Meet The Biz: An Interview with Bryan York at The Neighborhood
“You must show no mercy…nor have any belief whatsoever in how others judge you… for your greatness will silence them all”
—Ultimate Warrior
Five-Fold got the chance to sit down with The Man behind the counter—Bryan York, owner of The Neighborhood Sub Deli on Old London Road. He didn’t hide his face under a painted mask or speak in cryptic puzzles but he for sure told us about the Parts Unknown in the origin story of this unique hang out spot in Kingston.
✽ So when did you start the shop and what was the idea that led you to wanting to open the place?
BY: When did we start the shop is a good question. So do you know what?
It took us a year to get it finally open. We had a year of back and forth, again with the council and stuff. Change of usage on the space before was warehousing and workshop, it was a bike shop. So we had to go for a whole thing with the council to change it over to be cafe bar usage, which was actually quite hard to do, to change it from workshop to cafe usage. So we had a lot of back and forth. It did take us about a year when we opened on December 14th 2022. But basically like this whole place is built from the whole idea of—John runs the two shops at the front, my business partner. The Salon, he's been in there for 23 years. He has a shop next door, which is now the vintage shop. We took over the little unit next door to us here as a kind of vintage shop, storage shop. So our big fear was, when Neil's wheels, our friend Neil owned it before left who we got on really well with him. We were fearful that someone else would take it over, but we wouldn’t vibe with them.. And when you got two businesses that flank either side of the alley, you know,
✽ It changes the energy
BY: It changes energy like completely overnight, right? So we sat down and we were like, look, it's available. John knows the owner of the building as well. What can we do? Me and John would stand outside every day, 1230/1. What should we do for lunch? Exhausted all the options, you end up just going by, just, whatever, to fill your gut. So we're like, right, let's do a food thing. Neither of us are from food.
We've got no background in it we’re not chefs, we're not this. I do clothing, John's a session stylist, hair stylist. So we're like, right, what do we love to eat that's easy, doesn't require too much and start from there. Me and John used to go to New York quite a lot for work. Like the New York Bodega is my idea of heaven. It's our equivalent of a corner shop, with a deli attached to it. You can rock up there any time of the day and get a banging sandwich, Middle Eastern owned, Korean own, Jewish owned. They all have their own like flair to it. But you could always get an Italian style sandwich, slice to order, boom, out the door. grab a drink on your way. find the little kind of stoop to sit on and eat it and go and it doesn't exist anymore in the UK. The whole idea of getting a sandwich made fresh is kind of long gone. There used to be a couple in Kingston back in the day. So right, let's do sandwiches. So it literally started in like two weeks, that was the idea. And then once we got all this sort of signed off, we built the whole thing out ourselves. The only thing we couldn't do was the ceiling. We employed some boys to do that.
So the business is rough and ready. It looks cool, but we did this ourselves. And then December 14th rolled by, lost our bread supplier overnight. Had to rush to find a new one. We struggled to get the meats and the cheeses, so we were only open for two days a week to start on because we just couldn't really like figure it out. We let Christmas roll on and then January came through. We managed to find a new bread supplier, we managed to get the meat supplier sorted and then it kind of became a real business.
I'd say it took us a year to open, but it took us actually about two weeks to open. It was like, right, the council signed off. Everything was like, okay, shit. We'd already had the unit for a year and then we just busted our balls 2 weeks solid, opened it up. And to be honest, when we first opened we sold ten sandwiches, we didn't do a lot of press on it. It’s taken us three years and we're finally at the point now where it's like, this is a business.
Most food, unfortunately, the first year and a half, two years are the make or break. After year two, if it’s still going, they’re doing well. that's the's the common thing in the food industry .
So to get to year three and kind of see us go over the edge now and we actually have a viable business it's pretty good feeling but we always wanted to be a hangout spot. So we built this whole place around that idea.
Today's a good example. You could come, get a sandwich, sit down, hang out. Unfortunately, with, you know, the business now being better, we've lost that vibe a little bit. Saturday, Sundays, it's queue out the door. Open at 11, we close at 3, we don't stop making sandwiches all day. I barely get to even acknowledge customers, which is kind of sad, but during the week, still is that; you can come crack open your laptop, play some games, play the foosball. But the whole idea was we wanted somewhere where me and John would go and hang out ourselves. So the idea is that its a bit rough around the edges, which is budgetry, but its also the point as well.
