From cooking together in their kitchen to now owning their own shop, two friends have become business partners and are hoping to bring something different to the city. On Colwick Road is a new restaurant and takeaway, Haus of Flava.
Haus of Flava specialises in seafood boils but has many other options on the menu ‘where spice meets flava.’ Samantha Jones and Fiona Able run the shop where everything is fresh and cooked from scratch - they even make their own drinks.
With just a handful of staff, business is already booming for the new restaurant which was once an Indian takeaway. Together, Fiona and Samantha started cooking in 2020.
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Fiona said: “The idea came because I was just scrolling through Instagram seeing a load of people making seafood boils and I thought ‘I could make that’ and suggested to Samantha we do it together, I’m always cooking and once we started, we got good feedback.”
Fiona, who has previous experience in retail, decided to stay in Nottingham after studying to help create Haus of Flava. She continued: “It just started as a little side business and I said that if we don’t get a shop this year, we’ll just let it go.”
The pair had been looking for premises for a shop in St Ann’s and Sneinton but luckily at the start of this year, 86 Colwick Road was on the market. Fiona continued: “Sometimes I don’t want to cook but I don’t want a typical takeaway, I just want food that tastes like it's home cooked and that’s what you get here.”
On the menu, combo meals for £15 are popular. With a combo meal, you can choose two mains out of: shrimp, wings, lambchops, fish fillets, boneless wings, plant chops and shroom wings. Along with the combo mains you can pick two sides out of mac and cheese, cajun fries and rice.
The generous portions can easily be shared between two people and if you’re really hungry there are veggie, shrimp, lobster and pescetarian platters for £20 and of course, you ask for a few add-ons.
Samantha Jones, originally from Nottingham, added: “We’ve got a homely feel and we’re really personal with our customers, all the surrounding businesses have been really supportive too. When we were making orders for collection in lockdown we had people travelling from Derby, Leicester and Loughborough and we’ve taken a risk with the shop, but look where we are now."
For those who have never had seafood before, the combo meals and veggie options are recommended. Samantha continued: “We didn’t want to make this expensive and for the price, you get a lot for your money. We’re different, there’s nothing like this in the area or in Nottingham."
Samantha added: “We make all of our drinks, and Cherry on Top and Grape Krush is popular at the moment and we also sell a Pine and Ginger, a drink called ‘Hibiscus Hour.’” All flavoured drinks are £3.50 each.
Fiona continued: “We’ve had a lot of returning customers and people who have been supporting us from what we were to now having a shop. It’s a community here.”
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