Dabiz Muñoz liquidates his restaurant in London, StreeXO London. The Spanish chef and businessman has been forced to take this measure after the closure imposed in recent months due to the pandemic. Four years after its inauguration, the high costs of the premises, located in the Mayfair neighborhood, have had a lot to do with the decision, as reported by the newspaper Expansión.
StreeXO London employed around 70 people and generated rental costs of around 400,000 euros per year. The business, inaugurated in 2016, never really got off the ground in the London market, with not very good reviews and a fairly high price per cover – about 100 euros per person. Dabiz Munoz came to invest six million euros in the restaurant, after the sale by its partners of its shares, which Muñoz himself and his wife, Cristina Pedroche, bought back to take over 82% of the property.
The closure of the London restaurant puts the icing on the cake to a year of many difficulties for Dabiz Muñoz, directly related to the crisis for the hospitality industry caused by the pandemic. Its flagship, DiverXO, had to file for an ERTE for its workers in the early stages of lockdown. Later, a fire in the kitchen and some positive for coronavirus among the staff caused the temporary closure of the restaurant for a long period of time.
Dabiz Muñoz reinvents himself to start his business
But not everything has been failures in 2020 for Dabiz Muñoz. His innovative spirit has led him to reinvent himself in recent months to keep his brands’ accounts afloat in a very difficult year. In this sense, the Spanish chef has wanted to strengthen the StreetXO unit that he maintains in Madrid, extending his hours with the maximum security measures.
On the other hand, Muñoz has launched GoXO, a new service delivery through which he offers his dishes to enjoy from home. This project – which will even have special menus for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve – has been a resounding success. As Dabiz Muñoz recognized shortly after its launch, the service responds to a long-term strategy motivated by changes in the consumption model of restaurants and hotels after the arrival of the pandemic.
The latest project launched by Dabiz Muñoz is just a few weeks old and also has to do with take-out food, this time through a food truck placed at the gates of El Corte Inglés de Castellana. The long queues of customers during their first days of activity quickly ended the stock of the kitchens, which had to open later in the following days to cope with the high demand.
–
