Bondi Bowls: Manchester Australian-inspired healthy fast food restaurant opening new venue at Kampus
A Manchester restaurant serving healthy fast food is opening its first store in the city centre. Previously seen at Escape to Freight Island and HATCH, Bondi Bowls will be welcoming its first customers to its brand new permanent venue at Kampus on Monday October 9. The Aussie-inspired healthy food spot serves a variety of bowls, including Poke, salads and Açai - as well as kombucha brewed just around the corner from the new site. Bondi Bowls founder Jamie Tones took inspiration from travelling Australia, and decided to launch a restaurant focusing on healthy alternatives to traditional fast food options in Manchester. We got to take a look around and try some of the food on offer before the official launch day on Monday.
Transcript
00:00 If you're a hardcore vegan, then you can come and feel welcome.
00:02 And if you're a hardcore meat eater, then you can come and feel welcome.
00:05 And I think that's maybe a space that doesn't necessarily exist in Manchester as of yet.
00:10 So hopefully we're kind of filling that gap.
00:12 A Manchester restaurant serving healthy fast food is opening its first store in the city
00:18 centre.
00:19 Previously seen at Escape to Freight Island and Hatch, Bondi Bowls will be welcoming its
00:23 first customers to its brand new permanent venue at Campus on Monday 9th October.
00:29 The Aussie-inspired healthy food spot serves a variety of bowls including poky, salads
00:34 and acai, as well as kombucha brewed just around the corner from the new site.
00:39 Bondi Bowls founder JB Tones took inspiration from travelling Australia and decided to launch
00:45 a restaurant focusing on healthy alternatives to traditional fast food options in Manchester.
00:51 We got to take a look around and try some of the food on offer before the official launch
00:55 day on Monday.
00:56 So I've always been frustrated by the lack of healthy options when you just wanted to
01:00 grab some food in city centres, especially in the UK.
01:04 And I really fell in love with the healthy fast food scene when I was on holiday in Sydney.
01:09 So I decided to take a year out there.
01:12 Someone had to take a year out there to research the project, bring it back to the UK.
01:17 So that's exactly what I did in 2020.
01:20 Obviously the worst time in the last century to set up a food business.
01:22 I'd set it up from home in handcoats, just me and a bike for the first six months.
01:28 And then after six months we got onto delivery, delivery platforms, we're getting started
01:30 with employment staff.
01:31 We've been working in sort of event spaces over the past few years, but we're super excited
01:36 to finally have our own space.
01:38 We've got poky bowls, butter bowls, acai bowls.
01:44 The concept is essentially, instead of everything being wrapped in bread, it's in a bowl and
01:49 it's a little bit lighter.
01:50 We do smoothies, kombucha.
01:52 We're not a meal prep company.
01:54 We're that kind of somewhere in between.
01:56 If you want to have something that's really flavorsome and vibrant, but then on the healthier
02:01 side of things.
02:02 We have our own kind of base bowls.
02:04 So we have kind of classics.
02:05 And then over the next few weeks, we're going to add loads of new products to the menu,
02:09 which we're really excited about.
02:10 Our base bowls, which are all plant-based by sort of default.
02:14 And then you can add extras like chicken, salmon, feta, avocado, tempeh, tofu.
02:20 So you can add your own proteins like that.
02:22 We've had a great experience sort of working around different events spaces within Manchester,
02:27 trying to sort of build the brand.
02:29 But it's quite difficult to sort of really put across what we're trying to build without
02:33 having our own space.
02:35 So that's why we're super excited to be opening at campus alongside some amazing other vendors.
02:39 As part of our launch, we've got a hundred bowl giveaway on our first day.
02:43 Second day, we've got Manchester Run Club coming in for a six week residency.
02:48 And then we're also doing sauna and cold plunge outside in the courtyard.
02:53 So we've got loads of events to try and bring everyone together.