Feed me up before you go go

Fine-dining in a furniture factory. Enjoy Christmas dinner in a Yuletide knick-knack store (with a drag queen singing carols). Rowena Orejana samples the latest in food fads.
Rusted metal chairs hang in neat lines on the walls, scratched wooden tables, industrial lamps and the odd carved wooden saint are displayed in the 200sq m warehouse of vintage furniture store, The Vitrine, in Grey Lynn.
Grant Allen and Jonathan Lousich sit in the vintage chairs, their eyes bright with excitement.
"The next one is going to be in here with all this great furniture. We're calling it an industrial French bistro," says Mr Allen.
"It" is the latest trend in the food industry: "pop-up" restaurants, diners and bars. Mr Allen and Mr Lousich last year launched Gourmet a Gogo, where they host pop-up dinners in unusual, eclectic spaces with menus to suit the venues.
"The whole point of it is to move to shift the space and the venue every time and it has a different feeling about it and a different food. Largely, we kind of take things in a different way," he says. "We don't use restaurants. It's interesting, eclectic spaces that we turn into a restaurant environment for a night or two nights," says Mr Lousich. "It's the atmosphere, absolutely. Great food. Great atmosphere."
They have had to tweak their original concept.
"The first one, we tried doing this thing where we didn't tell people where the venue was. It was going to be part of the surprise. But we found that people want to know where they're going so they can organise and stuff," says Mr Allen. "They're not quite into this thing of being totally surprised."
The concept, though, has been a huge success. "Beyond our wildest dreams, really. The feedback was it felt [like] everyone went to a dinner party with friends they hadn't met yet."
The first affair was a 1960s Italian theme at a film studio. It featured movie posters, an opera singer and a long, long table seating 60 people. Their Christmas event was in a shop that sold Christmas decorations. A drag queen sang Christmas carols all through dinner.
"It's a different night out. You go to a restaurant and you look for places with your partner. It's basically the same every time. With this, you get to socialise and intermingle and meet new people," says Mr Lousich.
At The Vitrine, these creative restaurateurs plan an industrial French theme with Brazilian music. "It's a set menu. We don't tell people what the menu is before. But we can, within reason, accommodate vegetarian or gluten-free," says Mr Allen.
They also orchestrate pop-up dinners for people who want a party that is far from ordinary. "We do separate dinner parties," he says. "We just did a 10th wedding anniversary."
Marketing this unique scheme has its challenges."We started out just doing that Facebook page event. And emailing people. Not everybody uses Facebook," says Mr Allen.
He found, however, that building up an email database and sending newsletters about future events was easier to handle. "If they don't want to come to this one, they might decide to come out to the next. The idea of it really is about creating a kind of experience or event for people. It's not just about food, it's not just about the furniture. It's about the total deal."
Wanna go their way?
What: Industrial French Bistro
Where: The Vitrine, 1a Grosvenor St, Grey Lynn
When: June 3-4, 7.30pm
Contact: Grant Allen, 021 214 6285, email: grantallen8@orcon.net.nz  or Jono Lousich, 021 619 111, email: deluxecateringnz@gmail.com
More info: Facebook page: Gourmet-a-go-go