Chilli Banana are a well-established and well-respected chain of Thai restaurants in the North West of England, with restaurants in Liverpool, Wilmslow, and Macclesfield and are known for their excellent Thai food and customer service.

Their 75-cover Wilmslow restaurant has a lounge, bar, and also provides takeaway services. Run by husband and wife duo Steven and May Wakefield, the Chilli Banana brand has become a franchise, with the two other premises (Liverpool and Macclesfield) run by individual restaurant operators.

When the Wakefields decided to take advantage of a new premises becoming available in Wilmslow high street, they knew they needed to take the opportunity to relocate their Wilmslow restaurant to this busy location.

That’s when they decided they’d take advantage of flexible business financing, rather than pay for the relocation from their hard-earned cash.

We were introduced to Chilli Banana by Darren Willoughby of 2XL Commercial Finance, who are specialists at providing commercial property funding and trusted partners of ours, and together we helped provide the finance for the Wakefields to relocate their restaurant and buy a whole new range of catering equipment and furniture!

The finance we provided helped the restaurant to get brand new catering equipment, including ovens, fryers, fridges for the bar area, counters, bottle coolers, tables, chairs, and fixed banquet seating for their two-storey premises.

The catering equipment was provided by quality providers Dawnvale Cafe Components Ltd, based in Oldham, who specialised in providing low-energy and energy-reduction kitchen and bar equipment. Their new start-of-the-art KERS heat recovery system, installed into the kitchen, recovers wasted heat and generates back into portable hot water, reducing the restaurant’s carbon emissions and electricity bills.