as a call of destiny - to plunge fryer first into the creative cauldron of running a home kitchen. Matt’s wife, Gabs, got on board to get Foxy Wings out there, and his brother Jamie helped design the brand. Along the way, we perfected kitchen processes, became development chefs and food photographers, got some frying skills down pat and brought some friends on board to cook every weekend.
As word spread, and we were selling out every week, we were also able to form a great community of foodies! From this community, the collaboration of dreams was formed. Tim, founder of Beerfly reached out when he heard of our plans to expand and get a restaurant. Late-night Zooms and site visits confirmed that we had a shared vision to bring something special to Bedford. Aside from wings and craft beer being a perfect pairing, Tim’s drive to be a business that grows and benefits the local community meant the founding Foxy team had an instant connection with him.
With Tim on board, sharing his wealth of experience in hospitality, we were inspired to go for an ambitious space that we felt could financially support our big plans of creating a planet- and people-conscious restaurant and bar.
Meet Team Foxy
We are a small team, united over our love for a good night of eating and drinking and making our town an even better place to live. We collectively have 7 kids under 5, which means we are monsters at multitasking, prioritising and getting things DONE.
Matt: Restless Visionary Matt has big ideas and the right kind of energy to bring them to life. His recent work has included being on senior leadership teams running environmental and development programmes, alternative education provisions, managing community projects, and labouring with builders. He's building Foxy to be a business that prioritises people and planet. Matt’s love for food was nourished by his mum’s home cooking and only increased by marrying Gabs and getting trained in South Indian cooking by her mum.
Gabs: Culture Campaigner A third-culture kid herself, Gabs understands the power of food to connect and empower our society. So far, her recipe ideas - mixing nostalgia and innovation - have proved to be a massive success with our home kitchen customers. She's spearheaded our online presence and helped us connect with so many of you. She currently works in sustainability and entrepreneurship, and thinks that Bedford can get noticed for the wonderful nurturing home it provides for creative, ethical businesses.
Tim: Champion of the Underdog Founder of Bedford's first independent craft beer shop, Beerfly, Tim has been a proud #Bedfordindie since 2018, building a close-knit community of beer lovers. Tim is passionate about promoting the best independent breweries in the UK and showcasing their mind-blowing beers to as many people as possible... hence he's here with us. But it's not just beer that gets him going. As a former publican, Tim brings with him a wealth of experience in setting up and running exciting, fast-paced food and beverage businesses.
Jamie: Visual Storyteller As a creative designer, Jamie has been using his skills to help build the Foxy brand since day one. A serious foodie, Jamie loves to experiment with bold flavours and his recent allotment journey has supercharged his interest in growing and using fresh and seasonal produce in our dishes. Creating and owning somewhere has been a dream of Jamie's, having recently moved back from London's melting pot of culinary experience, he's excited to put his own stamp on Bedford.
Budget
We've emptied our pockets, looked under the sofa, and convinced enough people to invest in our big idea and so far we have raised £80,000. For us, that's a lot of money, but we still need substantially more to fully kit out the place.
We're aiming to raise over £20,000 on our Crowdfunder which will go towards fitting out the restaurant and bar area so that we can get the whole concept open ASAP. The goals are ambitious, but then the whole project is pretty ambitious, go big or go home we say! Your support and these rewards will help us to be the kickass wings bar that Bedford deserves. They will allow us to fully open as a restaurant and bar with all the delicious detail we are dreaming up.
We are estimating the kit-out costs to be lower than usual for the size of space, as our aim is to utilise the funds and our technical skills to self-design and self-build as much of our interiors as possible. We have one month to get this money together from the crowdfunding community. The more we can raise, the quicker we can host you wonderful people!
What's in it for us?
Bedford is home for us. We love where we live and we want to create something special that showcases Bedford in all its glory. We want to be a locally owned business that puts people and planet over profit. Our mission is to serve creative, conscious comfort food and do this as ethically, sustainably and inclusively as possible. We are building this into our DNA from the start - we are now members of the Sustainable Restaurant Association and Gabs is being mentored through Be-inclusive hospitality, an organisation that seeks to advance racial equality in Hospitality, Food and Drink. We believe that the people of Bedford are ready to support businesses that are pushing boundaries in doing good business and we have seen this community rally in support of several local businesses in this last year.
What's in it for you?
Great food with exciting flavours, and another great place on the river in Bedford, to enjoy company with your loved ones. Our supporters get to be part of the story of building a brand from the ground up. We are keen to use this business as an opportunity to connect with people, especially after a year of separation, it's a reason to join together. We have already seen the incredible benefits of collaboration and so, we have worked with local artists to bring you some unique pieces as rewards for supporting our crowdfunder.
To us, Katie's style is synonymous with Bedford, because of the various community projects and local events she has designed for and been involved in. It's no secret that we are a bit obsessed with her, and the more we work with her, the more we love her.
We love these guys, one of the top 25 breweries in the UK, Andrew founded Three Hills in 2017 to experiment and produce a variety of beer styles that push boundaries to create the most interesting drinks possible. Best of all, their HQ is based nearby in the countryside of Northamptonshire and in 2020, they expanded into The Outpost, a new brewery with taproom on the Bermondsey beer mile. All of their beers are vegan friendly.
Meeting Tom for this project has been one of our highlights. Passionate, creative and made of strong stuff, him and wife Jess launched their own crowdfunding campaign last year and absolutely smashed it. We love their ethos of 'made to last' and their commitment to style and substance.
Amber saw a meteoric success of her bright and joy-inducing range of hoodies and sweatshirts. Handprinted by her and her team in Stagsden, she is an absolute treasure and champion of local indies. Working with her was a given because of her bright neon motifs, and we are so pleased with we made together.
One size fits all
One size fits all
This project successfully funded on 19th May 2021