"5 top tips for any pop up landlord" by Pascale Pinxt from The Kiosk -

Last year we spoke to Pascale Pinxt – a fashion designer working in London as a freelance design consultant. Looking for a refreshing challenge to complement her fashion work, a derelict shelter in Bethnal Green Gardens presented itself as an opportunity to work on something completely different with community and regeneration at its core. By transferring her skills in branding and management, and applying her appreciation of good quality and taste, The Kiosk Cafe and a whole new adventure was born!

unnamed-1 — Pascale Pinxt from The Kiosk Cafe

Here Pascale Pinxt gives us her Top 5 Tips For Any Pop Up Landlord:

1. Trust your instinct

Only work with tenants you feel good about, either by getting a good feeling from chatting to them, or liking their product. That will give you the happiest working relationships. It doesn’t always matter how much experience they have, when you meet them you can tell how much passion they have and these will be the more successful ones that will boost your space and well as making success of their own business.

2. Make sure it’s the right fit

The Kiosk has its own strong identity, so we made sure we selected tenants that fitted in to that and supported it, not diffuse it. We didn’t want anyone who didn’t share the same values we did. If that meant turning tenants away and not having anyone booked in for a weekend so be it! We would rather be creative and think of something else than have a tenant in our space that we didn’t feel complemented our brand.

3. Manage your expectations

Don’t expect too much! We thought we would be taking on loads of bookings every weekend, then we realised that lots of tenants were already booked up for the summer. We made sure we weren’t too reliant on the space, so that we could be selective and also not too disappointed if we couldn’t find someone who was right for the space.

4. Work hard

Make sure that you realise that there is a lot of work involved in managing pop ups in this way. Don’t underestimate it and plan in enough time.

5. Respect your tenants

Be respectful of your tenants and their business. Because we run one as well, we understand the pressure, the work involved, the money you are risking when you are running a pop up. We want tenants to have success, so try to support this by promoting them as much as we can and considering who we are booking on the same day to be considerate of competition (i.e. don’t book two BBQs on the same day because they will have to compete directly). Sometimes this meant turning people down and us taking less rental money, but we think being supportive is really important.