Milton Jones
An East Midlands restaurant chain says its decision to mix up its offering by hosting more live events is paying off, with acts now getting in touch asking if they can be booked to perform.
Annie’s Burger Shack, which runs two restaurants, in Nottingham and Derby, says it is now receiving calls from agents and performers keen to appear at its venues following a host of sell-out shows from established and up-and-coming acts.
Annie’s Burger Shack has become a firm favourite with East Midlands diners thanks to its popular Rhode Island-style burgers featuring a whole host of ingredients with elaborate names and all available in vegan, veggie and meaty, ensuring nobody need miss out.
But this year it diversified into organising live events at both restaurants, with its Derby restaurant hosting live wrestling, a record fair, comedy gigs, a DJ set from Fun Lovin’ Criminals frontman Huey Morgan and an appearance from Welsh rap stars Goldie Lookin’ Chain.
Recently it welcomed a sell-out crowd for an appearance from award-winning comedian and former Mock The Week regular Milton Jones as part of its new and ongoing tie-in with Just The Tonic comedy club.
Its Nottingham restaurant, meanwhile, has hosted regular meetings of the Notts Bad Movie Club, film screenings, live music and a sell-out live-performance Faulty Towers dining experience.
Still to come this year in Derby are a comedy set from Joe Pasquale, an 1980s disco with children’s TV favourite Timmy Mallett and A Celebration of Father Ted event with stand-up Joe Rooney, who played Father Davo in the Channel Four show.
Nottingham will host a Halloween-themed Glamour Ghoul Gala on October 28 and will welcome the Faulty Towers Live Dining experience back on November 8.
The events are arranged and co-ordinated by the chain’s head of events, Will Bailey, an experienced promoter who joined the company at the start of the year.
His job has been to find events which are best suited to each restaurant, which are both very different, with its Nottingham American diner-style outlet ideal for intimate events and its Derby restaurant, a former church, capable of hosting larger events, thanks to a capacity of 450 people standing, 290 arranged in theatre-style seating or 180 sitting at tables cabaret-style.
Annie Spaziano, who founded Annie’s in 2009, said: “We have hosted live events in the past, but we’ve never had anything like this number and variety of events before.
“Will has been working extremely hard to arrange an extremely varied line-up and nationally we’re on the map. Promoters are seeing what we’re doing and people are asking us if they can come to us, which means the events are getting bigger and better and we’re attracting acts that have played much larger and better-known venues elsewhere.
“That’s brilliant for our venues and it allows us to still serve the food and drink that we’ve become famous for. While the hospitality sector remains challenging, these events are giving us something extra and it’s helping us to bring in new people as well.”
For more information visit www.anniesburgershack.com.
