som saa

Idea

Introduction

som saa is the name of a rare and fragrant lime found in Thailand. It's also the name of our restaurant...

We are a unique restaurant and cocktail bar located in a former fabric warehouse in Spitalfields. We serve high quality regional Thai dishes with uncompromising flavours. We pride ourselves on combining the best of British and Thai produce; regularly travelling to Thailand and meticulously researching recipes.

We have a beautiful bar space where we serve creative cocktails and carefully sourced wines alongside Thai bar snacks.

We are now ready to open a second restaurant in Central London.

Intended impact

som saa began life as a popup back in 2015. We wanted to serve fantastic regional Thai food and lesser known recipes in an exciting, buzzy atmosphere. At the time, this kind of food was seldom seen in London and our hunch proved right - we were quickly inundated with excited customers and glowing reviews.

Thousands of guests and several months later, we led a successful crowdfunding campaign and raised the funds to turn the concept into our fully fledged permanent restaurant site.

With our second site, we want to bring the som saa experience to a wider audience and at an even better price point. The menu will be focused on street food classics and Thai drinking snacks and will showcase whole coconut smoked ducks for groups to share. The food will be just as good as som saa, but in a more informal, communal environment. In line with its name, the bar will focus on a varied selection of British and International beers alongside tap wine and cocktails.

Substantial accomplishments to date

We are a well established restaurant serving more than 60,000 guests a year and we are very proud to have received a number of national awards and exceptional reviews, for example:

- 10/10 for food by Marina O’loughlin in The Guardian.

- 9/10 from Keith Miller in The Telegraph.

- 5 stars from Tom Parker Bowles in The Daily Mail.

- 8.33/10 “freaking awesome” from Giles Coren in The Times.

- Restaurant of the year 2016 by The London Restaurant Festival.

- Best new restaurant at the National Restaurant Awards 2016.

- 4th best restaurant at the The National Restaurant Awards 2017.

Other key measures:

- £273k EBITDA at our Commercial Street site - in the trailing 12 months to the end of October 2019

- Consistent annual turnover - £1.95m in 2018/2019.

- We are free of any long term debts and have over £500,000 cash in bank.

- We have a loyal customer following and over 27,000 followers on Instagram.

Monetisation strategy

Our new concept will be innovative and exciting with a unique street food focused menu, but it will also be strongly value led. We want the food, the drinks and the experience to remain at the highest quality but have designed the menu to be more efficient to prepare and serve at a fantastic price point.

In order to maximise the number of guests we can serve, we are looking at central London locations, with a minimum of 80 seats, and open 7 days per week.

By taking our experience and track record of offering exceptional quality Thai food, and then applying it to a more efficient and scalable menu we intend to stand alongside industry friends like Bao, Padella and Flat Iron. Ultimately we believe this will feed through to healthy margin, establish a model for further growth and build a platform from which to explore future concepts - food halls, grab and go sites and takeaway brands are amongst a number of formats which are of interest.

Use of proceeds

The money raised through the campaign will be used, alongside cash from our existing reserves, to fit out and ultimately open our second restaurant. Precise figures will change according to the specifics of the site acquired, but the following is a representative guide:

Building and direct works - construction, seating, lighting etc - 32.5%.

Kitchen design, build and extraction - 20%.

Professional fees - legal, property, architectural - 14%.

Bar fabrication and installation - 5%.

Other opening costs - office equipment, POS units, stock, staff pre-opening, furniture, rent deposit - 28.5%.

In addition we are planning to launch with a minimum cash buffer of 150k in the som saa bank account.

Investor Perks

INVEST £1k +

- 10% off your bill with up to 4 guests
- invite with a +1 to our soft opening
- a thank you in our first cookbook
- access to our ‘rare + vintage’ wine lists

INVEST £5k +

- all the previous rewards with...
- 25% off your bill with up to 4 guests
- invite with a +3 to our soft opening
- access to our investors’ direct booking line

INVEST £10k +

- all the previous rewards with...
- 50% off your bill with up to 4 guests
- invite to our annual Investors Club Lunch with chef’s tasting menu and wine pairings

For terms and conditions of these benefits please see the pitch deck in the documents section