A highly-regarded North Yorkshire sandwich shop has entered liquidation with debts topping £40,000.
The Thug Sandwich Company was registered at 2A Albert Street, Harrogate, and was founded in 2018 by chef Daniel Bell and his partner Sophie Bell.
The independent shop was known for signature and special sandwiches such as the KFCaesar, Honey & Soy Beef, Pulled Pork, Chicken Satay, Reuben (with in-house pastrami and sauerkraut), char siu belly pork, and BBQ gochujang brisket mel.
This was in addition to more traditional sandwiches, plus snacks like lamb belly fingers, scotch eggs, scotch bhaji ("Scotch Bargi"), pig in a duvet, and quiche, alongside brownies, blondies, flapjacks, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and chai lattes.
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Over the years, the popular venture gained rave reviews, with Google awarding 4.8 stars out of five based on 371 reviews, and TripAdvisor awarding 4.8 stars out of five based on 126 reviews.
The latest TripAdvisor review from August called the business “the best sandwich place.”
They added: “The nicest sandwich I’ve ever had (I had the pulled pork) - genuinely the best thing to bless my mouth. Also super nice guys running the shop.”
In addition, in 2022, Danny Malin, the man behind Rate My Take Away visited Thug and gave it "the biggest 10 I've given so far, just outstanding".
The You Tuber, who has 472,000 followers, also said it was the best of the 200 take-aways he had been to at the time. More than 492,000 people have now seen his review of the business online.
However, Harrogate based media reported that in March 2025, Daniel decided to make the ‘heartbreaking’ decision to sell, saying working six days a week for him had personally become ‘unsustainable’ for him’. Just five months later, he dropped the price to £50,000.
Then, in September 2026 Daniel announced the closure of the business and it entered into a creditors voluntary liquidation on October 23, with Leeds-based Lewis Business recovery and Insolvency appointed liquidators.
A liquidator’s report known as a statement of affairs outlines the finances behind Thug Sandwich company.
The report said the business, which was incorporated in 2017, had estimated assets available for distribution of £6,374.78.
Thug Sandwich had one preferential creditor- someone paid first- an employee owed arrears and holiday pay of £5,002.85.
In addition, HMRC was owed £19,817.65 as a secondary preferential creditor- someone paid next.
Furthermore, there were unsecured creditors- those paid last- who were also owed £24,437.72. They consisted of 15 trade and expense creditors owed £20,588.91 between them and an employee owed a further £3,848.81.
This gave a total deficit or shortfall of £42,881.26. With the business having issued and called up capital, this gave an overall shortfall or deficit of £42,883.26.
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