Sutton Bridge man takes pie and mash dishes across eastern England to meet growing demand
A traditional London dish appears to be yielding big returns for Sutton Bridge father-of-two Nick Maguire.
Less than three months after opening his Maguires Pie and Mash restaurant in Market Place, Long Sutton, Nick is being inundated with orders for the so-called "working class meal of choice for Cockney Londoners".
In fact, what started out as a reminder of Nick's childhood in England's capital city is turning into an exciting business opportunity to be taken across Lincolnshire and eastern England.
Nick said: "We've served about 4,000 pies since the restaurant opened on June 24 and we're getting review after review from people who said how much they loved it.
"One of my customers compared Maguires to one of the longest established pie and mash shops in London called Cooke's, saying that he couldn't split the difference between us, except for the shape of the pie.
"Things have gone absolutely bananas and we've had people from as far away as Cambridge who have come into the shop.
"We're starting to get a genuine following from Londoners who have turned pockets of Peterborough, Norwich, Thetford and Cambridge into little nerve centres of the capital."
Nick is finalising plans to take advantage of ex-Londoners moving out of the capital to the east of England, but still keen to order their favourite pie, mash and parsley-based gravy dish, by launching a collection of "pop-up collection spots".
Customers can sign up to a "smart app" (a computer programme that can be downloaded on a mobile phone, tablet or laptop) which will then notify them as to when Maguires Pie and Mash will be in their town or city.
Nick said: "We're going to have up to 35 pop-up spots in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, creating a smart app so that customers will be able to get notifications a week before we come to their area.
"We've just bought our first vehicle to serve the dishes and, eventually, we'll consider franchising by having up to 12 vehicles that can cover a huge geographic area."
Nick's ongoing efforts to perfect of the pie and mash recipe, which the Lincolnshire Free Press first reported on in June, is matched by his passion for the business to be a lasting legacy to his late father Tony who passed away in July 2018, aged 74.
"I named the shop after my late father and people have been coming into Maguires after reading the story in the newspaper," Nick said.
"Since then, we've tweaked the pie a little bit, in terms of how it is cooked, so that the flavours are all the same but the eating experience is completely different.
"The whole business is just getting bigger and the more it does, the more energy I have for it.
"It's like a snowball going down a hill and we're having to keep up with it."
Sutton Bridge man cooks up pie and mash market from home
