Bleecker Burger Founder: Hospitality is BROKEN for Women and LGBTQ+ (here’s how we fix it)

38:19And it's not just this is like every system. And he goes, you're pretty fucked if you're trying to go upstream. The system is just domineering. This is your better bet is to try and sort of dig a slight, almost slip stream and then begin to influence there. Yeah. And that's a better way of doing things. And also like like culture's shifting now again. Right. So like there was, you know, I guess Me Too and everything that happened with George Floyd and through COVID. And now it's like Trump and DEI policies being rolled back. And the culture is it's going back that way in a really strong way. before there were even minor inroads, you know, half a decade before.

39:01So it's super challenging times for people who are like, you know, the global majority is even more in trouble again now. And it's like they already were in trouble. So it's like, yeah, it's pretty shit. Yeah. And how what's your sort of. How do you see bleak as change, sitting with that change with that system? Yeah, I think we got to go harder, right? Yeah, we got to challenge challenge. be louder be louder again you know just keep keep doing what we're doing and keep challenging ourselves to to see where we're lacking what we can do better you know it's like if you think about it's so much easier to think about the burger like well maybe it doesn't seem but every day we work on the burger every day yeah we're gonna get to the burger yeah no no but i'm using as analogy every day like tweak the seasoning tweak the meat think about the bun how much sauce whatever and if we if you thought that much about like the diversity component like it's open-ended like we can just keep going and going and try to improve but it's it's hard it's challenging and it's like but we just we have to you know i guess think about how we can impact people's lives in a positive way or just like give them a space to be like everyone else yeah yeah you know yeah Yeah.

40:22And do you think the burger, because it is such a...

40:29It's all good. Yeah. Easy listening. Yeah, yeah. And now we're going to talk about... Yeah, yeah, it's like radio DJ voice. We'll leave that rolling for a sec. See if it's picking up. Yeah, can you hear me over it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can just about... Yeah, that's actually quite a nice interlude. we'll move on to the burger but yeah i was going to say do you think that because the burger is so accessible do you think there's kind of a there's a sort of a metaphor in that about like what you're trying to do what do you mean the burger is accessible in terms of our product or you at bleaker uh no in terms of in general yeah not not in terms of bleak i mean in terms of as a universal thing like well yeah it's become less and less accessible right like yeah our burger is like 10 pounds yes so um yeah that i think the burger has you know obviously uh you know products have zoomed up in price but um yeah i don't think there's a link there sorry the um talking about about the burger and the food and um the sort of obsession with relentless improvement yeah like how is the burger and the offering changed from because it was endorsed was it an endorsing car park that you uh we the the first place we ever traded was in red market which is where the that art hotel is like near um old street yeah like a big hotel now it's like art oh i forget the name but yeah yeah yeah that was a car park um and we we had a truck in there that was like way too big for the space and yeah that was the first place we ever traded really and so how's the burger evolved and changed because from from the from my yeah we were talking um before you arrived yeah about how the chips you've kind of been fastidiously fastidiously like improving the chips yeah but from my perspective it's like always i suppose the genius of it is how it has been unshakable, unflinchable, unmoving in its offering.

42:40It's so simple. It is what it is. It's kind of single-mindedness in the offering. Yeah. On the one hand. But on the other hand, you've got this constant improvement and tinkering. Yeah. Those two sort of competing tensions. It's funny because there's a very well-known chef in London who's a bit of an arrogant asshole. But anyway, he was sitting next to me in Dalston in that car park that you mentioned. And he was like, he turned to me and he's like, isn't what you do so boring? And I was like, hmm, I've never ever thought it was boring, right? Why would he say it was boring? I don't know. I guess he's like, you know, chefs venturous like to, but so the burger is just, the burger is simple, right?

43:23It's simple in terms of number of ingredients. There's very few ingredients. So it's the bun, the meat, the... So it's bun, there's like a sort of big Mackey type sauce that we make, and then it's the beef and seasoning, onion, American cheese, and then the sauce and bun again. So it's four ingredients, bun, cheese, beef, sauce, five ingredients. So I guess it looks simple. There's a lot of, the depth you can go into in each one of those ingredients is quite far, like endless. You can just keep going in and in and in, and then it's like not just going in, but it's like replication. How do you replicate it to the same every single time?

44:05Right. At scale. What's the ingredient on the burger that you went the most kind of, you almost opened sort of the Alice in Wonderland going into sort of Onion Wonderland, if you want to find it. It's funny because I think there is an Onion Wonderland, which I haven't actually really explored. Really? What does Onion Wonderland look like? Well, just, you know, like how old the onions are, what color are the onions how thin are they how fresh are they you know um how cooked are they um but obviously like the beef and the bun are the you know the american cheese i've gone in a bit of like in terms of do we use this brand of american cheese or this brand of american cheese and how that sort of changes the taste of the burger but uh the beef and the bun are the real ones that you can go really really well so talk me through those those yeah the journeys into sort of um the beef and bun underworld like yeah like that's the best way of saying it like what's what have those been those journeys of exploration yeah and i guess like going back to this chef's point like yeah where he was like isn't that boring i guess like okay maybe i can take his point but it's so naive because to get this burger made there are so many people involved there are so many people so many different personalities so many like once or not once and culture and bringing a team together and it's like that's obviously the ultimate challenge like yeah how to build a culture around a product and that's the way it started a culture around a product which you know does that have legs does it not you know maybe um but sorry going back to your question the beef journey let me just start there so i i guess you know i can take you back to the beginning yeah boof chapter one let's do that um i my best friend's little sister worked at whole foods uh you know this is when you're in london no this is when i was in new york right i was like you know i didn't know anything about the uk beef scene you know i was so so lucky to happen to move to a country where there is literally the best beef in the entire world.

