TikTook sensation Spud Brothers open pop up in London after followers queued for hours to go to their Preston market stall –  however get backlash for DOUBLING the worth

Spud Brothers’ TikTok success has landed them a shiny new pop up joint in London‘s West End, but fans can’t believe the surge in prices.

Back in their humble tram in Preston Flag Market brothers Jacob, 28, and Harley Nelson, 21, have customers queuing hours for spuds, with fans travelling from Australia, Turkey, Spain, Germany and Amsterdam to Lancashire to try their potatoes.

It’s a buzz that they’re hoping to recreate in their new London pop up, but customers should expect to pay premium price, with a cheese and beans jacket potato costing £9.50.

However, in Preston, Spud Brothers confirmed on Facebook that a medium jacket with two toppings cost £5.

The brothers revealed on TikTok that in 2022 they charged £3.50 for a small jacket potato with cheese and beans, £4.50 for a medium, comprised of one and half potatoes plus the toppings, and £5 for a large of two potato’s and two toppings.

In London, a jacket potato with butter is £5, a TikTok by @itsjimmyofficial_ revealed. To add cheese, beans, or coleslaw, customers will have to pay £2 per topping, and for tuna, chicken curry or chilli con carne, it’s an added £4 per option.

The once low prices meant customers took to TikTok to tell each other to visit Spud Brothers over business competitor Spud man, who has faced backlash for charging up to £12 for a jacket potato, despite a plain jacket potato with butter costing him 46p to make.

Rival vendor, Ben Newman, 39, known as ‘Spud Man’, became a household name on TikTok in recent months, with tens of millions of hits online and a fanbase extending from Malaysia to Hawaii.

Taking to TikTok in 2022, Spud Man explained his cost breakdown, saying: ‘These videos always spark a good conversation; we’re doing another product costing video. 

‘How much does a plain potato with butter cost me to produce?’ He explained: ‘So, one and a half spuds, butter, and a tray.

‘Tray costs me 7p, butter costs me 12p, I put a double portion on when it’s a plain potato, and one and a half spuds in 27p.

‘So, a plain potato, which we run out at Tamworth at £2.50 anywhere up to £5 on festivals, costs us 46p to produce, that is not including my wages, the rent, the gas, the diesel to get there, and all those other costs that are incurred; that is just purely the product cost, 47p’

However, prices soon skyrocketed, and at Silverstone, Spudman revealed that he charged £7.50 for a plain potato, £8.50 to have the spud with one filling, and £9.50 for two fillings.

Cold drinks cost £3.90, water £3.30, and red bull was £4.50. There most expensive option was terriyaki chicken, costing £12.

‘Goes without saying, same quality, same fillings, same size, we do every day in Tamworth,’ he concluded. 

Meanwhile, at his van in Tamworth, a customer under the name of @therealjoeydiaz on TikTok, reported similar findings.

He said: ‘For a plain jacket potato with no toppings is £7.50. A potato with one topping is £8.50. Two toppings are £9.50.

‘For one cold drink it’s £3.90, a Red Bull is £4.50, and a bottle of water is £3.20. For teriyaki chicken or barbeque pulled pork on your potato it will cost you £12.’

Viewers took to the comment section urging Joey to go to Spud Brothers. One said: ‘Spud bros prices are better’. Another added: ‘Just go to Spud bros’. A third agreed, saying: ‘Spud bros is way better’.

That’s why it came as a shock when fans saw the prices at the new Spud Brothers London location, with one questioning: ‘Why is it £9?’

‘Genuinely thought it was £2 for the spud,’ a second said. A third wrote: ‘As a Londoner myself, £9 is steep for what it is.’

Another said: ‘A cheap potato with cheese and beans £9. Absolute rip off’. A fifth added: ‘I was going to go but for those prices they can keep it.’

Others came to their defence. One said: ‘Why are people moaning about the price? The rent in soho will be insane.’

A second viewer added: ‘It’s London, 9 quid is standard; you pay a premium on everything there’.

