In 2016, I had seen how places like Brixton, Peckham and Shoreditch were becoming some of the most exciting destinations for food and drink in the UK. I was in love with the street food scene and was frustrated that Reading 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. It 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. Since then I’ve been lucky to meet some brilliant people on the way – staff, food traders, contractors that have been with us for years. We’re an independent business full of people that really care. Their involvement mean that 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, the events got bigger, we took our events to other areas and started a regular, twice weekly, street food market in Reading town centre.

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 effect 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. By 2021, the events and markets returned and we were back.

In 2022, we opened Blue Collar Corner. It took 2 years of negotiating contracts, waiting for planning permissions and building the site and it nearly killed me. Every day there was an issue or rising costs and bankruptcy was a constant threat but as a team we painted the site ourselves, managed the contractors and got the thing built. On the first day, people queued out the door and we’ve haven’t looked back since. Open from Thursday – Sunday and built out of shipping containers, it features 10 beer lines, 3 kitchens, 2 floors and rotating food traders out the front. We moved our events here and partnered up to bring in events like The British Street Food Awards & Wing Jam. It’s Reading’s biggest beer garden in the Summer and covered and cosy in the Winter with heaters on every table. Above all, Blue Collar Corner finally gives Reading a place to permanently find the type of street food that I fell in love with back in 2016.