46:17Yeah. What's the beef like in America versus... I think there's pockets... There's no such thing as grass-fed steak, is there, in the States? No, no, no. There definitely is, but it's a small percentage, right? Most of it's mass-produced on large farms. Because you can't really compare the demand in America versus here. Anyway, But UK specifically, in terms of the climate, the grass, the terrain, it just has the heritage breeds. The beef is outstanding. And I think that really surprised me. So I remember being like, I initially just wanted to make a good burger, right? I want to make a good burger, solid, consistent, like people would enjoy.

47:01And I tasted the beef and I was like, oh, no, no, no, we're not going to make a good burger anymore. We're going to make a great burger. So I, anyway, back to this. Yeah, so how did you go from good to great beef? Well, so my friend's little sister worked at Whole Foods and she introduced me to basically the ginger pig, which. Yes. We're one of like, I guess one of the initial sort of newer age butchers doing these sorts of things. I think grass-fed beef has always existed, but they sort of pushed that further and talked about it. so um i met with the founder of ginger pig and he he just i just came and visited him with my backpack and he gave me beef like once a week to test for free wow yeah it was quite amazing like he just really supported me and i was like wow so i bring it home to my wife's family and put little cards and be like which one's best right and that that went on for months and months just because we didn't really have a start point.

48:00It was all investigative. I knew I was going to do it. You were doing law in London at this point. Yes, yeah. But I hadn't bought the truck yet.

48:10And I think all the blends that they were giving me were great because just the beef was great. And then we sort of got into it. And then another butcher came along named Nathan the Butcher, who was in Bermondsey. Nathan the Butcher? Yeah. That's sick. That's not his actual name. His name is Nathan. And he was just starting out, and he hailed from Australia and a history of butchers, and he was doing the whole animal breakdown, which was quite new at that time, like bringing in whole bodies and using every bit of the animal. So I started a bit with him, and then I transferred fully over to him.

48:52And it was like we were both growing together and learning, you know, what, what it took to be consistent, you know, and, and I don't think we ever got there with him. I think the beef was always great, but it was like one day it was like the cheesy tasting beef. One day it was the sour tasting beef, like all these beautiful notes that beef have, but it was always different every day. Yes. Um, which at that time wasn't really challenging, but as we started to get bigger, it was cause it's like, we needed to sort of be more consistent in terms of what the the customer was getting yeah you know and how did you begin where where did you go on that again now we're in sort of beef narnia here but like how did you get into the into that consistency because i think as you scale that's one of the hardest so we were so he was delivering us five kilo bags of beef we were then making them into balls and then we were pushing it between two cutting boards yep so laid the cutting boards and and take another third cutting board and push it down.

49:56And that's how we were doing all of our patties, which is like, yeah, pretty backyard rogueness, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it sort of got to a point where we were growing and he basically fired us. He was like, I can't do what you want to do. Yes. And I think that was sort of potentially the only way that relationship was going to end was being fired because I had a lot of love and admiration for what he did. and he helped our business like really put it on the map in terms of like this highest quality unique total breakdown of the body beef that immediately stood up and had attention when people took a bite of it yes um yes that's true it's it's first time you have a bleak eye was the one in victoria it's a rest it's an arresting experience like in an arresting awakening is probably the best way of saying you bite into it like fucking hell let's talk about the bun yeah what do you think like talk to me about the symphony and the dance between the bun and the beef like yeah how does that work because again there's a myriad of different options we've got all the smash burgers coming here now with the potato buns like what's your perspective on that how important is the bun in this dance yeah i mean i know the way i always look at the bun is like the Aung Sung hero.

51:13So, you know, if you notice the bun, I think there's a problem. I don't want you to notice the bun. I want it to hold the beef for you, like, you know, and then it just dissipates in your mouth. So it's like, it's a balance between creating a structure for beef that's very, our beef is really, really fatty and really juicy, right? So it's wet. And it's like, how do you create a bun that is stable enough to support that all the way through, but then when it gets into your mouth it just goes away and that that's that's mad that's an awakening experience like yeah because it was as i said on new year's eve i was having very much having that sort of experience on my on my own sat off the pubs in clapham but um yeah and then how many iterations have we done through that like so the bun actually the the biggest challenge was finding the baker yeah i think so i tried because because you know smash just getting on the blower to them like how doing that and when you're in the truck it was so i just walked around london yeah trying different buns and that smash burgers weren't really here then there wasn't this martin potato buns weren't weren't allowed in the country at the time because what they have in them but um it was brioche right everything was brioche everyone had a brioche burger bun in it that like never made sense to me like brioche is like a blockade to beef is a blockade to beef yeah wow that's a great great sentence i love that yeah yeah it just never made sense to me and like why are people putting burgers on this like it's so dense so stodgy so sweet like and you're not getting it's not allowing the beef to shine it's like yeah um so i you know needed to find a bun that wasn't brioche so i just walk i literally was just walking around yeah um and so say say the beef is sort of mick jagger that's the front man the bun is the the drum rolling stones drummer right how do the cheese and the onions yeah act like keith richards and i don't know who the other guy is like a weird question but yeah no it's i mean it's like i've never heard it as a like rolling stone analogy but it's not a strange question so like the cheese to me is like the flavorless glue so like the cheese is really melty we slide it on the grill it heats up on the burger as well and it like sort of brings everything together yeah and that cheese is is really important um because i think the the components eat more separately.

