Serious NUGS, an Interview with Founder Reis Esiroglu

NUGS is the UK’s first fast food concept dedicated to the nostalgic favourite: The Nugget. Born out of lockdown in May 2020, Reis and Charley started their journey from humble beginnings, cooking and delivering their NUGS from their home. They quickly outgrew the back garden and moved to their first residency in The Rising Sun, Hornchurch, where they operated for almost 3 years alongside having a busy events and festival schedule. NUGS have since oved into a new location in Romford at Jukebox LDN in May 2023, a brand new location over in Leigh on Sea in November 2024 and their events bookings are going strong.

We first interviewed NUGS back in 2022 and after hearing the news about them being nominated for best chicken in London at the Deliveroo restaurant awards, we caught up with Reis to find out how they’ve grown over the past 3 years.

We featured you last in 2022, how has NUGS developed since then and what have been your highlights?

A lot has happened, we moved to a much bigger premises into our first ever shop front in Romford and a site in Leigh-on-Sea now which has been amazing– there are queues every day before we open and lots of repeat customers with people coming three or four times a week.

Things have gone from strength to strength and we’ve now got an amazing team which has freed up my time to focus on the growing the business. We’ve got 20 shows lined up this summer and I’m really looking forward Reading, Download and we have two set up at Formula one as well as lots of local events including the Food Festival at Ally Pally. A recent development I’m really buzzing about is catering at the West Ham ground – we were shocked at how busy we were and the ground had never seen queues like the ones we had for a food trader, being there is obviously also a huge bonus for me being a West Ham fan.

We’ve also been doing a lot of work on menu development; at the moment we’re 90% gluten free. We’ve made our chicken gluten free so thought why can’t we do this with the rest of the menu. As soon as we made the decision to make the coating gluten free we were inundated with people who were really happy to be able to get a takeaway that is a good if not better than anyone else’s. We’re very customer facing and there are so many customers who are celiacs who are very pleased that they have so many options with us as there aren’t many other options for them in the local area -they come to us two or three times a week, they’re really supportive and vocal about our approach.

Recently we’ve started working with Celiac UK to make the menu 100% gluten free and in process of being accredited by Celiac UK who have to audit NUGS and give us the seal of approval – we’re working towards making the whole menu gluten free by the end of May.

How have you grown your customer base and created a loyal community?

We’re independent, we’re gluten free, I’m customer facing and work in the business and the key thing for us is to empower the team to build a relationship up with customers. If you look at our Google reviews, you’ll see how many times our team are mentioned team by name. We’re different to most brands locally and as we’re outside of central London, we can showcase that we’re home grown which is a massive positive and draw.

Your branding is bold, I love the look and feel – how are you developing this as you continue to grow?

We’re going through a brand refresh at the moment actually, I was a promoter before NUGS and a lot of my approach to promoting underpins the NUGS brand – were big, bold and tongue in cheek, we talk to our customers like they’re mates. We’re changing up the look and feel slightly and looking at updating the logo for example, but we’ll still keep the cheeky, matey tone we have now.

We worked with Amobox on the trailer, they’ve been really good to work with and having the trailer has given us access to more events, it got us into West Ham and we’re fully booked up all summer. The container in Leigh we did ourselves and we have gazebos for weddings and private events We’re also working with KERB now and our first events will be at Goodwood Festival of Speed and Goodwood Revival.

I’ve got to the point where I’m able to get people to help with marketing, operations, event management and menu development. It’s key to us that, as we grow, we upskill from within our teams – they do such a great job across both locations and that means that I don’t need to be there all the time so I can focus on the business as a whole.

What are the biggest hurdles you’ve had to overcome?

If you’re in the industry and you don’t like hurdles, you’re in the wrong job.

Every day there is something and I actually love this part of the job – I love problem solving. The main struggles as you’ll know are rising food costs, VAT and NIC. We do everything to a high standard and trying to balance quality against not overcharging the customer has been difficult.

VAT is always a struggle as we don’t get anything back, but we pay it on everything. As well as this, NIC is a constant worry because the business needs to work to be able to pay these rising costs.

We have growing pains just like every business but finding the right people, training people up is key to growth. We really care about retention and that our teams enjoy

what they do – we just sent out a feedback form to assess how we’re doing as a business in terms of communication, management style etc. and we’re trying to set ourselves up to scale and grow so are putting in process and laying solid foundations to grow now is key. I would rather go through these growing pains now so we have a solid base to work from – it’s very different managing two places than one so we’re making sure we have everything in place to grow to three, four and onwards. At some point I want to pitch the business to investors to open up several locations and move into London.

What does being an independent hospitality business mean to you?

We care more, we’re not solely about bottom line; we’re about quality, we’re about people in the local community, we’re about building relationships. I care so much, I look at every single review and the details in what we do and make constant improvements and we make sure we look after our team.

Independents keep things interesting; you don’t want to go to a high street and see the same businesses as in every other part of the country. We have a good high street called the Broadway in Leigh and it’s all independent – Independents are what keeps the community together and as independents take care of the high street, we care about the community and contribute to the local economy day in day out.

What do you love about the hospitality sector?

The people, our teams and problem solving. It’s a lot of fun too, when I work in the kitchens I love the buzz of working hard together – I get a massive buzz from that.

If you don’t enjoy the buzz and the problem solving side of running a business, the industry’s not for you.

What’s your favourite thing to eat from your menu?

Buffalo is my favourite and one of the team who has moved in to menu development has created an amazing new bacon gravy using the fat from the bacon to create a roux and from that a white sauce that tastes like bacon. As much as it a perk of the job, I need to put myself on a nugget eating ban though.

When you’re not working, where’s your favourite place to eat?

I like going to Japanese and sharing type food, there are some great chicken places too, we did a day around London to do some R&D recently and ate a lot of chicken. Our plan is to move into London in the next year or so we’re constantly developing the menu. We feel confident that we can go toe to toe with the best though and the plan is that we’ll be there within the next year.

NUGS have had an incredible few years and have been nominated as Deliveroo’s Best Chicken in Greater London. They’re up against some big businesses and VC backed ones at that, so please vote for NUGS to win Best Chicken in the Deliveroo Best Restaurant Awards. NUGS are running a competition in conjunction with the awards that you can find out about here. Back independent and vote for NUGS to win here.

Follow NUGS – Instagram / TikTok / Facebook /

Sign up to get updates, special offers and more via their Website