'My wife had had enough of Deliveroo drivers turning up in the back garden'

Zubair Rahim didn't come from a food background but that freed him up to make smash burgers while offering desi-style hospitality

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Zubair Rahim started grilling burgers in his shed during Covid.

He bought a 23kg stainless-steel plancha on Facebook, placed it on his charcoal kettle BBQ and began his new hobby.

Then he was doing it to seek some solace from loved ones, now his burger van business is reaching a much larger community - one customer when I visited travelled in an Uber from Heathrow just for one of his smash burgers during a flight stopover.

Zubair shrugged and said this American woman has done it before - in fact, she’d had a burger paid for by one of his online followers when they found out about her detour. It seems the love Zubair spreads from his burger truck is contagious.

‘I blew up electrical plug sockets in my shed’