53:35With our size of burger, I think the cheese, it becomes more of a sum of its parts and the cheese is a real player in that. Yeah. I think the sauce adds a little more, like, oomph, so it adds like acid, acid to the richness of the beef. Yes. Yeah, because acid just cuts through the fattiness. Yeah, it balances. You read that book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat? I've seen the Netflix show yeah yeah which is I think the acid is something that like you could just pick it up and it sort of brings it all it's like the drummer I would say I thought the drummer was the bun yeah or maybe the drummer is the bassist you could go with that analogy you could go into that analogy Nani with that and then the onion is like yeah it's a bit of a like relief like palate cleanser yes very subtle you know it's very thin three pieces of onion but it adds yeah it just gives a little diversity in your mouth yeah tell me about the fries yeah that's again a this is something you've been working on recently like how are the fries yeah the fries are so so hard because so we we bring in whole potatoes we chop them we blanch them we fry them again it's just every potato season and then stores within the season are always different so how long you're blanching them for how long you're cooking them for how much starch they have it is like to get fries right on the particular day it's not easy are you having to say so say each year or each crop the potatoes are different have you got sort of uh like are you having to move with that sort of potato system and say right this is how we're going to change the fires do you see what i'm saying or do you have a consistent there is no because consistency is something that you guys do incredibly well but like when we peel back the layers like there's so much going do you see what i'm saying i'm trying to get into that territory yeah so like i think the the process so so there are different crops that that that they pull it different the farmers pull at different times of the year like there's early potatoes and then there's later potatoes and then all those potatoes go into stores and they rotate them and bring them out But as they go in, they come out differently depending on their age, right?

56:00So as they age, they change. And the starches break down and their skin's set differently. So it's like every day, you chop them. And we're now, so we used to just have washed potatoes on the outside. So like the potatoes would come in, we'd chop them, we'd fry them. But really what you need to do is once they're chopped, you need to wash them as well. and for a decade we didn't wash them because we stemmed from a truck we didn't have water then we went to spitalfields we didn't have space and it's like how do we make these better like it's time to start washing them because if you're able to not with all potatoes but when it's particularly starchy time of year or starchy potato you're already starting on the back foot if you don't get that starch off so yeah it's like a what does the starch do to the actual product so it makes it it it makes it darker and it really affects texture it sort of stands in the way of frying to a certain level yet so they'll brown more quickly so you can't keep frying them and it's yeah yeah so yeah every day it's like you we we we cut them then we soak them not everywhere we're rolling this out now actually but we were the sites that are washing them we cut them we wash them and then we blanch them so we'll we'll we'll set a time like one minute 30 blanch them and then we do this like squeeze test thing where basically when they come out i want you to be able to squeeze them to half its size and if it breaks before you get there the blanching time isn't right so it's like then going back in blanching the rest of the potatoes and that's done it should be done every day yeah yeah yeah and then it's like when you're frying them as well the second process yeah but it's it's hard and i understand why most people don't use fresh potatoes it's hard consistency is hard yeah and you get really consistent fries with frozen fries yeah yeah consistency is hard but i just think the there's a certain sort of um masochism and pain and doing things all way you know which which i think is i think it's satisfaction and desire and passion and it's like i know they can be better this way and it's going to be a journey and it's going to be hard but like if we're not trying to get this to the best level like it's not as satisfying yeah it's not what makes me tick i guess what gets you out of the bed each morning yeah like consistency of a fantastic product gets me out of bed yes you know seeing people develop in their roles and getting promoted gets me out of bed like and there's times when i don't want to get out of bed because the business can be very challenging with really hard conversations what's the hardest actually i always want to get out of bed let me i don't want to bring this into a yeah but you know like if someone isn't performing yeah how do you broach that conversation it's it's hard and it's i think you know as we get bigger we got to get better at this stuff and it's like creating like um a history of conversation and openness so when you have this conversation yes no one's surprised yeah because that's the thing i'm hopeless that with my little team is like if i want something like i'll just jump around to say something and then i'm like oh fuck i've just said the wrong place it's not easy no no it's not easy and so what have you learned in terms of the history so we were to look at that history like what are some of the painful...

59:10I think it's like thinking about in the larger context of leadership, which I have to think about more and more as we get bigger. How am I going to lead this team in a way that's encompassing their needs and their motivations and their state of mind and how they're feeling, what's going on in their life, and being considerate and knowing when to push and not to push and how to push and to be less reactive, I can be quite reactive. Wait, there's so much in that. There's a sort of buffet of delicious things we can explore there. But you said knowing when to push and how to push. Talk me through the when and the how because that's a delicate dance in itself.

59:57Yeah, and this has had different iterations of itself at different times because now more than ever there's a team in place that, you know, as the business gets older, everyone is better. I had to do every job initially, right? Every job. And then as the business has gotten older, more, we've grown, people have come in that are better than my job at each one of those things, right? So everything gets easier and potentially in some circumstances, it's harder for me because it's like, how do you challenge and lead someone who knows much more about the area? And it's like, you have to come away from that yeah be like okay i just need to be a leader for this business about our values and what we're trying to achieve and and just like you know it maybe sounds cliche but like just it's i i you know there's times where i'm like i get lost maybe uh in what you know it's like listening to your gut and what you want to do and not being dissuaded and keep to the vision and keep to the process while still like being really understanding and listen.

1:01:06I think there was a period of the business where that was like a really, really lonely time for me. Super lonely. So this is when you were bringing people in who had more experience? No, before that. Oh, sorry, yeah. Yeah, where it's just like there's nowhere to go to and you just sort of feel trapped. And then as more people came into the business, that started to feel a lot easier. Like I wasn't alone in this. I'm not alone in this. And there's people I can talk to. And then also like having an outside sort of coach is really helpful as well. So you have what he or she taught you? So they like just help me.

1:01:39And I actually don't have a coach right now because my previous coach is now in the business. But they like I can like talk about, you know, it's about a personal personal growth journey, professional growth journey and like reading and understanding. and that's one aspect of it. But it's also like taking particular situations where maybe I'm, you know, it's that whole, like when your brain goes off the rails and it's like you start reacting instead of like thinking things through. I'm the worst. My brain doesn't go off the rails. It goes to a different theme park. I'm like going to Curiosity Carnival.

