Mexican Pop-Up with a Social Conscience Lands in Finsbury Park

Whilst pop-ups are all the rage right now, most are about budding restauranteurs testing the market or foodies sharing their passion. Within this landscape Fat Macy's stands out for the social conscience that underpins it business model.

Here's how they describe it on their website:

Fat Macy’s works with young people living in temporary accommodation across London.

The problem we are tackling is common - in the current socio-economic climate, residents find it increasingly challenging to save money to move on into independent living, due to the bureaucratic benefit system, sanctions and the daily expense of hostel living.

Fat Macy’s overcomes this by using the project’s profits to create a specified housing deposit scheme for our participants. With every pop-up event, each chef can make an independent and progressive step in saving securely for their future.

The chefs volunteer their time, and in return accumulate credit, paid into a secure deposit fund, which is held until they have saved enough for a deposit. At this point, we require a tenancy agreement and an employment contract before we pay the deposit directly to the landlord of their choice.

No arguing with that!

Amongst the beneficiaries of their work are residents of the YMCA in Crouch End. In fact the project was born there when Meg Doherty, was based in the Tottenham Lane hostel on a postgraduate placement as part of social innovation course. 

Through running cooking classes during her four month placement, Meg realised that food was a huge passion for residents and often a uniting factor between them.

She said: “It seemed clear that food could be the perfect vehicle for creating change for the residents. By hosting weekly ‘Kitchen Takeovers’ where residents could choose a recipe they wanted to try, buy the ingredients, and then cook together, the idea of Fat Macy’s was born.

Apparently the pop-up was named by Crouch End YMCA resident Liam Gayle, who thought it was a good name for a chef, while including a bit of an in-joke for YMCA residents (Macy is an anagram of YMCA).

The good news is that as Fat Macy's pops up around London, the food is proving to be as good as its mission. Described as 'seriously good' and 'never to be forgotten', it sounds like you can visit Fact Macy's and please your palette whilst salving your conscience.

You can try Fat Macy's for £30 a head at Blighty on Blackstock Rod in Finsbury Park on six occasions between now and a week on Saturday. It looks like this Thursday is sold out and Friday pretty much so. If you want to try it book now!

Link: www.fatmacys.org