About Us
Rewriting the Recipe
for Opportunity
A social-enterprise restaurant in Primrose Hill: contemporary food, craft cocktails and great coffee, served with a purpose — to provide career opportunities for people impacted by homelessness.
New Chapter A New Chapter
A contemporary table
with a purpose at its heart
Founded in 2024 and formerly Home Kitchen Diner, our newly rebranded social-impact restaurant in Primrose Hill offers a vibrant, unhurried culinary experience rooted in craft and open to everyone.
Behind every plate is a powerful social mission: to recruit, train and employ people with lived experience of homelessness, offering paid work, accredited training and genuine career progression in hospitality.
Our Vision
A brighter, more
sustainable future
Our vision and long-term mission is to change the status quo for homeless people, and all those threatened by the scourge of homelessness.
We uplift and upskill all those from the homeless community who come to work for us, and in so doing, we offer up the opportunity for a brighter and more sustainable future in the wider catering and hospitality industry. It is our intention to prove our model and vision, and scale it nationally — to bring more economic opportunities to more homeless people, and ultimately to change the flawed public perception of what it is to be homeless.
The Name
What do we mean by
‘Rewriting the Recipe
for Opportunity’?
When we started on this journey, UK hospitality had the second highest level of unfilled job vacancies — yet hundreds of thousands of homeless people wanted work but were denied the opportunity. Flawed stereotypes skewed the picture. Homelessness as an issue captures a lot of people — it's not, as per the common perception, the victim's fault if they fall into the homelessness trap.
We feel it's time to change the flawed perception of all who are homeless or are threatened by it. We believe prevention is better than cure — making our main aim to stop people falling into homelessness in the first place. Meaningful and secure work is a route to achieving these aims. This is what we mean by ‘Rewriting the Recipe for Opportunity’.
In December 2025, to help us accelerate our ability to achieve all our goals, we became a fully-fledged registered charity known as Home Ground CIO t/a 130 Primrose (charity number 1216156).
Progress to Date
How are we doing
with rewriting the recipe?
Our first cohort of 16 people recruited from the homeless community started work with us in August 2024, and most stayed with us for 12 months. As well as in-work training and development such as food safety and hygiene, the first cohort received training from our then education partner — the Beyond Food Foundation. Our recruits graduated from their City & Guilds accredited Fresh Life Programme, an intensive introduction to working in a restaurant from a holistic perspective — kitchen, front of house and operations. Five of the original cohort went on to achieve full-time roles elsewhere in catering. All moved into stable and reliable accommodation, and all had 12 months' CV-enhancing experience at London Living Wage.
Our second cohort are presently in role and started working with us at our relaunch as 130 Primrose in May 2026. An update on their progress will be issued at the end of this year. In the meantime, watch Mark from our second cohort explain his journey out of homelessness to working with us.
Mark's story
Be Part of It
Every visit
rewrites a recipe
Come for the food, the coffee or the cocktails — and know that every visit funds paid work and accredited training for people rebuilding their lives. Prefer to give directly? You can donate to Home Ground CIO too.