You can't eat in this restaurant. But while others close, this one is booming

"When I first mentioned the idea, people thought I was crazy, they didn't think it would work," says Mark Murphy, the co-founder of one of Greater Manchester's most successful food delivery businesses.

It all started at a 'dark kitchen' on the Willan Industrial State in Salford in 2018. Sandwiched between an electrical wholesalers and a company which makes mass transport fare collection systems, there's a no frills hole in the wall, which is responsible for kickstarting a massive Manchester food movement.

If you've not quite worked it out yet, you'll most likely recognise the name. Burgerism, the Manchester-based delivery brand that started by slinging out smashed burgers from a "solitary shack", has gone on to open several shops across the region, and has also recently been crowned one of UK's best burger spots.

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Not bad for a business that only started six years ago. But talk to Mark for a few minutes and you soon realise that while the proposition may be fairly straightforward - restaurant-quality burgers, fried chicken, wings and fries - it's taken a lot of work to get to this point.

"When we started out I was in the kitchen for seven days a week for the first two years," admits Mark, a former equity analyst who quit London and moved up North to launch Burgerism several years ago.

"It wasn't just about numbers and data though, we were there every day because we were obsessed with getting it right. We were the first smashed burger brand in Manchester and I think the first dark kitchen in the city - it used to be a piano auctioneer that we converted into a dark kitchen where there's no seating and food is picked up or