Ambience ✪✪✪✪
Service ✪✪✪
240 Park View
Whitley Bay
NE26 3QX
0191 253 5550
Accessibility? No
Gluten free? Yes
www.papaganoush.co.uk
The move from street food operation to a bricks and mortar restaurant must be absolutely fraught.
Making a few informal dishes from the limited confines of a truck or tent is comparatively easy compared to coming up with a whole menu, and then cooking it consistently. You quickly know what works when you get an instant response from a hungry crowd outside your van; it’s harder to get feedback from a bunch of hired staff. Now you have to do HR, and find premises with non-crippling rents. And buy plates, and tables and cookers and stuff. And figure out your order of service and your supplier network. Maybe better just stick with the street food thing after all, eh? It is festival season after all. Restaurant next year. Maybe.
So all credit to those brave souls, like Papa Ganoush, who have rolled the dice and taken that plunge. I had always been impressed by their falafel, zingy salads and sauces, all piled into steaming fresh flatbreads at Jesmond Food Market or down on the Sunday Quayside Market. But a restaurant cannot just serve up wraps: what else would be on the menu?