✽ It works.
BY: It works. All the tables, all the chairs. Facebook marketplace, Friends gave them to us. Most of the stuff. foosball table from the charity shop. Like all the videos are donated by people. One of the main fridges was given to us by a friend, another one we found for free down the road. But again, like it's all hodge podge, but it all works and that's the beauty of it. If it was too pristine, it was too slick, and you go to some food places now, they're very clinical in their ways, and I get it. But they're cookie cutters. You know, the shelving unit we just had built there. It's basically what my bedroom looked like when I was 15. WWF cardboard cutouts.
✽ It feels like a home.
BY: Yeah, it's home, but it's cheesy. I know it's cheesy, but that's what I like. I like it.
If I went somewhere and I saw this stuff, I'd be like, fuck, that's cool. Like, that's what I'm into. John's into the same vintage clothing. Into motorbikes into old shit.
I think some people come here and a bit like, this is a bit weird, look at the floor, but that's kind of the point. If it was pristine polished, tiled, this, that, white Metro tiles on the wall.
✽ Go to a dentist and buy a sandwich
BY: Go to a dentist, right? There’s that whole thing now with architecture, right? Where all these buildings are being built now that lack any character whatsoever, but because if someone moves out, the next person can just move in. You take off their logo, you put your logo on and you move in. [points to the foosball corner] Like this corner doesn't actually work, because you can't really get around. If someone's playing foosball, you can't really get to the drinks cabin. You know, it's right by the cash till, so when you're paying.
✽ it forces closeness
BY: Yeah, that chaos actually makes you go “oh shit, sorry, dude, like just going to go past you”. There's other places it's like you come in, come out, you know, you're barely interact with a person, barely interact with the surroundings. Here you might trip over the fucking crisp bin or like drop your change into there. Once the change drops in there, it’s ours. It's that old school way of doing it.
✽ Treating people like people instead of cattle.
BY: Yeah, just come in, hang out. Eat your food, ultimately, hopefully you enjoy it but enjoy being somewhere that is, you know, you're going to hear us talk crap behind the till. We're probably going to be playing some inappropriate music or something around the day. But we’re not doing it to be arseholes, we work hard. This is our space. We're inviting you in to enjoy it, of course, and we're professional, but we also like you know, come in and talk some shit with us. Like come in and you know, whinge about something, hang out. You can't do that in Pret. Can't do that in. Wherever it is anymore, it doesn't exist.
We’re lucky in that all the businesses are connected in one, let's call it our block. So we are in a unique position where we've managed to survive the quiet periods because all the other businesses feed off each other. The salons a little bit quiet today but we're busy vice versa. Everything balances. We're not out in the cold on our own like a lot of businesses are at the moment. It's hard out there dude. You hear people closing down left, right and centre.
✽ So many empty shops in Kingston.
Business rates,electricity bills all the costs in hospitality at the moment, the big thing is VAT, your margins are minimal. Like, go somewhere now and you see. steak on a menu 25 30 quid. That's a lot of money. But the businesses making it is probably only making a couple of quid off that. All the costs of everything have just gone up and up and up. You're still paying the VAT, you're still sending out loads of money. So I think there's going to be a big shift in that world pretty soon. Hopefully it will help the independents. If anyone as an independent business comes in and spends a pound with you, you're doing something right, because they can spend their money elsewhere. They could probably get another sandwich somewhere else for a lot cheaper. It's not going to be as good a quality. I understand that. If you come in here, hopefully you're buying into the aesthetic as well as a well made high quality sandwich, but we hope people enjoy coming here as well.
Some people don't get it. Some people rock up, man, and you can see, they're just like, I don't know. Do we sit down? Do we do this, do that? They feel a bit uncomfortable. I think there's a beauty to that.
✽ It’s so natural
So natural. Most places don't. Yeah, there's a screen as you walk in. You don't even need to talk to the guy at the front. Tom might be eating his lunch sometimes there, which some people see as unprofessional, but sometimes we’re so busy. He has to eat his lunch somewhere.
