After losing his job due to Covid in 2020, co-founder Seb went all in on something he’d wanted to do for a while, street food. It was a case of ‘if not now, when?’. With the support of his wife Kara-Jessica, Tanio was born.

Tanio translates to ‘ignite’ in Welsh, a small nod to Seb’s Welsh family, as well as a fitting name for an idea that was burning for a while before a spark made it a reality.

We started in our communal garden in Sydenham, South East London, serving pizzas to friends, family and our neighbours.

Before long, in the summer of 2021, Tanio were at Lower Stable Street market in Kings Cross, selling out every weekend. We then moved to doing more local markets and events in our beloved South East London, such as Catford Food Market, Maple Road and Lewisham Food Market.

After 3 years of pop ups and events, we opened a permanent site inside Catford Mews in September 2024. It was something we’d worked hard for for so long and we opened with high hopes. Unfortunately, just two months into our residency, the building was repossessed from our landlord by Lewisham council.

At that start of January 2025, we took over the kitchen inside the Duke of Catford, but again we were left without a home when the pub shut down in March.

In April we did a 3 month residency at Br3wery’s new bar on Beckenham High Street. We’re now looking for our next long term residency.