In November 1965, together with four business partners, David opened Elizabeth David Ltd, a shop selling kitchen equipment, at 46 Bourne Street, Pimlico. The partners were spurred on by the closure of a professional kitchenware shop in Soho on the retirement of its owner, and the recent success of Terence Conran's Habitat shops, which sold among much else imported kitchen equipment for which there was evidently a market. Among her customers were Albert and Michel Roux, who shopped there for equipment that they would otherwise have had to buy in France.