There’s that thing about why they designed those self-service machines, it takes away that embarrassment of going to the front and ordering too much. You order less if you go to the front, which is kind of crazy, right? But once you're behind your screen, you can hide from it, you might add on that extra cheeseburger, you might do that. But what you're losing is interaction. Like, that's what they're good at. Like, McDonald's purely knows now that having a face to face interaction with a customer regarding their food will lower their sales versus the kiosk style. You're going to throw on that extra McFlurry, you're going to throw on that because you don't have that slightly embarrassing like. Oh, shit, this guy's ordered six things because it's just how it is. Whereas here it's like that's come from the era of fashion where there was no internet. To get a skateboard from a skate shop, they would sell it to you, don't get me wrong, but you wanted to become part of the crew that was there. So the first time you go there, they’re probably going to be a dick to you, which isn't cool, but, you know, it's just how it is. They're going to serve you, but they're not going to give you the spiel the chat. the second time you go there, you've got through the first hurdle, you've come back. Ight who's this kid? They might start chatting to you, where you from what's this, whats that. By the third four fifth time, they know you. You're in. You're part of the crew. You need to bring that back. Make it so that you kind of like..
✽ It's initiation.
BY: Initiation. I don't want to say earn the right because I think that could have a negative aspect to it. But you're a little bit uncomfortable. Come in we're never going to be rude. If these guys are ever rude they're done. They're going to lose their job. But once you've been in a couple of times, we’ll probably know your order. I think it's cool when you rock up, “your usual? Do you want me to take out like?”. We know you don't have tomatoes. That's service, that's old school service. You don't get that at a machine. You don't get that most places now. Most places you can't remove anything. It's already been pre-made, pre-fab in the background or the system doesn't allow changes. You can't change it. It's an exact, everything's portioned off exactly. Here if you don't like something, we'll take it out, if you add it, some sandwiches probably get sliced differently, some long, some are fat, some are wide. But you're going to get a full proper “shit that was good sandwich” experience, no matter what.
✽ AND IT IS EVERYTIME
BY: Every time. And some people don't like that. Like a guy came in and it was like, oh, bread's different. I was like, oh, sorry, what do you mean? Well, I came in last year with my partner and we had this one. And he showed me a picture. I was like, oh, yeah, that bread was actually from a different supplier. I said, it doesn't make sense, but sometimes the bread comes in, it's fat and short. So when I cut it, it's the same amount of bread, but it's more square. Whereas the other supplier, they're really long and thin, so I have to cut them so they're longer, but I guarantee you have the exactly the same amount of meats and cheese in it because we count it as we go. But the layout might be different. We had it before, there might have been more in the middle, because it was a square one. He was like, that's ridiculous. “I never heard of this”. Because they're so used to getting that square exact portion thing every time. Here, you’ll get a sandwich, but it might be slightly different from last time but it’s the same.
Baker last week when it was really hot, the bread wasn't proofing properly, so you couldn't get it to stretch or whatever it was. It was long and thin. For this week they're short and fat. Sometimes the bread is slightly more aerated because of the weather, slightly more crunchy on the top. But that's the beauty. If it's not the same every single time, even though consistency is key, but also there's a beauty to that. You know it's slightly different today. It's going to have a slightly different bite to it.
[a regular asks for a specific order]
BY [to Tom]: Get Leo to do a little half cheese melt. It's fine. There's some tuna. [To the geeza] We'll do a little. It won't be the same as last time. [Geeza] “A Special”. It'll be cheese, tuna, yeah, we can do it.
✽ What's your favourite game to play here?
BY: Foosball's the one that we all play. Do you know what? When we’ve had a really hard, like hard day's work. That's our decompress. But then we went through a stage with N64 when we did a competition for Mario Kart. We were all doing our hardest, Tom was on it like an hour a day trying to get this score. And then a friend of ours, Alim who owns Patio Pizza rocked up one day and set an unbeatable score. And we don't play it anymore because we know we can't beat him. Whereas the foosball, every week someone's the new champion. Someone has a better game. But we've been so busy recently though that by the time we get to end of shift and we clean down. We're shot. When we first opened, the foosball table and N64, we were playing it a lot because we were so quiet. Now that's a treat. Maybe once a month, we can end of shift sit down and play. Because at the moment we close down at 3pm and we're here til half five, six Getting anything we need to prep for the next day. Cleaning down. It's so busy. It's so busy. That's why days like today, when it's actually quiet and we can do shit like this, these are the nicer days. But I'm not complaining. I think that's the problem is now you get to a point it sounds like you're complaining when we were quiet, we wanted it busier. Now we're busier and we want quiet. You can never win. But yeah, it's going well. It’s going and well.