1:02:19Do you know what I mean? It's all over the shop. How do you know? I guess it's being prepared, right? So it's like processing what's frustrating you, what's bothering you. I'm picking that on your own and not like subjecting your team to that process. Like you need to get to a certain place before you lay this out to your team. And I don't always do this well. I think the other day I had a, we were having a heads meeting and I was just like angry and pissed at something. And after it, I reflected and I was like, oh, I really wish I had prepared for that conversation in a different way. Because this is, you know, it's not helpful.

1:02:53Ooh, not helpful. how would you have prepared for it like differently i think i would try to like process like what i was upset about and like how we could collectively brainstorm about what's happened how do we learn from this and like maybe do it differently the next time what were you more like a less of a you know monologue and more of a conversation yeah oh wow yeah yeah what were you like what was the what were you pissed off about me asking yes I just like Like there's a site where we have like operational problems like with tickets and customer service and how we're reacting to that and how it's not fixed.

1:03:30And we have growth on the horizon. How are we going to like stabilize the business with new sites coming? That sort of thing. Yeah, I'm asked a lot of these questions selfishly because it's not easy, especially being, yeah, you can just, when it's all in your head as well, I find that you can't, it does feel like either a roller coaster or sort of a circus. and yeah they call it it's like the chimp brain they call it yeah yeah yeah where you just like yeah mine's like a yeah a ravenous monkey in there um i would love to talk about um your brother yeah sure with that and just maybe give some context on that first and i think you've got you've got an event coming up yeah so just yeah to talk about your brother because he was in hospitality he was he was so he we grew up we're like two years apart so like close in age we're always yeah like normal brother sister relationship pretty tight played sports together like we were a big sports family and then I think I went to university and he was still in high school and that's sort of when I think maybe his problems started just to go back one step yeah so you were growing up in New York Connecticut Connecticut okay yeah um and what was the sort of the childhood like like was it angelic angelic amazing angelic we lived in a nice suburb we you know lived on the water we went swimming in the suburb we went ice skating and played sports in the winter like really supportive great parents like can't complain yeah but i think he always suffered from some sort of like mental health issues pretty early on um when how did you notice that pretty early on do you think like he had this thing where he like would pull at his eyebrows and like pull his which is like some sort of like a disorder where you're like you know it's a stems i think from anxiety and he would do that when he was like a little kid and i i always like that was always like oh something and i don't think i really processed it for what it was but i was like yeah something he just wasn't a happy-go-lucky kid he always like excelled in everything he did like he was a really really top athlete whatever sport it was he was always like the best but I think he like put so much pressure on himself and he dealt with anxiety and you know probably some forms of depression which maybe weren't clear when he was younger but I think as he got sports was he playing hockey baseball football sure yeah American football yeah but yeah really top athlete and he I think he you know as he got into high school those problems started to become clearer in terms of like his behavior like it wasn't really going to class he was like a bit introverted but also extroverted in a way that sort of maybe was masking things um yeah and i think he he we went to like therapy and like you know i think maybe that helped a bit maybe it didn't and then when he went to college he started to get into like drug use like heavier drug use and I think like I remember one of my one of my brother's friends called my parents were like you have to go pick him up like he can't be there like you've got to get him and I think they were sort of like no it's all right and like yeah he needed to be picked up and brought home and definitely put into rehab.

1:07:06And it's like, you know, addiction I think is a symptom of mental health, right? So it's not the drug use, it's like what's causing the drug use and exploring that. And then there was years where he was like sort of in and out of rehab. And it was like a real, it was a real unsettling time because it was sort of like anytime the phone rang. And I was in London actually during this period when it got really bad. What year was this? 2005. I was studying, I was in law school and I was studying abroad and it was always like in the back of my mind, like what's going to happen? And then I remember moving back home and the phone rang and it was, it was a police officer.

1:07:52So he was living in Florida. He was like in and out of rehab in Florida. There's like a lot of rehab facilities in Florida and it was a police officer and she was like I'm not she was she was on the phone with my mom and she was like I'm not calling as a police officer I'm just calling that like I found your son like eating out of a dumpster and I just wanted to call you and it's like but what can you do right because at that point she had cut him off because your mom had cut him off yeah he needed to be cut off because he was just like how old would he have been at this time like He was like 20, 22, 23, something like that.

1:08:32He needed to be cut off because, yeah, like he would steal money, use drugs. Like there needed to be separation. And I think like there needed to be separation for my parents because it like it was just like it was killing them slowly as well. Right. The stress, the anxiety, the constant like it just became. I think if you haven't experienced it and you think about a parent like cutting off a child you're like how could you possibly do it but when you're in it you're like this needs to happen and then eventually he like sort of got into rehab and it stuck and then he got into like a hospitality job at a restaurant in like South Florida where he progressed and he was he was quite and I want to say happy I think happy is like a bit a bit of a tricky mentality but he was okay.

