_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Maki
& Ramen
“ For the 17 years I have worked as a chef, I always dreamed of opening my own restaurant, although in the beginning, I was not sure about what kind of restaurant that would be. During the time when I inaugurated the first Maki & Ramen in Edinburgh in 2015, Japanese restaurants were notably expensive, which I identified as an opportunity to create a Japanese restaurant that was affordable for everyone, with a focus on authentic ramen. My inspiration stemmed from my travels to Japan in my youth, where I ate the most delicious ramen, a taste I was never able to find anywhere else and especially not in Scotland. Thus, my primary intention was to introduce a proper ramen restaurant to the region,” he began.
“ Following our debut in 2015, we progressively launched an additional location each year. By 2019, we had expanded to a total of five restaurants in Edinburgh alone. For our sixth store, we jumped out of our comfort zone in Edinburgh to enter the
Glasgow market. The onset of the pandemic momentarily halted our expansion efforts, but we emerged from it with resilience and unveiled our seventh Maki & Ramen restaurant in the main shopping mall at Saint James Quarter, Edinburgh. From there, we continued expanding, even opening another venue right in front of our initial Glasgow site due to the overwhelming demand it was experiencing. Our ninth location, situated in Manchester, marked our entry in the English market, followed closely by a branch in Leeds. The tremendous success we achieved propelled us to franchise operations, resulting in the establishment of a franchisee in Glasgow, our third presence in the city, and another in Manchester,” Teddy added.
Authentic flavors
Behind this rapid expansion lies Maki & Ramen’ s secret ingredient:‘ proper’ food as Teddy puts it, a key differentiator setting the company apart from competitors.“ When I
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