Again, like we've got locals, we've got new people like those guys come in. Instagram, all that kind of stuff is helping us. I think we're one of those places that we're word of mouth. I mean, most of the people come in have been recommended by someone. If you've heard about it on Instagram and heard about it on TikTok, I appreciate that. But if your mate told you to come here, someone you knew at work told you to come here. That's more of a compliment than a video that's got a thousand views, whatever it is on Instagram, TikTok. If someone's told you to come by and you say, oh, so-and-so said this was good, that means more.
✽ I'd lived here for three years and I'd never found it until my mate who was doing a landscaping job round the corner came in here, and told me about it. I was like, werrrt? Never heard of this.
BY: That's what it used to be, right? There's too much information now. And everyone has access to it. And I think that's why a lot of people sometimes are disappointed by stuff because you see this pristine image of something on a TikTok, on Instagram, whatever it is, you want that when you get there. Like I said with the bread and stuff, sometimes it's not exactly the same. We treat the TikTok and the Instagrammers no different from anyone else. I don't like doing collaborations. Now, people that message us say “well, let's do this. Let’s do that”. I'll say just come down and hang out. If you don't like it, say that. If you do like it, and we gel, we're cool. Whereas if you see a lot of places now, can you really believe if what they're saying is true? No. Because they're job is to promote, to make this. So some people will come in and they've seen this very specific look online. They'll look around. “Is this the same place?” They've only seen one corner of it or they've only filmed one aspect of it. So I'm a bit weary of the TikToky Instagram stuff but as a business owner, you can't not court it.
Yeah, if you're a TikToker, influencer whatever it is, just come down. You know, if you ask for free food, you're not going to get it. If you come down, you cool and I like what you do, chances are I’m going to sort you out a sandwich. I'm not saying no one gets anything for free. That’s is bullshit. But asking for it first.
I'm always a bit like, nah come hang out. That's the beauty. Come hang out. Tell me what you're doing if I look at your stuff and I like it, I think it's cool. We’ll sort something out. Asking for free food from an independent business can be a bit of a, what’dthey call it ick. It's a bit of an ick. But that's business. You know? That's their business. And if another shop wants to do it and it helps their business. Who am I to say, don't do it. Do whatever you need to do to get your business life where it is. I'm all for that. If I don't like it. Who gives a shit, right? If I don't do it, it doesn't matter. Do whatever you need to do. But we hope people enjoy it. We hope people enjoy it.
✽ Final question would be, what's your favourite item in the shop? And a little bit of the backstory behind it because I know you go on a lot of travels.
BY: It would be all of the snoopy mirrors hanging up, behind all this stuff in. They're kind of scattered all around. I brought those at carboot sales. Probably 25 years ago. And they've been in each of my kids' rooms, but my kids are too old now. My daughter wants minimal this. And my son's got Fortnite on the walls. So those are the only things that I'm actually like, you know what? Those are things that I remember buying. Carboot sales six, seven in the morning. I kept them in my kids' rooms and now they're here. Everything else is just stuff I love and I bring in, but those snoopy mirrors, if I had to close up and run out of here, I'd try and save a couple of those mirrors. Everything else is cool and I love it. They're the only things that I care about. And the other thing, one more thing would be that Slicer. That slicer is the fourth member of staff.
✽ Your bread & butter
BY: That is my Bread & Butter. We just got it new, like upgraded it. The Mirrors and the Slicer. Those are the things at the moment I have to care the most about. It's so fun.
✽ That was my first job working in a deli and that was the best thing to use.
BY: The difference between a good slicer and a bad slicer is like everything. Until you've taken the tip of your finger off with one, you don't appreciate what they are. They are a vicious, monstrous machine. Some days we're going so fast like Leo as well. We're millimetres away from taking it off, you don't even feel it. It's so quick and slices. But yeah, that piece of kit, without that, we don't exist. Everything else can probably go. Without that slicer we are screwed. So, yeah Snoopy mirrors and the slicer. Those are my key pieces.
✽ Thank you very much.
Five-Fold