1:09:20He wasn't using drugs. He was going to work. He was working out a lot. And he like sort of was living with a boundary he had created for himself to stay safe, I guess. And then I think he always like wanted to be successful and like make a lot of money. And we grew up in a like real town that was really wealthy in Connecticut. And I think you're always like looking to these people in the town that have done this, this, and this. and huge pressure yeah it never affected me actually at all but it really affected him and so he wanted more and someone came and they were like oh you should come work for me you it was called european wax center big franchise and they were like you should come manage these like big job right sorry wax and yeah not not to hospitality no okay yeah yeah so he left that stable job and went to do this and like his world blew up too much pressure too much like you know and then he started using again um and then like was he using like to yeah probably like crack and heroin and yeah all you know the sort of harder stuff um not and not in a social way right yeah yeah yeah um and yeah then it just started to slowly unravel again and then he was never able to like pull that back and when you said he wasn't able to pull that back like for just for context and we'll get onto this event like what happened after that so he yeah i think he um he he had been in rehab again and then he left and and then he was i'm not sure where he was living and I remember like saying to my mom like you know maybe we should go down to Florida because I think he's gonna die and and yeah he OD'd that was yeah that was it so yeah I'm so so sorry to hear that sorry no no it's all good I'm really sorry to hear that and I think no I think because this this time of year so just bring it back to bleaker so on his birthday we raised money for charities like dealing with mental health and addiction and like coupling in some of my causes that's like sort of dual purposes like so dealing with the lgbt community plus homelessness you know so marrying all those worlds of addiction and homelessness and you know minority communities into like a group of charities that we can support on that day yeah and when is that that so march first is his birthday so we on that day we donate all of our profits to charity amazing so it's yeah it's gone from like being a few thousand to potentially if it's on the right day of the week it could be like 20 plus thousand right so it's a lot of money we can give to people um so it's like taking you know obviously a bit of a shit day like i think you know his birthday and the day he died are sort of close time of year and i was talking to my mom last night and i was like it's this time of year right so you know and for her obviously it's a very different thing like you know yeah i that that front row seat to watching her grief was yeah i wish i could unsee that but i think we're able to talk about those causes openly like talking about addiction talking about mental health openly to our small community and like people see that and they come to us and it's like oh that was really nice that you talk about that so openly because it's like you know normalizing that these things are happening on a really regular basis to a lot of people yeah i appreciate you being so open because and also i wanted to understand and get to like your why these things are so integral to your mission as well as the burger and yeah it gives context context and not even just depth and color and richness to it one question because you said he was cool and it was okay when he was in the hospitality yeah this is a and again i don't want to make this is a huge broad brushstroke here no no it's like a lot of people in hospitality and i don't know if this is even true but it's like hospitality linked like like there's almost like hot the word hospitals in hospitality right yeah that's me just like sort of chatting bollocks a little bit i think about that a lot i'm like you like connections i like connections yeah which is sometimes a load of bollocks yeah but i don't know if that's true or not but um but the you know i talked to um mike at the cambo alarms don't know if you've ever been down there i've heard of it yeah yeah i mean he's so he talked about having um mental um mental kind of um hallucinations of doing mise en place because and he was basically having a mental breakdown yeah step back from the work there's too much like but but when there was there's it's kind of common theme i spoke to jackson boxer yes last week he talked about how um hospitality again he was massive caveat with like uh uh with saying this is a kind of brushstroke but it has a way to sort of help people who have are prone to mental health issues um or kind of who are from the system are kind of labeling them as misfits in society which jackson was which mike was yeah but why do you think hospitality has this way of keeping people who are like your potential brother like in this yeah safe cuddly place do you know what i mean yeah yeah i mean i don't know if it's a safe cuddly place but there's there's very low barriers to entry right so like pretty much anyone could get a job in hospitality at a very early age so it's like an entry space so if you're you know having certain problems in terms of like mental health or addiction and you have to go to a nine to five job monday to friday that might not be achievable where in hospitality it is because there's a lot more flexible hours.

1:15:17You can work in the evening and then you can go out late at night and not have to wake up early. And so I think those are sort of the beginnings of a place where you can work in that sort of landscape. Yes. And there's so many different personalities and it's like it is, it tends to be a place where you can show that personality potentially at the right space and not have to assimilate to a certain way within a certain corporate structure. Yes, I hadn't thought of that. And then, yeah, I think people gravitate towards that space also. I think people with mental health conditions, they want to shut their brains down.

1:16:02And hospitality is high stress, right? So it shuts potentially that bit of the brain down because you're so in the madness not the right word you're so in the chaos right so that can quiet that space um but on the other side of it it's long hours you're going out you're partying some things are really acceptable and it it can potentially bring everything down so it's like yes you can live in this space but it's also it can bring you down simultaneously exactly what and was saying to me, he was saying like, if you've got quite an introspective thought process yourself, there's something about going into a kitchen where the music is light, the conversation is light, your focus on not cutting your hand, it takes away from sort of the internal malaise that may be going on.

1:16:54But then the other side is if you're going out partying, then it comes crashing. Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, I think people that struggle with mental health are in every industry. And it's like whether maybe you have to mask slightly less in hospitality or in some sort. I don't want to speak for everyone. I just want to. I think my brother was like really expected, like accepted in his place. And I think the darkness subsided when he was there in a boundary condition with boundaries that worked for him. if you were to sort of see him today what would you say to him or ask him wow you're going straight in i i don't think it's like this big conversation i think it's just like just seeing him would be enough yeah let's talk about some of the challenges on

1:17:51building this business from the truck in Dalston to where we are now. I think, as you said, there are just, the obstacle is the way is kind of one of my aphorisms. What are those obstacles that were so hard that actually retrospectively paved the way forward? I think every new transition was a really big obstacle. So like going from truck to like four walls, like inside was like a really big challenge because we were quite rogue in our approach. There weren't like set hours and set times and it like, it, it felt like free and like really exciting. And then as soon as you like go into a side, inside a place, you need to have certain policies and payroll and disciplinary.

1:18:45Like, you know, there are, it's a different framework, I guess. Like street food is much looser. You know, it is. It's closer to a hobby than like actually having to run a business day to day. Yeah. Because you're, you know, I wasn't trading every day. I was trading, you know, there were times where it was like two days a week. So it was just like, come, set up, cook and leave. And not having to think about the pressures of, I guess, profitability. It was just fun. There were no fixed costs. Yeah, yeah. All variable costs. There was no rent. There was no, like, electricity. There was no. Yeah.

