Dinerama site to be reborn as LALALAND
The Great Eastern Street venue is eyeing an August launch and looks to be retaining its street food and bar model with traders currently being sought to run pitches from 4sqm to 90sqm.
Billed as a multi-million new development, LALALAND encourages visitors to ‘leave the noise and grime of the city far behind’ as they ‘enter through lush vegetation and emerge into a courtyard resplendent with a sparkling plunge pool, tumbling waterfalls and living walls with bursts of colour’.
The site - which is being led by Beach Blanket Babylon founder Robert Newmark - will also offer one of London’s most ‘versatile and vibrant’ private event spaces.
Launched in 2016 by Jonathan Downey, Dinerama was a pioneer of the street food market and bar model in the capital and among the most successful.
Dinerama reopened briefly after the first national lockdown but Downey - who described the business as the ‘best he’s ever been involved with’ - was forced to permanently shutter the site after failing to reach a rent agreement with his landlord.
Downey subsequently instructed restructuring advisor Resolve to liquidate the company that ran Dinerama and his three other London street food and bar businesses saying it would be impossible to operate while Coronavirus restrictions are in place.