In May, Spud Brothers revealed insight into their success, and they often have to turn customers away due to the high demand.

Jacob said: ‘We open at 11.30am and we always have around 30 people in the queue waiting for us to open.

‘Then it’s constant to 3pm so we have to turn people away because the jacket potatoes take around two hours to cook.

‘We hate doing it and disappointing people, but we have to do it. We don’t even know how many potatoes we can serve in a day, which is bizarre, because it’s constantly busy from open to close.

‘We’ve had people come from Germany, Amsterdam, Turkey, Spain and Australia come to visit.

‘We love the support and we are so grateful for people trying our little potato van in Preston so we always try and make it special for them. We try and serve food and also give people that customer interaction.’

Spud Brothers Jacob and Harley took over their TikTok account from their dad, Anthony, 57, who managed to get a whopping 60,000 followers.

But Jacob quit his job as a sales manager to work at the company full time and now they have reached over three million followers.

The sibling duo decided to start posting on TikTok to market themselves to the thousands of students that live in Preston.

Instead of highly-edited videos, they decided to want to bring ‘a lot of northern humour’ to their content.

Jacob said: ‘There’s a lot of students in Preston and we just used to see them walking past the tram, going to McDonalds or Greggs.

‘My dad started the TikTok and struggled with it – even though he did get us up to around 60,000 followers.

‘But then me and Harley decided to take it up to the next level so we did a lot of research and decided we wanted to bring a lot of northern humour to it.

‘We wanted banter and for it to be more raw and natural, so a lot of the videos that we do is just raw footage.

‘It might be slightly edited but what you see, is what you get and a lot of people in the north west get it.’

Jacob said they didn’t think they would have as many followers as they do now. But within months, they had hundreds of thousands of people following them.

He added: ‘We are nearly at a million now and I never would have thought we would have got to this stage, just based on the humble jacket potato.

‘We’ve got one video that’s got 20million views. It’s just of me doing a pov, doing what we do, serving the spuds.’

The business was founded in 1955 by Ernie Rhodes, who then passed it on to his nephew Keith Roberts in 1978.

Exactly 30 years later, Keith passed the company to his son, who was also called Keith, but he passed away in 2020.

Harley and Jacob’s dad took over the business, and the two brothers have served jacket potatoes five days a week ever since.

Now punters flock to pick up baked potato meals with a variety of toppings, which sell for around £5 a pop.

Jacob added: ‘I actually worked with Keith and it was my first ever Saturday job 14 years ago.

‘It was always a good business that did well and had a good reputation in Preston. Nobody in his family wanted to take it on so he spoke to my dad about it because they were good friends and I used to work there.

‘We just decided to buy the business and made a go of it to keep the legacy going. It’s just insane.’

The sibling duo serve all types of classic spud toppings including cheese and beans, tuna and coleslaw.

A lot of British staples such as crumble and baked beans on toast have become highly sought after thanks to influencers online.

Thanks to the power of TikTok, and the recent booming fascination with the classic British dish, ‘Spud Man’ has been selling as many as 1,450 spuds a day.

Mr Newman, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, said: ‘Retail has changed. There isn’t the passing trade in town. You can’t just rely on footfall of people and word of mouth anymore.

‘January is normally a hard time for a lot of market traders and shops in town.

‘But the amount of people that are just in Tamworth on a Saturday and throughout the week, like everyone is having a really good January off the back of this.’

He added: ‘We had customers today from Malaysia. They landed in Gatwick this morning and drove straight up.

‘They came to England to get a jacket potato. I asked them: ”Have you got holiday plans?’, and they were like ”No, we came to England to come and see you”.’

Ben has also leveraged the recent social media frenzy to benefit other jacket potato vendors across the UK, with many experiencing non-stop trade after his social media videos.

However, the content creator is under ‘no illusion’ they are currently experiencing a huge wave of hype.

‘They’re not coming just for jacket but are they’re coming to meet a TikToker. They’re coming to show support and see what it’s all about.

‘We’re a social media business that sells potatoes. Social media is just as big a thing as the actual business now.’