Nando’s announces post-lockdown restaurant party for London students featuring Novelist

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder, Nando’s have announced a series of free post-lockdown parties on the 21st June taking place in five restaurant locations: London, Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham, and the fifth to be voted on by the public.

The “Nando’s Yard Unlocked” events will see the five restaurants switch to dancefloors for a “celebration of the long-awaited end of lockdown”, and will give priority to students through their launch of Pocket PERi-PERi – a mini squeezable bottle of sauce that’s also a keychain that’s also a VIP pass to the events. In London, the event will also feature the grime rapper, Novelist. You just couldn’t make this up.

Through their online youth hub Nando’s Yard, students can register for a Pocket PERi-PERi from the 28th April for free, and get “the inside track on info, first dibs on tickets and more”. This comes as a “nod to the population that has arguably lost one of its most sociable years to the pandemic”. Appreciate it, Nando’s, but can’t say that the solution is a rave next to the Frozen Yogurt machine.

The limited-edition Pocket PERi-PERi was launched on Nando’s Instagram yesterday, but if you missed out on the prize draw (and the evidently priceless mini squeeze bottle that comes with it) then never fear! More details will be on Nando’s Yard in the lead-up to the events, including music artists and ticket launches.

The headliner for the London restaurant party, Novelist, is a young grime rapper from Lewisham known for the political messages and activism in his music. We all really love to see some woke anti-Tory vibes spreading through Nando’s in sesh form, but I’m having a really difficult time picturing grime music in a restaurant.

All I’m saying is that if they don’t have Nando’s-themed photo booths and free chicken passed out at midnight I will have a fit.

The parties will give “cheeky Nando’s” a whole different meaning when someone whips out their Pocket PERi-PERi mid-rave, however a limited capacity of 100-150 people means that not everyone will be able to enjoy this bizarre post-lockdown celebration.

It’s free, it’s fun and it involves hot sauce, so the real question here is why we ever went to XOYO or Fabric in the first place. Clearly, Nando’s is the hot new club of the 2020s, which is a sentence I never thought I’d say.

London, Leeds, Bristol and Birmingham are the four lucky cities to be blessed with this news from the Nando’s Gods, but you can also vote for another city to be included on Nando’s Yard because the world definitely needs another Nando’s rave with mini PERi-PERi bottle keychains acting as VIP passes.

Nando’s might need to extend their alcoholic drinks menu a bit more beyond Buck’s Fizz and standard lager for the students who are used to Jagerbombs and vodka cranberry in the club, but with a butterfly chicken burger in one hand and spicy wings in the other, the parties will definitely guarantee students a good laugh.

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