THE smallest shop in Bradford is now open for business selling all sorts of food and drink - from a former phone box.

Nizam Din is the owner of Lunch Booth which is based in the old red phone booths in Rawson Square in Bradford city centre.

From his shop he sells a wide range of hot and cold food and drink and has a wide range of confectionery.

Mr Din is hoping his shop will be a hit and hopes to use it to transform the lives of disadvantages youths and to support charity, and thinks ventures like this could be the future.

He said: “It’s taken two months to get set up but we’re open now for business.

“Business has not been too bad so far but because of the pandemic not many people are out and about, but it’s been steady.

“Hopefully once we get going I will be able to involve some young people in running the shop and be able to extend our opening times.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus:

“It’s a bit of long story how I came to own the Lunch Booth; I was working at a community centre running a couple of projects including one with young people in deprived areas, but we lost that due to the pandemic.

“It was about doing something to show them that if they are struggling to find work or apprenticeships, they need to get out there and get things for themselves rather than waiting for it to come to them.

“The shop is that, and you don’t need a lot of money to start it, and I’m hoping to get them involved in the shop once it is established.”

Lunch Booth’s opening comes five years after the phonebox shops were first proposed.

The Red Kiosk Company took over the two disused phone boxes in 2015 and had been on the look out for a tenant ever since, until Mr Din took the location on for his new shop.

The Red Kiosk Company runs 4,450 sites across the country, in Bradford, London, Edinburgh and many more towns and cities.

The sites have their own power supply, secure locks and consent for retail, and have successfully brought back to life thousands of Britain’s iconic red phoneboxes which had sat unused and unloved for years.

Mr Din added: “These boxes are part of our heritage, I saw them and fell in love with them and had to get involved.

“I think these micro-shops could be the future due to the expenses of having a large shop, people will be downsizing. I believe this will work.”

Through the Red Kiosk Company, ten per cent of profits are donated to local good causes, and Mr Din has already been hard at work on this front, providing warm clothes and food to homeless people in the city centre to help them through the winter.