But they weren’t going to take it lying down. They launched a simple campaign – the Chuku’s #SixWeekCharge – aiming to secure 600 bookings over six weeks in a bid to keep their doors open. And? It worked. Their community rallied – and, in turn, that community grew… and grew… and grew. Their post went viral and those 600 bookings were made within a week.

So we thought we’d have a chat with them. To get a sense of how that felt, the importance of community, and what’s next – all in their own words. (Plus they’ve been using REKKI since the start, so we figured it was about time we paid them another little visit.)

Ifeyinwa: It was absolutely mind-blowing. I mean, the fact that it went so viral? We’re just a London-based restaurant, so to not just get national reach but international reach with the campaign was insane. 

There was this day where this guy arrived like, ‘I’ve got a table for one: my sister in Nigeria told me this restaurant exists in London and it needs help – so I’m here.” Then in the same period, we just recruited a new team member, and one of her parents is in Bermuda, and she got sent the campaign video by them. She was like – ‘that’s the place I’m working!’ There were even a few people from the States; they’d DM and ask how they could support us even though they couldn’t actually come to London. 

There were some big names that came down too, but the thing is – no one guest is more significant than another. The sheer number of people trying to make a booking – or even just sending messages of support – was incredible. And even now, there’s still people that come in and ask how it went or tell us well done. 

All of it was just so energising. And, in that way, I don’t think I’d really thought about how the campaign was going to go – I think all I’d really thought about was the number side of things. I hadn’t thought about how it might feel when we were in it, and that human side. It caught me off guard how much love was expressed from people. And that was really lovely to see: that Chuku’s has become its own thing, with its own community, independent of the two of us. 

Emeka: This restaurant has always been for the community, and supported by the community. It’s the way we set things up from the get go – from our social media approach to our pop-ups. 

And that’s what was so frustrating about the situation we went through. We arrived at the beginning of 2020 with this wave of support following our successful crowdfunder, and people absolutely couldn’t wait to come in and enjoy this place we’d been trying to build for the previous four and a half years with our pop-ups. But of course, because of the times we were living in, individuals had to become a lot more insular – because society got a lot more insular. So the idea of having this amazing place for the community was almost just lost in the noise of all the political, economic, and health challenges that were going on. 

So of course the campaign was great for us as a business. But it was also great to just punch through some of that negative noise – and to find some feeling of community again in the UK.

Ifeyinwa: Definitely. We’ve managed to have our first few ‘specials’ to keep that energy up, too. We introduced happy hour, got our brunch going, had our birthday party, and then we also had our first really big cultural event – Nigerian Independence Day. We had a supper club with Nigerian authors doing a reading of a classic Nigerian text, then a live DJ that night. Events like that and our birthday have given us the opportunity to try something we always wanted to have a go at, which was to make Chuku’s not just a place you can eat, but a place you can dance and let go and have fun. 

Because now that our doors are back open, it’s just about giving people the best experience. To invite them to come down – and then come back for more.

Chuku’s is just a two-minute stroll from Seven Sisters Station at 274 High Road, N15. We strongly recommend you stop by – whether that’s for brunch, lunch, dinner… or maybe even a little dance if you’re lucky.