Hold onto your Expedit: Ikea restaurants are coming
If you've ever spent three hours in Ikea, chances are you weren't there just for the dirt-cheap furniture and the opportunity to go home later and sob as you try to put that damn bed together. You were there for the meatballs.
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Ikea wants to capitalize on that, as Fast Company reports they may try some Ikea stand-alone restaurants in the future.
Fast Company says the Swedish home furnishings superstore sold $1.8 billion dollars worth of food in 2016 and 30 percent of Ikea Food's customers are there solely to chow down.
Ikea has previously opened dining pop-ups in London, Paris, and Oslo, and this would just be an extension of the meatballs, mashed potatoes, chocolate cake, and stuffed chicken breasts people love to eat whether or not they need to actually shop for a new bathroom caddy.
People are pumped at the mere prospect, which has not yet been confirmed by the company.
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Michael La Cour, Ikea Food’s managing director, says, "I firmly believe there is potential. I hope in a few years our customers will be saying, 'Ikea is a great place to eat—and, by the way, they also sell some furniture.'"
Mashable has reached out to Ikea for comment, but has not yet received a response.
Sarah Spigelman Richter is a contributor to Mashable's Food channel. Sarah covers everything edible, from the food industry to D.I.Y. recipes. She was previously the community manager for Tastemade NYC and her writing has been seen on The Today Show's food blog, Refinery 29, the Food Network, and Gothamist. She has also developed recipes for Tabasco and other nationally recognized brands and has blogged for 5 years at "Fritos and Foie Gras." Sarah is obsessed with "Orphan Black" and chili-cheese Fritos and is still depressed that Loehmann's closed.
