From a TikTok Comment to Queues Around the Block: A Conversation with Co-Founder Mairi Livsey, CZER
Mairi Livsey wanted a giant, freshly made chicken Caesar wrap like the ones she kept seeing in New York and Florida. When she couldn’t find one in London, she announced CZER in a TikTok comment, before she and co-founder Marius Baltaitis had a location, a launch plan or enough fridge space.
What began at a small counter inside Mayfair Food Fayre quickly drew queues, sell-outs and regulars, followed by a second CZER in Soho. The Knife spoke to Mairi about opening day chaos, just how much Caesar dressing a wrap needs, and why her instinct still has the final say.
How specific was the Caesar wrap you were craving? What were other London lunches getting wrong?
It was very specific, I’d been seeing this giant chopped chicken caesar wrap on my timeline from both Lenwich in NYC & [Cousin] Vinny’s in Florida. I knew it had to be chopped, it had to be huge and it had to be made fresh to order. I think often our options are limited to something cold that’s grab and go, and a sad looking sandwich, or a meal deal.
You announced CZER before you had a location. What was the conversation between you and Marius immediately after that comment went public?
I can tell you exactly what the conversation was because it’s etched into my brain. For context, Marius and myself are two polar opposites, which I now believe is essential to a successful business. He is very rational – numbers and systems based. Me, on the other hand, I am powered by manifestation and delusion; so we balance each other out. When I announced CZER for the first time (a comment on a trending Tiktok video), Marius looked me dead in the eye and said ‘what are you doing?’, I explained we would make it work and I could feel we could do it. He kept asking me questions like ‘where will we get the money?’ ‘where will we find a space to launch it in?’ – all VERY valid questions. My responses were along the lines of ‘we’ll use your AMEX’, and, ‘there’s a cute space in the back of a convenience store that I noticed when buying a Red Bull the other day!’. At some point I think he stopped asking questions and just said ‘OK’. He opened Excel and started building out the numbers and off we went. Maybe he saw the vision, or maybe he didn’t want to argue with me. Either way, we’re very glad we didn’t let the blockers hold us back in the end!
You’re both hospitality consultants. Which part of launching your own food business still caught you completely off guard?
We both come from a bar/nightclub background originally. During our consultancy period we worked across projects with food, but most of it was activations. CZER is our first time building out a scalable long-term food business and what shocked me most is the level of issues that happen daily. There’s been points it feels like we are literally fighting an uphill battle, every step forward is a step back. Doing one product means that all your line items are critically essential – if there’s an issue with the lettuce and it doesn’t arrive, we can’t simply take it off menu, we have to close or delay our open. There are so many operating issues that spring up out of nowhere, it has at points felt impossible to stabilise the business, but we’re almost there!
What did that first counter inside Mayfair Food Fayre look like on opening day, and when did you realise 50 wraps wouldn’t be enough?
Because we’d prepped for 50 wraps, not only did we have limited stock, but our entire set-up wasn’t designed for volumes at pace. I think it took us an embarrassing three hours to serve 50 wraps (we now do 70 per hour in the same space). We didn’t have anywhere near enough bowls or choppers. We didn’t have enough people to actually get them made at pace, and the issue was even if we were to order more stock for the following days, we didn’t have enough fridge space on site to store it! After our first day we ordered 10x more of everything from bowls and choppers to bags and napkins, to fridges and freezers (meaning everything started arriving during the middle of service including fridges and freezers, which was fun!).
But as volumes went up, so did our orders. We couldn’t keep up with the pace we were increasing daily, meaning there wasn’t a day for about a month where we weren’t out of something. We realised pretty much instantly that we had a problem, when our first customer was queuing on open day at 8am.
At what point did the queue become a problem you actually had to manage?
Pretty much from day one! I recruited one of our day one customers as a "queue manager" for the day after launch day and she’s been with us since and is now our Brand Ops Manager. When you have a physical queue, you have to adhere to council regs around queueing. Coming from a club background and understanding licensing to a T, I can proudly say that we managed that queue like a military operation. We switched to a virtual queue after about a month as they were getting ridiculous and it was impossible for one person to control it, but if we tried to cut it off or stop letting guests queue, people would refuse to leave. Moving to a virtual queue was the best decision we could have made for Mayfair.
A Caesar salad is familiar to almost everyone. What makes it work so well chopped, tossed, sauced and packed into a wrap?
Honestly, it’s just a great bite every time.
How did you decide how saucy was saucy enough? Was there a version that went too far?
Well, firstly we were shocked at HOW much sauce is needed. Whatever you think you need, quadruple it. But we also find it’s super preference based; a lot of our customers like half the amount, some people like it extra saucy – just ask us and we’ll make it how you like.
What has surprised you most about how people eat CZER: the custom requests, the regulars, or the lengths they’ll go to for one?
I think the extent people will go to get their hands on a CZER has been incredible. We’ve had people say they have flown in from other continents, or driven hours, just to have a CZER. It honestly fills me with immense gratitude and I think it is testament in a way to how food can build an incredible community.
The first rush came from social media. What told you people were coming back for the wrap itself?
I’ve worked on-site every single day since we opened on 9th May. So when I see someone coming back, I recognise them. We have so many regulars now across both sites and I still chat to them daily. There’s a real genuine love there from both sides!
How did you decide it was time for Soho, and what did you learn in Mayfair that you took into the second opening?
I think it was less we decided it was time for Soho and more Soho decided it was time for us. I wasn’t planning on scaling to a second site at that point, but we got convinced to view sites and when I viewed what is now our current site in Soho, I immediately fell in love. I’m a very gut oriented person, and it’s yet to do me wrong, so it was very much a fuck it, let’s scale and let’s use Soho as our testing ground.
If you could put one unexpected ingredient or flavour into a future CZER wrap, what would it be?
I’d LOVE to do a steak CZER one day.
You’ve made people queue for a Caesar wrap. What’s the next thing you’d love to make London excited about?
If I told you that I’d have to kill you. Jokes – I do have a few ideas up my sleeve, but all the best ideas have to be done at the right time while the market still wants it. I have some ideas I know would work incredibly well if we launched it right now, but we don’t have the capacity. Ask me again in six months once I (hopefully) have some headspace and maybe some liquid cash!
