How Libertine Burger went from a food truck to a brick-and-mortar store

The award-winning burger first operated in a decked-out Renault Master.

Libertine Burger started selling its burgers back in 2017, operating on a tricked-out Renault Master, touring the country to serve burgers at festivals and street food venues.

The fast-casual burger brand has now come a long way, with its third brick-and-mortar store opening in Stratford in March.

In an interview with QSR Media, founder Charles Harris recounted the inspiration behind Libertine Burger, details about the new store, and their plans for the near future.

Could you tell us about Libertine Burger? When did it first start and what was the inspiration for it?

Charles: Libertine started life as a street food business in 2017, operating from a decked-out Renault Master. We toured the country, serving up burgers at festivals and street food venues and people loved what we were doing. We went on to become a finalist in both the British Street Food Awards in 2017 and won the Blogger's Choice  Award in 2017, and we were a finalist in the National Burger Awards 2018.

From there we opened our first bricks and mortar home in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, followed by second premises in Rugby, and we’ve also since added a new van, a retro-fitted Ford F59 truck, to our family. I wanted to create a game-changing burger chain that focused on provenance and quality burgers, cooked with precision. It would be somewhere that was speedy and efficient, but still friendly and with its own identity. In 2022 we moved our flagship restaurant to a different venue in Leamington so we could create a blueprint for future sites and also have more space and better facilities to operate our nationwide delivery kit operation.

You've recently opened a third store. Can you tell us what is different from this store?

The new store is in Stratford—upon-Avon, arguably one of the most famous historic towns in the Midlands. The restaurant takes over a site in the town’s Bell Court area which is a hub of food and drink operators. The design itself will stick to the successful blueprint we created through our first two venues but like everything, will have its own character and will mean both residents and visitors to Stratford get to try our great burgers. Despite having consistency through our brand and shops, each has its own identity, with local street art on the walls, computer games, and the new Stratford store will have a Lego theme. 

What are your plans for expansion? How many stores are you looking to set up this year?

We’re always ambitious about where this journey will take us next, but we also think it’s important to get things right. We took our time in making sure we got the design and feel of our restaurants right, hence moving the Leamington store in 2022 rather than rushing to open a third venue, and now waiting for the right location in Stratford-upon-Avon. We have plans for further new venues, but we’ll take our time, and we know we’ll have a busy summer this year with festivals across the UK, so it may not be that we open another store in 2023, but watch this space.

What's new with Libertine Burger?

At Libertine we’re always working to improve, whether that’s with our burgers themselves, or with the way we do things. We’ve just created a great vegan version of our popular bacon special that proved a hit, and we’ve got some great specials and home kits for Valentine’s as well as the Super Bowl. So in short, we’ve got plenty going on and are working on a lot behind the scenes, all while getting the new restaurant ready to open.