Relaunched healthy restaurant chain has plans to expand across UK

20 February 2020

A chain of healthy cafes which went into liquidation 12 months ago has relaunched under a new name and is planning to expand across the country.

Kettlebell Kitchen was launched in Manchester by Carley Jones and was aimed at people interested in keep fit and healthy eating.

The firm was launched in Ancoats but went out of business in January last year.

Gary Nixon has become the new owner of the business and has renamed it KBK.

He is now planning to open outlets in every major city starting with Liverpool next year.

Ms Jones has opened a new business in Newcastle and is no longer part of the business.

Nixon said: “KBK has strong foundations and we believe that this rebrand will open the service and eateries up to a whole new audience that will be sure to love the food and reap its rewards.”

Gary Salisbury, KBK operations manager, commented: “We wanted to re-brand to appeal to a wider audience which is exactly what it has achieved.

“We’ve got families coming in there now, we’ve got business people coming in there, we’ve got people from the office and surrounding areas coming in.

“We obviously still cater for people who are very health and fitness focused but we now appeal to the wider audience.”

He added: “The old Kettlebell business failed, we’re going to acknowledge that and going to acknowledge why.

“It was down to a number of reasons but one of them could be that the market was too niche and we did extensive customer service surveys prior to our re-branding.

“People thought you could really only go in there if you went to a gym and in perfect shape which is not the case but the perception the public had, it definitely wasn’t a place you could take your children, let’s put it that way.”

Salisbury said the rebrand has resulted in a rise in KBK’s sales, footfall and employment, and the business employed five additional people in its Ancoats site in 2019.

He said the first priority for the business after it was bought out of liquidation was to make sure employees were paid and “rescue it from huge losses it was making”.

“We managed to turn that around, the company’s very profitable now and it was to understand and try and unravel why it failed, and that took us a while to get to the bottom of why, from a commercial perspective.

“We’ve got a new store manager starting next week who ultimately will take that store to the next level.

“We listened to our audience, we did extensive surveys, you can do a three-day taster, we now cater for students.

“Our meal prep historically was very expensive and that was the problem with attracting more people.

“The average plan was £495 a month, but now our plans start from £30 a week, we do vegan, we do vegetarian, we do keto, so we’re trying to appeal to everybody really.”

The business’s new brand was created by Manchester agency Ahoy which Nixon is also an investor.

Salisbury added: “Obviously what’s happened in the past has happened in the past and that is literally behind us and we’ve turned the business around, all employees are being paid, supplies being paid we’ve got growth plans now and it’s a success story for Manchester if nothing else.”