1:19:29And then, you know, yeah. So there's obviously the big financial difference. So it cut to now. So margins, they need to be at a certain level to pay our costs. but also we pay London living wage. So we're already taking 2 % off the margin from that. So there's not like a really, there's not a lot to play with. So it's like, we have to keep, we have to be disciplined on certain like cogs in labor or the business just, the model doesn't work anymore. That's a really new space for me. Like I'm not one that tends to like live in the numbers, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. twofold it's not it's not what excites me and then also like it's it's not where I'm good at either so it's I'm saying I don't know what like yeah you say two math I didn't get past that but um yeah and I it's the responsibility right the responsibility is a whole nother level yes and how did you sort of again because I'm now I've got four people who helped me run this like it was before it was I know we're doing iPhone today but before it was just rock up yeah gosh you're you know i was in costa rica for a month last year yeah fuck all it goes pretty chilled yeah sounds pretty good yeah yeah but i'm trying to good good meat there actually really yeah yeah yeah surprisingly really really good meat um do you surf uh no i just watched the surfers with a cigarette and a cocktail in my hand yeah that was enough for me but have you been to costa rica no i would love to though oh there's go santa teresa teresa teresa is amazing um but uh what was i saying gone around and see the trend the transitions yeah so the the responsibility yeah i had no responsibility my brain sort of just drifted off into sort of uh yeah the costa rican sunshine but how do you how do you deal with that because i i feel responsible for my team now for putting making sure they're good making sure they're okay um again like i was as I was asking you sort of selfishly like knowing when to push when to push back yeah like how do you deal with that because how many is in the business now there's I think there's like 140 but yeah like you know I'm I'm the team I mostly live with are like the the heads team so it's like me and five other people that I'm regularly seeing like most days yeah um and it's it's about like I guess managing them, challenging them, inspiring them, you know, and then just like the whole, am I the right person for this creeps in a bit sometimes, you know, could this business be thriving more under someone else's leadership?

1:22:09And my team is really good at like saying, you know, I think maybe they can sense that at times being like, no, no, we're here for you. We want to do this with you. Talk me through the people in that team. So Liam is the brand director, Roberto's head of people, Safa's head of ops, and Antonia's the FD, so financial director. And Antonia is the one who used to be my coach. So she's the FD now. So she was initially in the business as an FD, like long standing FD, left on COVID time to become a coach. She really wanted to become a coach. And she became my coach, which, you know, we often were like, does this make sense to have someone you know be your coach?

1:22:51It's worked quite well and then she stopped being my coach and come came back in as a full-time fd yeah so i always that's such a unique thing to have especially in an fd role which was traditionally more like not the best with people yeah or like you kind of need that like the guy interviewed yesterday he was basically saying that we had to have um he had to be the fd and like cut down the cut like there's not saying it's less empathy in terms of business it's probably the least empathetic role in terms of business the actual the mechanics of business not in terms of the human being because you're basically trying to cut costs whereas marketing no that's not not always you try you know you try you keep your eye on it yeah but yeah no i think she's she's brilliant with people she's brilliant with her team she's brilliant with mentoring people and training people how so like what what does she what the world approach she taught you yeah i mean i think her approach to to to like to to to really getting to know like she's managed hundreds of people, right?

1:23:47So she's an excellent people manager in terms of like people knowing where they stand, knowing what the gaps are, how they fill them, how she inspires them to like want to be, grow within the business. But she's like, she's obviously a very trusted advisor, right? So she's not just the numbers. And I learned really early on that I need someone in the business that is going to look after the number bit. And we had a financial director like super early, super early. Like, oh, someone who was just in a sort of transition period of their career who came in and really helped us, really helped us. Because, you know, we weren't looking at the cash in a way that was so forward thinking, right?

1:24:33Also, I swear burgers aren't the easiest to make good margin on comparatively to say a pizza or like a, I don't know, like a taco good margin don't know yeah yeah you're not doing fucking tacos are you like our food costs are about like 26 27 yeah so it's not bad it's not bad um but um yeah i mean i think you know it's it's a solid model but but she yeah she's more than she's more than numbers and you know it's a space i can go to when i need to like talk and i try to be that space for her like you know i try to be a space where like checking in with people like how are you feeling yes i can sense something like you know thinking outside the normal day-to-day i guess because everyone's personal life or actual stress of the business can like impact their how they're doing i think so many businesses don't understand the human being or like even in uh like not actually just in the world like having the empathy of human beings like the person who may serve you a coffee who's a bit curt.

1:25:37You don't know what the fuck's going on in their life. Yeah. Like, how do you have empathy running through from you to team to where we are today? Yeah. Like, that's not an easy thing to put in place. Yeah, I mean, I think people have to have it. Like, you know, you talk... When you're hiring. Yeah, you have to talk, like, you have to, you know, whatever, hire on your values. But, like, being empathetic and understanding where people are and what they need. And it's a balance, right? Yeah, I think everyone in my team is super empathetic and they understand the bigger mission at Bleecker and what that means in terms of profitability, right?

1:26:15London living wage is the most way to be profitable and no one in the UK does it except for 600 other businesses. Like, you know. Other businesses do it. Like some bakeries, some breweries. Burger and beer do it actually, another burger place. Oh, sick. Talk me through, just talk me through that because I don't actually know, I don't obviously get the premise of it, but like. I think people don't understand how, like, you're basically giving away fucking loads of your profit. Yeah, I mean, so it's 2 % on the margin. 2 % on the margin. Yeah, which is a lot. But what is the actual mechanics of the London living wage?

1:26:45So you need to earn a specific, like, there's this charity that sort of creates a standard of, like, after, obviously, research, like, you need to be earning X amount of money to live in London. And that's$13.85 currently. They review it and put out a new London living wage every October. And if you're not earning that, you don't have enough money to live in the city you're working in. So, yeah, that doesn't sit right. And we're small. We can be flexible. There's no, like, board of directors saying or shareholders saying you have to earn this much profit, you know. So it's an easier situation to do it when you don't have that pressure.

