Hairy Biker Si King Announces New Restaurant Venture
Celebrity TV chef and Hairy Biker, Si King, has officially announced he is to launch a new joint hospitality venture at Sheepfolds Stables that will bring the nostalgia of ‘having a pie and pint before the match’ to Sunderland, but with an additional gourmet twist.
Si, alongside venture partner Richard Marsden – managing director of Building Design Northern (BDN) Ltd, developers of Sheepfolds Stables, are planning to open ‘PROPA!’, a new restaurant and ‘grab and go’ service offering that will cook up hearty British comfort food at an affordable price.
Business North East is reporting that the restaurant, to be located to the left of the courtyard in the existing stables buildings, is anticipated to be open by the end of the year or early 2025 with the first stages of fit-out works on site now started. It is a take-away facility that will have external seating, overhead canopy and fire pit, and will offer a broad range of comfort dishes to reflect the food culture of the region.
A hot food menu will include a variety of hearty home-made pies including steak and ale, corned beef, and cheese and onion, sausage casseroles, stottie sandwiches, corned beef hash, spam fritters, panackelty – a traditional Mackem dish, brisket puddings and more.
It will also offer a varied breakfast menu ranging from sourdough specials, egg and bacon stottie and cheese on toast, to a Full English and North East potato ‘floddies’. Vegan and vegetarian options will also be available.
Si commented, “This will be a totally new yet complimentary offering for Sheepfolds Stables and one that we’re confident will go down very well with all who visit. We’re taking people back down memory lane, becoming a custodian of nostalgic food, including for those going to the football where a pie and a pint before the game was, and still is, a must (even with a beef tea – Bovril).
“Our focus is very much on creating and serving wholesome, tasty comfort food using the very best ingredients, and these will be sourced from producers local to the city and region. Some of the dishes we’re putting on the menu go back generations and are somewhat native to Sunderland and the North East area, so we’re really excited to get started.”
The restaurant announcement was made as part of Sunderland Business Festival, an annual event which sees thousands of the region’s business community descend on the city for a week-long programme of events.
Si, who took part in the ‘In Conversation With…’ event held at Sheepfolds Stables (Thursday 17 October) discussed his new venture plans as well as his and Richard’s intentions to work closely with several local charities so that no excess food goes to waste.
He explained, “Sheepfolds Stables has launched to huge acclaim, and it is amazing not just for Sunderland, but also for the North East region. It’s a truly unique hospitality space that has attracted some amazing independent food and drink operators already, so we’re looking to add to that but in a slightly different, more traditional culinary way.
“However, it’s also important for PROPA! to work alongside the local community wherever possible, especially when it comes to food wastage, so we’re currently exploring ways in which we can partner with charities that need support at a very grass-roots level to ensure that any excess food is not wasted and instead, distributed throughout the community.”
Sheepfolds Stables has become one of the hottest food, drink, events and entertainment venues since its launch in August 2024. It has welcomed tens of thousands of people through its gates in the first three months since opening.
PROPA! is the latest new venture for the development and is also looking to successfully collaborate with other site operators going forward. Furthermore, it is hoping to develop its menu once open and pair-up homemade pies with local ales as a ‘pie and pint’ offer including Si’s own lager range, Hairy Bikers IPA, also available from Sheepfolds Stables.
Richard Marsden, of BDN Ltd, the developer behind Sheepfolds Stables, added, “We’re wanting to bring the nostalgia of cosy comfort food, and memories of a pie and pint before a match, like what the Roker Pie Shop did for years next to Roker Park, here to Sheepfolds. We’re ideally located next to the Stadium of Light, and seeing thousands of football fans coming here before and after games, or to watch the match on the big screen, so it’s the perfect combination.
“We couldn’t have envisaged just how popular Sheepfolds Stables was going to be and that’s absolutely fantastic, and whilst it’s all extremely positive, we’ve also listened to some of the more constructive feedback too and observed just how visitors use the space both inside and outside the bars and restaurants at different times of the day and week.
“PROPA! will therefore offer a very complimentary, high quality yet affordable addition to the food and drink provision seven days a week, so we’re delighted to announce it.”
Dating back to 1884, Sheepfolds Stables in Sunderland is an impressive £4m development that was once former stables buildings. Heritage-rich and at the heart of the city’s industrial past, it has been successfully preserved, reimagined and repurposed by Building Design Northern Ltd to become a modern hospitality venue overlooking the River Wear.