In the saturated market of fast-food chains, Alberto Gras, former MasterChef contestant, decided to propose a new recipe, without abandoning burgers, but adding ingredients such as carrillera, Peking duck or carbonara sauce with a truffle touch, and accompanying them with fries, but also with chuletón croquettes or Russian salad. "That is, we have the typical cheeseburger, but we also bet on developing other products," summarizes Gerard Moreno, one of its co-founders and current operations director. Even for Sant Jordi they made a limited edition with red bread and butifarra burger.
Deleito is the brand behind it. It was tasted for the first time at La Santa Market in Santa Cristina d'Aro in 2021. "It was the test to evaluate the business," says Moreno, "and it turned out to be a resounding success." It was at that moment that he joined the project that Gras had started, hand in hand with Rai Recoder, also co-founder and marketing director. Before embarking on Deleito, Moreno worked as a lawyer at PwC, then dedicated himself to opening restaurants and nightclubs in Pals and Cerdanya. For his part, Recoder has founded and directed the communication agency Amano, responsible for organizing the Barcelona Startup Congress, and has worked as marketing director in the savings app Goin.
A year after the first La Santa Market, Deleito opened its first premises and closed its first round, worth 200,000 euros and financed by small investors, and obtained an Enisa loan of 160,000 euros.
Deleito's first premises were located in Barcelona, on Sagués street, above Diagonal and near Turó Park. With an area of 200 square meters, the establishment is adapted for customers to consume their burgers there, but without going through the checkout, making the entire process digitized and ordered and paid for solely through the mobile phone. They can also be ordered from home. Glovo is in charge of delivery, although the company does not rule out internalizing this part of the process.
Adapting to Glovo's dynamics, which blocked their orders when the kitchen became saturated, they decided to open a dark kitchen in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, dedicated to providing service when the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi kitchen can no longer cope. It is located near Plaza Europa and, despite being a dynamic area with other burger brands present with premises open to the public, such as Vicio and Goiko, they preferred to dedicate it exclusively to delivery and do not contemplate including a restaurant like in Barcelona.
Where they will open a premises following the Barcelona model, combining delivery and restaurant, will be in Sant Cugat de Vallés. Deleito is working on the opening of its third premises in the coming months and already has in mind the location of the fourth, which will be in Girona, planned for after the summer.
With the four establishments in operation, the company expects to register a turnover of more than one million euros this 2023. They do not contemplate closing new rounds and, for now, will not leave Catalonia, although expansion throughout Spain is on the table for 2024. Currently, they have a staff of 30 workers, most of them in the kitchen.