Ok, that’s a different matter. Here, those bubble tea shops never made it to our sticks (where I also live), but only to cities >50,000. And I’m too rarely in inner cities to know if they still exist.
They’re more retail store than restaurants but Garrett’s Popcorn is a popular Chicago snack item.
This French bakery is cute as a button and, though they have some other pastries, they’re known as a macaron place.
Good one, suddenly popular, seemingly from out of nowhere.
I live in Wolverhampton, a midlands city of a quarter of a million, so I’d not call it “the sticks”.
There has been no bubble tea shops here until post pandemic, about four of them now.
So I’d say it’s the “london lense”, which thinks it is all of England or the UK (because lets face it, London lense.
A friend who was involved in the hospitality industry one advised, “Do something unique, and play that up.” She cited as an example, New York Fries:
Ignore the poutine and hot dogs part; most Canadians do. New York Fries does a roaring business in food courts in Canada, just serving excellent french fries.
I was first exposed to boba tea when I was in college - early 2000s, and it had been a “thing” for a while by that time. Living in the Silicon Valley melting pot around that time was fascinating.
Yep, most of our boba tea shops are in Asian areas or near colleges.
Hey. I spent a couple months in Wolverhampton back in '96. Sure taught me to enjoy South Asian food!
Looks like if you went next door to Birmingham, you would’ve found at least a couple bubble tea/boba places. I see that the oldest one I could find on Yelp is a dozen years old.
Birmingham has a chinatown, which is why you niche places which aren’t main street there, and there for for years, There isn’t that much of a chinese/south-west asian people and thus restaurants in Wolverhampton. So this isn’t main street.
(London also has a chinatown, and it’s London, so if you are from there there is no other place).
Is it just me or does the preceding post not make much sense?
Birmingham has a chinatown. Chinatown often have more than just chinese restaurants, Korean, Vietnamese (while named Chinatown, it’s usually more than that). Thus they’ve had other niche things like Bubble Teas for years.
This is not normal for England. It was a niche. It’s a niche in most cities with a Chinatown.
Apart from it being kind of off topic because its about specifically Bubble Tea appearing everywhere in the last few years, what do you not understand?
What don’t I understand about this? “Why you niche places”?
Birmingham has a chinatown, which is why you niche places which aren’t main street there, and there for for years, There isn’t that much of a chinese/south-west asian people and thus restaurants in Wolverhampton. So this isn’t main street.
(London also has a chinatown, and it’s London, so if you are from there there is no other place).
Oh. A mispelling. “your”. Erm.
Perhaps it’s just me but none of it made much sense.
French tacos, appearing (not a lot), but suddenly in the UK.
Yeah, looked at the menu, not really clear as to what you’re getting (claims are its more burritos than tacos), so not tried one. I think one of the pictures had a picture of effectively stuff between thin waffles.
Yeah, when I saw French tacos my mind immediately went to some fusion dish like duck confit tacos or coq au vin tacos. Which I’d totally be down for. I mean tikka masala burritos are excellent - all hail fusion.
I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand walking through the streets of Soho in the rain.
Ahhh-oooooh! Werewolves of London!
[end hijack]
Rice pudding is pretty sweet.
It’s more like stuff rolled up in a tortilla. And the stuff always includes chunks of potatoes which is quite filling.
There’s one chain in Lausanne since 2013 (giga tacos), and another chain (go4tacos) which started in Paris in 2000 and expanded into Luzern in 2020.
The ones in Luzern are near high schools and are very popular with students. All ordering is done via kiosk and some of the places only have take away, so the overhead is relatively low.
At what point does a niche become mainstream. I can’t think of an eatery much more niche than a place that sells just donuts and coffee, but local and national donut shops thrive in just about every town and city in the U.S.
You can buy donuts in a bakery, but they’re only a small part of the business. But put two donut shops on a street and customers will go to war over which one can fry dough better.