Banook Bagels

A little bit of New York, a little bit of Montreal, but mostly South London and made with a lot of love by the hands of Ashley & Dave, co-founders of Banook Bagels (pronounced ‘Banuhk’). This brilliant bakery business has gone from humble beginnings in 2024 to scaling-up due to a growth in wholesaling to, and through the best deli’s, restaurants, cafes and general stores across South London; high praise indeed.

Our brief was to search and acquire their first permanent premises, big enough to create a space that operates as both wholesale bakery as well as a shop and public facing café; and this meant a large ‘behind the scenes’ space with access for installing heavy commercial bakery equipment, storage for ingredients, the bakery and a characterful front of house space, in a customer focussed location. As their first space for the brand, the property had to make a big impact, a statement of intent for the future.

With non-existent supply of prime-pitch commercial property in the south London ‘villages’ such as Herne Hill, Forest Hill, Peckham Rye, Brockley and Camberwell, and fierce competition in this use-category for the same spaces, we had to act with agility and speed, and we knew we were looking ‘off-market’.

Banook’s brief and needs were layered, due to their multi-faceted wholesale/retail operation. Through deep local knowledge we dialled-in on a building whose tenant had just closed, and through our contacts tracked the building’s freeholder and their agent. We secured the space before it ever got to the open market.

A new long-term and secure lease was negotiated, agreed, and completed on an optimum space across ground floor and basement, all within a charming 4-storey Victorian building. The additional benefit for Banook Bagels is the extraordinarily large pavement terrace to the front, which together with the original heritage, ornate-style shop frontage, provides Banook with a strong brand presence, achieving that goal of a ‘statement’ first shop. Working with hyper-creative local architecture practice, Stefan Shaw Studio, Banook will bring their design vision to life, and create a fantastic home for their ever-expanding bakery business.

Agency – Tenant representation, creative collaboration on landlord info-deck, search & acquisition, commercial terms negotiation, legal negotiations, schedule of condition, transaction project management.