In 2016, we had seen how places like Brixton, Peckham and Shoreditch were becoming some of the most exciting destinations for food & drink in the UK. We were in love with the street food scene and were frustrated that Reading, our hometown, lacked a place for independent food traders to innovate and showcase how good street food could be, how much it can improve an area and how much better it is than a supermarket sandwich or pub chain dinner.

We started with a food festival in Reading’s Forbury Gardens in September 2016, featuring 2 bars and 20 of the best food traders in the South of England. It quickly led to our first weekly market, every Wednesday in Reading town centre.

Since then our events have got better and better - with the quality of food continually improving, the cocktails and beer tastier than ever, the DJ sets sounding spot on. As we expanded, we ran themed events Cheese Feast, Feastival & Meat Feast.

For the season of 2019/20 we achieved one of our dreams, with our street food traders outside the Madejski Stadium on match days at Reading Football Club - it led to national press and a domino affect of other clubs introducing street food for their supporters.

In 2020, we ran street food drive-thru’s to stay alive and support our food traders during the impact of Covid-19. We returned to events by hosting the Southern Heat and UK Final of The British Street Food Awards, and then added a market every Friday to our existing weekly Wednesday lunchtime market in Market Place.

In 2022, after 2 years of negotiating contracts, waiting for planning permissions and building the site, we opened our first permanent venue: Blue Collar Corner. Open from Thursday - Sunday and built out of shipping containers, it features 4 kitchens, 2 floors, 1 bar and rotating food traders out the front. Above all, Blue Collar Corner finally gives Reading a place to permanently find the type of street food that we fell in love with back in 2016.