1:27:29Because, like, a large... Think about that, because you haven't raised any, don't you? I have, I have. Oh, you have? Yeah, so the business started with 40 ,000 pounds. Right. And that... Is that your own money? No, so it was... But you haven't raised like massive... No, no, so 20 of that was mine and 20 of it was my three best friends. Right. And my wife, actually, from America. And then we haven't... So in COVID, actually, we took a loan out to build Westfield. And then we took a loan out through COVID. Yeah. all those loans are done and now we've just taken a new loan out to do our next two places.

1:28:09But there's no new capital from investors in the business. Yeah. But that gives you 88. But how have you sort of, like you've been doing all off the profits? Yeah. Reinvesting? Yeah, yeah. It's all been reinvested. We were like really lucky to get certain sites. Like we had the South Bank for a long time, which like pumped money into the business to fund like brick and mortar sites. Yeah. So we've done well. we've done well to fund all this from like what's been the hardest site to get going what do you mean going like selling a shitload of burgers what site has been the most challenging actually westfield is like an interesting journey is that you in um shepherd's bush yeah um the yeah not strefford um so that like i think when we we we opened that we were like this is going to be the best performer in the business yeah i mean i would say that yeah uh and it wasn't like it it opened and then COVID hit.

1:29:03And then that was like the hardest one to get reopened with shopping and social distancing, et cetera, et cetera. But it never sort of materialized to that site that we thought was going to be whatever the cash cow or whatever. Until recently when we launched Halal there. So the beef in Westfield's Halal. Right. And that has had a tremendous impact on the sales there. You know, we've always known that we've had like a large community of Muslim customers. And I know because during Ramadan, our sales dropped at certain locations by like 30%. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And by the inquiries of like, oh, can you open in the GCC?

1:29:44Like whatever, everyone gets that. But you could tell like that was definitely a large part of our customer base. And I remember like early days on the South Bank, like there would be like people, they would be from the GCC like Dubai or something. And they'd come and they'd be eating burgers and they'd be like encrusted in diamonds. And it's like the juxtaposition between like a greasy burger, a fatty burger and these diamonds was like, what's going on here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a wonderful sort of picture. You can just imagine like, yeah. The couple more things and we'll begin to wrap this up.

1:30:16But I'm absolutely loving this and learning so, so much. But I'd love to know what are your thoughts on sort of smash burgers? Sure. Because that's coming in to London. In droves. In droves. Yeah. Talk me through your perspective on that. Yeah, so I mean, like, I remember the first smash burger I ever had was at Shake Shack where the Mets play baseball. So super, super busy. Mets is a professional baseball team. So, like. They're the opposite of the Yankees? They're in New York in the other league. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never heard anyone say that, opposite of the Yankees. Yeah, I guess.

1:30:55To a British brain, they are the opposite of the Yankees. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, super busy location. Like imagine like a burger trader at Wembley, right? Yeah. And the burger was amazing. And it was just as I was going to start Bleaker. I was still living in New York. But I was like, how is this burger so good at scale? Like this kind of scale. And it was super impressive. And it wasn't like, I guess, I don't know if people really call Shake Shack smash burger, but whatever. It's in that sort of space. They were first in the potato bun, right? They definitely weren't the first, but they popularized it.

1:31:28Okay, sorry. in droves yeah like you know yeah everyone would have that potato bun at their barbecue well before Shake Shack okay if you had a barbecue at your house you had those yeah yeah in the UK we've got that shitty British over stuff which is awful yeah um so yeah it was never really my kind of burger though like I always wanted really fatty juicy beef right like to me that's like how you celebrate the amazing product that it is it's like a really loose structure with not a lot of sear. So, so I like the burger when it's like, it's got a bit of a checkered Maillard effect, but not when it's across the whole thing.

1:32:05Cause I think it, it's not the best texture and it sort of gets in the way. First of all, the fat runs out, which is the best part. Like the fat is where the flavor in the beef is and you're pushing that all out. So to me, smash burgers made sense with maybe, maybe you're using less good meat. I don't know. Um, so yeah, I want the burger really juicy, really loose structure and it like oozes into your mouth um so yeah but obviously this this is a thing that's really popular right now and people are how many have they how many have opened in london the smash i know that the uh what's it called is it oh supernova yeah supernova they sort of led the charge yes and then junk burger from paris came from the french love a smash burger why do you reckon that is i think they're like obsessed with american culture yes with the food yeah and And that's like, that's really big.

1:32:54It was too cold, like I guess in COVID in LA. And it's just sprawled from there. What's the, so I went to, do you know Rolo's in New York? Rolo's? Yeah, in Bushwick. No. What is it? It's the best burger I've ever had. Really? Is it smashed? It's, no, it's like, I can't. So there's actually munchies about it. My mate lives in Bushwick. Yeah. And I stayed with him. Actually, funnily enough, went up to Connecticut to do, do you know, athletic brewing? i listened to the podcast on them the other day yeah he's from darianne which is really close to where i grew up yeah he's absolutely i love him you've got so much time from him what they've building's astounding so yeah i mean i was an absolute div like i drove went to new york and i was like oh man i'm in new york thinking their office was in new york he's like bro you've got to get on a train up it's quite it's a nice train ride it's a lovely train ride yeah um but my friend as i was leaving was like mate you got to go to this place called rolos r-o-l-l-o-s yeah bushwick and it's just this um it's very i mean it's kind of nothing like we've got over here very different it's very thick patty um they do a massive gherkin and they do these big crispy almost like kind of uh sort of a potato wedges that have sort of fornicated with with crispy chips they're kind of weird but then with this peanut sauce peanut sauce on the burger on the on the fries oh yeah it was kind of like astoundingly good oh look it up but what are some of the differences in sort of burgers over in the new york versus here do you think like what are some of the i mean like 7th street is like a big thing right that smash burger 7th street place yeah i've never done i've never yeah they're pretty decent sized chain now um and then there's like the the steakhouse burger which seems to be popular again in like uh red hook tavern like a big i've seen yeah the red hooked yeah yeah big patty single onion bun cheese like very simple um you know so that burger i think is quite popular now there's the one at four charles which the egg and the bacon and have you seen that one no that's one thing i was gonna ask you what are your thoughts on like adding a lot of shit to your burger like as in because have you ever because you um one thing we're talking about before is your single-mindedness yeah like because I love and respect people and revere people who have this tunnel vision when the winds of trends are swaying from left and right.

