SoBe Burger

About SoBe Burger

Founders Tom Ducker and Alex Metcalf are university friends who took a food-orientated trip to the states and unexpectedly fell in love with the downtown burger joints in Miami’s South Beach. They loved the fusion of great beef with a raw, industrial aesthetic and couldn’t wait to bring it back to London.

SoBe Burger started as a pop-up in London Fields brewery and has since grown to delivery kitchens across the country. In 2021, it signed a partnership with Sessions, the growth platform for original food brands. In 2024, with Sessions having raised a further £3m in funding to aid its growth plans, including the launch of a franchising arm, it began the roll out of the SoBe Burger brand into bricks-and-mortar sites and is recruiting new franchisees across the UK.

Sessions first started working with the smash burger business in 2021, rolling out the brand to more than 200 delivery sites across the UK, with a million burgers sold in the process. It is now aiming to make SoBe the “go-to burger joint in your neighbourhood”. By November 2024, it had opened ten franchise sites within the first five months of the roll out.

“We’ve officially opened our tenth SoBe Burger franchise site this week, with the latest now serving the good people of Nottingham,” a company spokesman said. “Just five months since we opened our first SoBe franchise, you can now find us in four London locations, as well as Luton, Nottingham, Scotland, Tunbridge Wells, West Byfleet and Wokingham. Not to mention our 200-plus delivery locations. What started as the flagship brand for our licensing model is now leading the way for our original franchise model.”

In January 2025, Sessions revealed the locations for its next six SoBe Burger openings. “We started 2024 with zero dine-in franchises for our smash burger brand, SoBe Burger,” the company posted to social media. “By May, we had one. By December, we had 12. In 2025, we're growing even faster. January has been spent donning our hard hats and touring new locations. In the next two months, you'll find SoBe in: Farnborough, Harrow, Hemel Hempstead, Edinburgh, Plymouth and Portsmouth. Chances are, there’s about to be a SoBe near you - if not in the next two months, definitely by the end of 2025!” Sessions opened the 17th SoBe site in August 2025, in Plymouth.

In May 2026, Sessions founder Dan Warne told Propel that the company will take SoBe Burger to 80 quick service restaurant (QSR) locations by the end of 2027. Warne said: “We should have six more SoBe Burger stores open by the end of the summer and should be at 30 by the end of the year. We see 80 by the end of 2027 as its market opportunity for QSR, with a far greater potential after that.

“And it’s not just a random number, we use data from its delivery kitchen sites to calculate where the demand is. We have Stoke Newington (north London), Leamington Spa, Worcester and Swindon locked in. SoBe Burger will do very well in the large university town market, and in the south west and Home Counties regional markets, as well as Scotland.”

SoBe Burger made its Midlands debut in August 2026 with a launch in Leamington Spa. Ducker and Metcalfe said: “Launching in the Midlands is a huge moment for SoBe Burger and a testament to how far the brand has come since we first started in London. We took a slightly unconventional path to growth by building our delivery network before expanding our dine-in restaurants, but we’re excited for this next chapter as we bring SoBe Burger franchise sites to the Midlands and beyond.”

Why franchise with SoBe Burger

• ✓Site requirements are high street or other high footfall street, with kitchen space of 350-500 square feet minimum, and up to 600-1,000 square feet and space for five to 20 seats. It must be a ground floor site with easy delivery rider access and be in an area with other quality F&B operators. Minimum investment is £100,000, with an initial fee of up to £25,000 (dropped to £10,000 for a limited time). Royalty on in-house sales is 6% of gross sales, while royalty on delivery sales is 35%, including delivery platform fees. Marketing contribution is 2% of gross sales and target payback period is less than two years. Minimum liquid capital required is £60,000 and total investment is £100,000-£200,000.
• ✓“We’re here to redefine franchising and break the mould,” a Sessions spokesman said. “Operators are constrained to franchise one single brand from their site, and one that can’t move with changing consumer profiles or the times. Our partners can franchise our full range of brands, and we are constantly adding new ones to our portfolio. we deliver original food to you. We seek it out in global streets and develop it with people who have a fresh take. Then, we partner with venues across the country to offer on-demand delivery. We're on the other side of the order button in 300 venues and counting.
• ✓“The kind of people creating original food can’t be everywhere all at once, but we can. We've worked out the logistics – from taste testing hundreds of chicken wings to training chefs to perfecting the burger box – so that we can get more original food to more people. Since 2020, we’ve scaled 12 food brands, partnered with 300+-plus independent businesses, and launched curated residencies in iconic venues. Not to mention founding and operating Shelter Hall in Brighton.
• ✓“We take everything we know and use it to empower your local restaurant, pub or venue to deliver our food. It’s on your kitchen table in 30 minutes because we've spent 10,000 hours figuring out how to do it.”

Investment breakdown