Top chef Dean Banks aims high with UK-wide fine dining delivery service.
A top Scottish chef has partnered with a logistics firm to expand his growing home delivery service which will see him send more than 450 food boxes across the UK.
Dean Banks, owner of Haar in St Andrews, has been offering his Haar at Home service for around eight weeks, giving customers the chance to enjoy a taste of the popular seafood restaurant at home.
After bringing back numerous staff from furlough, Dean has now been forced to seek three new staff as his team struggles to meet the “amazing demand”.
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Starting at 50 boxes per week, Dean will be sending more than 450 packages from next week across the UK as he launches his new country-wide offering.
He said: “We started at 50, went to 100 and now we’re doing 300. Next week we go to 450. We plateaued at 300 because of the logistics of getting them to people. We were hiring vans and other bar staff on furlough have been back delivering for us.
“We’ve now partnered with a logistics company which will allow us to get more boxes out and allow us to concentrate more on the food. From Cornwall to Wales, to Aberdeen, we’re sending boxes everywhere.”
The MasterChef: The Professionals 2018 finalist is also looking to find a new home for the delivery business and is in the process of pulling together an individual team to man the new entity.
Currently on the hunt for a commercial unit with Kitchen and large storage area. Looking in Fife or Tayside. Share or tag to help me out. Haar at home stage 8. Also looking for 3 new chefs to join the team. PM me please.
— ChefDeanBanks (@banks_chef) June 9, 2020
He added: “We’re looking for somewhere like a commercial unit with a kitchen and large storage area ASAP as we want to get it set up to my standards. It’s not even to meet the health officer’s standards, but what I need it to be at. We need to check what machinery like steamers and things like that we’ll maybe need to get a hold of. I know it might take a few weeks to get it set up and get it inspected as there’s a lot to it.
“There’s quite a few members of staff back working and off furlough just now which is great. We now need three additional staff. Obviously we need to get them trained up so when Haar opens as a restaurant, my chefs will go there and then the Haar at Home team will be running that.
We started at 50, went to 100 and now we’re doing 300. Next week we go to 450.”
Dean Banks, owner of Haar and Haar at Home
“I want it to keep its own entity and I think during this crisis, there’s been opportunity for fine dining at home. Looking into the market and the research we’ve done – there’s not that many great offerings around the country of the standard we’re doing. There’s a few more now and my chef friends in London are doing similar things, but I think in the next 12 months its still going to be as busy.
“Now it has come to the point where we’re at the growth point and we’re looking to employ more staff for it and I think that’s fantastic. What has happened has been great and the biggest thing is the customers purchasing it and supporting us. Local and national support has been brilliant.”
The Arbroath-born chef has been overwhelmed at the support his customers have shown over the past few months and, as a result, has now also reached number one on the restaurant section on TripAdvisor in St Andrews.
Dean said: “It’s gone a bit crazy which is amazing, but I’m a bit knackered.
“On TripAdvisor, the reviews are unbelievable. We’ve become number one in Fife for restaurants – that’s the great reward from customers and the response has been absolutely amazing.
Having started Haar at Home to help with paying staff wages and ensuring bills were covered, Dean says that more and more people in the future will look for a fine dining experience at home.
“I feel the restaurant won’t run at what it was. I think we’ll be running at 60%, maybe 70%, of what it was prior,” said Dean.
“The way we run it with our members of staff, we’re going to be able to manage that. The real reason we started Haar at Home was for me to be able to top up staff wages because over the furlough period I’ve been paying salaries 100%.
“We had to pull the plug on our Edinburgh restaurant due to this pandemic so supporters from Edinburgh have come on board and have been loving it.
“The value you get in the box in comparison to the restaurant is great. For Haar, we have so many staff and overheads that need to be considered, for the same box with the lobster and crab etc. you’re going to be about £120, so Haar at Home is half the price. There’s a lot of people who still prefer to enjoy a celebration at home rather than go out.
“We’ve built this great relationship with our producers, local fishermen and local veg farmers. We have all these stories about our local produce and we know exactly where it has come from and I think that’s one of the reasons customers really love what we do.”
