WILLIE'S GARDEN KITCHEN
How Willie’s Garden Kitchen secured corporate bookings and built better visibility with Indi Local
Willie’s Garden Kitchen is an independently owned, family-run street food business specialising in gourmet burgers and locally sourced venison from Woburn. The business began trading in November 2024, following significant personal investment and careful planning, as Will entered the highly competitive street food market with a clear focus on quality and standout flavours.
THE CHALLENGE
Willie’s Garden Kitchen faced two key challenges:
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Accessing corporate bookings: Corporate opportunities often require strict procurement compliance and operational capacity, which can be difficult for young traders to navigate without the right connections.
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Building visibility and repeat customers: Trading at different locations each week makes it hard to let customers know where they will be. Social media alone doesn’t always reach the right audience, and capturing repeat business can be challenging.
Will needed a way to increase awareness of his pop-ups, engage new customers, re-target existing customers efficiently, and access higher-value trading opportunities to support early-stage growth.
THE SOLUTION
Will joined the Indi Local app in early 2025 to address these challenges. Indi Local provided a combination of visibility tools, operational support, and curated trading opportunities, enabling Willie’s Garden Kitchen to grow in a structured and sustainable way.
Access to high-value trading opportunities
Within the first year of joining Indi Local, Willie’s Garden Kitchen secured several significant trading opportunities.
A key milestone was securing its first corporate booking - catering for a summer employee appreciation event at a major automotive company. This was also the largest order the business had handled to date and marked a significant step forward in operating at corporate scale.
Reflecting on the experience, Will shared:
“Indi Local has been fantastic from start to finish. Very thorough and organised, and I’m looking forward to working with them on more corporate events.”
Following the corporate booking, Indi Local secured Willie’s Garden Kitchen a regular trading pitch at a village pub with a strong local following, with regular customers returning specifically for Street Food Wednesdays.
More recently, Willie’s Garden Kitchen was selected to trade at a prestigious corporate business park event, hosting hundreds of employees from technology and engineering-led organisations.
Working through Indi Local ensured these opportunities were commercially worthwhile and operationally achievable, with clear communication and support around expectations, logistics, and event requirements.
Increased visibility & customer engagement
The Indi Local app allows Will to share his weekly pop-up locations on the street food discovery map and send push notifications to customers to keep them updated.
The app offers a dedicated business profile where he can showcase his trading schedule, menu, socials - basically all his business information in one place.
A QR code poster was also provided for Will to display at his trailer, encouraging customers to follow him on the app and making it easier to build awareness and stay connected with his audience.
Through curated opportunities, operational support, and visibility tools, Willie’s Garden Kitchen has been able to refine operations, gain confidence handling larger orders, and continue building momentum. These experiences have positioned the business for further growth and strengthened its brand in the street food community.
“Indi Local is an excellent app and service which I can use as a platform to showcase my event calendar. As a new trader, I don't always have time to find corporate events and so I’m really happy to have this wonderful team working with me to source good trading opportunities.”
William Towse, Vendor, Willie's Garden Kitchen
Grow your street food business with Indi Local
By joining Indi Local you’ll get:
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A dedicated business profile built just for street food vendors. It’s easy to share in one click, helping customers find you, see your schedule, and get notified whenever you’re popping up.
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Be discoverable on the street food map
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Capture and retarget customers through push notifications
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Access to curated, higher-value trading opportunities