A father-and-son duo say expanding their popular restaurant into a new venue nine times as big is a huge risk – but one worth taking.

Having outgrown the current site of their Caribbean restaurant Saint Smokeys' BBQ House in Canterbury, Saint Davis and Luke Bradshaw have found their dream location after a long search.

The pair have been looking for new premises for more than five years but say competition for business space around the city has been extremely tough.

Covers will increase from 10 tables in their King's Mile restaurant to almost 90 in the new eatery opposite Waitrose - taking over the former Cafe De China buffet, most recently called Yummy Kitchen.

Mr Davis, 60 and Mr Bradshaw, 37, who set up Saint Smokeys together 10 years ago, say the increase in square footage will help them meet diner demand.

Mr Bradshaw, who is joined in the business by his wife Stevie, said: “Our lease was coming to an end anyway next year. We just outgrew the last place super quick so due to popular demand and obviously seating capacity we needed to find somewhere else.

“Looking for the new place was a nightmare to be honest. In Canterbury, as soon as a building becomes available it gets snapped up so when we stumbled across this one and just thought ‘wow this has a lot of potential’ we decided to go for it.

“Looking to the future, we’re going to be licensed for the first time so we’re talking about having live DJs or doing bottomless brunches and things like that.

“It’s really scary at the moment because as you can imagine this year has been a lot slower with inflation. I think everyone’s felt it; we’ve spoken to a lot of local business owners who are friends of ours and they have all said similar, that they are really feeling the squeeze this year.

“This is one reason we try and keep our prices in a place where they can be affordable for everyone while making sure we offer good decent food for them to enjoy.

“Previously, every time we’ve gotten close to the point of moving we’ve had Covid or some other major setback, but now we’ve finally got here.

“Food and really everything has gone up and it is a dangerous climate at the moment, but we believe that with what we’ve built and where we are now we can succeed.

“We know it’s a bit of a risk, but we think it’s worth it.”

The work to transform the eatery is already underway, with the new dining room seating more than 80 and the kitchen area now larger than their entire previous location.

They hope this will allow them to keep up with the demand for their delivery menu while also allowing more customers than ever the opportunity to eat with them.

The pair are doing the majority of the renovation works themselves, with their families stepping in to help with the painting and decorating.

They aim to be able to open the new location by early March at the latest and will keep their King’s Mile spot open in preparation for the transition.

The father and son are hoping this will not be the end of their expansion, with ambitions to open new branches across Kent and to see their family-recipe sauces on shop shelves.

Saint Smokeys' BBQ House has proved popular among Canterbury locals and Tripadvisor lists it as the city’s favourite location for a ‘quick bite’.

A recent customer left a review on the site: “Bloody good. Delicious chicken, bbq’d perfectly, big portions and a great price.

“Ate here a few times - excellent late-night option. Wholesome vibes with a happy family working there. Highly recommend.”

Mr Davis added: “The challenges we faced at the beginning, with the building and everything, were worth it. We feel so lucky that people have tried our food and enjoyed it and told their friends, who’ve told their friends.

“We just want to thank all our customers for their genuine support over the years.

“We are both from London originally and when we first moved down here we knew no one but we’ve really built a great rapport with local people.

“It’s been brilliant, absolutely brilliant, all the support, so let’s hope we don’t let them down and we’ll make sure we don’t.”