Fascinating idea. My mind immediately leapt to The Cereal Killer Cafe, as pointlessly niche an idea as I can think of - a restaurant dedicated to serving (only) breakfast cereals. Regarded as “gentrifying”, they set up in Brick Lane in East London (a Bangladeshi restaurant area), eventually leading to a near riot.
At the other end of the niche scale (ie, worthwhile) OshPaz major in Uzbek dumplings, for which I am most grateful.
So, loose definition of niche (but the nicher the better). What else have we got?
Instant noodle restaurants (seen them in Malaysia). They stock a wide range of instant noodles, all kinds of brands and flavours, and have hot water for you to make your own noodles. Which you eat in the restaurant.
Yes! This place used to have a significant number of locations, although they seem to be struggling to survive at this point. I guess the novelty wore off.
We’re starting to see these in the UK, not sure if they do hot water and sit down, but shops for noodles. It seems that they sell 25 pence noodles for five pounds down the comic shop as long as they had japanese written on them. So someone opened a shop to steal that business (the comic shop seems good at finding and exploiting a niche for a while, pops for instance, before other shops steal the business).
Seems an easy money maker for a generation which won’t pay for music, but will pay 15 pounds if half a chocolate bar is shaped like a stormtrooper.
That’s just an instant noodle shop. I’m talking about a place that has tables, bowls, hot water taps, induction cookers, toppings you can add, drinks, the works. Just that the main component of the meal is a packet of instant noodles, and you cook it yourself then-and-there.
Here’s the facebook page of one I visited just last week:
We used to have a place here in town called Potato Mountain whose niche was a huge pile of mashed potatoes with a variety of toppings. It didn’t last very long.
As is Tom and Chee, a grilled cheese shop that was originally started up on Shark Tank. We had one near me and it was good every couple of month to have one, but they went under. But I see that they still have some locations.
Speaking of cheese, one concept that has never appealed to me in the slightest is the fondue restaurant, particularly the type with an “interactive” dining experience in which everyone dips their food in a communal pot. Blerggh.
And yet, the Melting Pot chain with something like 96 franchised outlets reportedly continues to do well. There must be people who love “interacting” with other diners and crowd in for dishes like Flaming Turtle, Fiesta, Wisconsin Cheddar, Mojo, Court Bouillon, California, Spinach Artichoke and of course, Chocolate Fondue.
A popular pedestrian mall we used to go to in Ohio had a Melting Pot outlet, which we occasionally walked by and marveled that they had business.
There’s a place near me that only sells eggrolls. When I saw it in business, I assumed they would have a good variety of eggrolls or maybe you could pick your own ingredients.
Nope. When I stopped in, I saw their menu has exactly three items; pork eggrolls, shrimp eggrolls (only available Friday and Saturday), and vegetarian eggrolls (only available Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday). And you have to order them in groups of three or seven. And you can’t mix an order.
At a similar level of nicheness…In some ways this doesn’t quite fit in, because it’s hanging on, rather than “becoming a restaurant opportunity”. But having said that, I don’t doubt for a moment that they trade on their “living fossil” status.
I have never been to a pie and mash shop, but I’ve always kinda wanted to – they’re traditionally an East End (of London) “working man’s” sort of establishment. A few still remain. What do they sell? If you open the below in a new tab it will take you to the menu photos section of a google maps review…
… and there you can review at leisure their full menu. I particularly like
Chipotle is starting to appear in the UK (where I am as well). It’s basically Subway for burritos. Others that do the same are Tortilla and Mission Burrito amongst others.
Which sounds weird, kind of shouldn’t be, but is weirder than you’d expect.
Around the west midlands most places I’ve worked celebrate peoples birthdays by bringing in samosas. Often one person you pay them and they take a box in from their local shop. Samosas are pastry wrapped indian pastie things if you don’t know what they are, and I really enjoy them. But they are potato, veg and spices (and there are lamb/chicken versions but not the default).
So, to see something called that, I though, “well, they should do really good samosas”
Except they aren’t that. They are dessert samosas. I’ve never, in living in the largest sikh enclave in western europe, seen a “dessert samosa” for sale, and there are multiple indian sweet shops around the area and some indian friends at work have brought in the usual indian desserts. So, a chocolate samosa? Yeech. Be like a chocolate spring roll.