1:35:17From Paris, you've got these burgers from the States with these burgers. How have you not moved? It's just not what I like to eat. I'm really decisive and really clear on the food. It's unwavering. It just is what it is. I think people come into the business and they're like, why don't you do a fried chicken sandwich? I'm nothing about chicken and if I brought chicken in the burgers would drop yes it's so hard to get our burgers to a level that I want them to be at it's very very hard and if anything new comes to the kitchen that's going to drop yes I can't add to our menu that would be ridiculous yeah yeah yeah why would I do that yeah I'm passionate about what we do to the highest level or like as high as we can get and it's like I don't want these distractions there's a genius about just doing one thing incredibly well yeah but it's it's really hard to do one thing incredibly well oh yeah it's not so hard it's like it's uh it's there's a there's a level of depth that you don't see yeah it's just and it's as we said but you know it's relentless onion narnia you know different worlds of narnia you can go down into um one i want to talk about the shake because that's the only bit of the process we haven't talked about and i think it's another really hard thing to develop actually the burger was easy because it just worked yeah the burger was the easiest bit right we got the right beef we got the right bun immediately when we opened and then it was just working the products but the supply and the vision for what that was was easy there was no there was no recipe development it was just there and and when we do collaborations with people when we have these one night charity only events and like i always know it's going to be a great burger if the first tasting is amazing because there's some burgers that take like 14 tastings and it's just like it's just not going to work oh so you're so what sort of collaborations have you done so uh we did um one with ronnie ronnie gill we did one with neil rankin we did one with david carter we did one with melissa thompson we did one with um so and are they adding stuff to the yeah yeah so that's interesting because that goes kind of not against you no it goes completely against it it's like you know we are anti-special so you're like what the fuck are you doing so it's like it's a bit of fun right you come in you do what you do and sometimes i cringe like i remember pizza pilgrims put a whole ball of burrata and and baby little tomatoes on it i was like liam what have you done um and it's it's just one night right so it's like okay you take the burger and do what you do and i might cringe a bit but it's like it's in it's for charity and it's fun and like people who have been our long-standing customers come and it's like a nice event right it's like a nice event for our community it's a nice event for raising money for a charity for this chef like whatever they want to raise for you know it's it's fun and yeah it's nice but yeah it's gone after the night those baby tomatoes can fuck off because they do not belong the one of the first companies i set up so bleaker had different holding companies whatever like i had an events company and a bleaker company and the other company was called no tomato that's hilarious yeah yeah yeah no tomato fuck that and also i love tomatoes but they don't belong on a burger cucumber and sometimes you've put fucking cucumber in a burger i'm not i've not had that before but a gherkin is fantastic because it just sort of yeah so we have pickles in our burger but it's blended into the sauce because i felt like it was going to affect texture too much yes yeah texture is another thing and then yes so so and what so what did robin gill do on his burger no ramy gill oh so it was like um like a indian spice mix in the burger, which I was like, so that one really made me cringe, right?

1:38:56Because burgers... Imagine your idiots turning into sort of tumultuous... If you look at any newspaper recipe for burgers, they're always like, mix salt or seasoning into the patty, but anytime you put seasoning into the patty before you cook it... So you don't season the patty? No, so it's not a burger if you do that. It's like a meatball. You can't do it. It binds up the meat. So she wanted to do that, and I was like, oh, no. And she did it, and I was like... They raised some fucking money. Yeah, no, she did. I was like, oh, this is awesome, actually. So that one really turned my head. But yeah, Neil Rankin did like half beef, half goat, which was really good.

1:39:33David Carter did like, he did his brisket on top. Yeah, because that, I mean, that smokestack thing he did, I think that was the sort of first, when I was speaking to my mate the other day, like that really got me into like 2017, 18, 18, really got me into food. I tried that with the brick pickled chilies. Yeah. I went to see the Arctic monkeys. I was like, that's been an awakening for me. Yeah, just quickly back to the shake. Because I'm getting like, as I said, I was sat there on like just plastered on. Swimming an Oreo. Yeah, swimming or cradling this Oreo like it was my newborn son. Yeah, so the shake was really hard.

1:40:10So basically we were sitting in a curb market right now, but we actually were in curb's first market in Hackney Wick in like 2014. and it was like this abandoned mirror factory freezing and like it's like okay let's make our shake and it took mirror factory it used to be an old mirror factory and they turned it into a market but it was freezing like there were holes there were no windows and something like and we're trying to make this shake and it was so hard because it was like it's a soft serve base and then we blend that with toppings and it was like balancing the sweetness with the texture and it took months to get it right and then we finally got it right and then we started working on the toppings what we mixed in and that was a whole nother challenge like um yeah it was what you got so you got the so i've only i mean i'm an oreo sort of yeah yeah i think the best one yeah i think the best one's black and white which is like we use um like really nice cocoa powder and put a bit of vanilla in it and that like yeah you can have one after the interview yeah yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:41:14Let's wrap that up. Yeah. I absolutely loved that. And it's just, yeah, just a really wonderful gallivanting around conversation. So thank you so much. We hit a lot of different notes. Yeah, we certainly did. Thank you so much. Yeah, yeah. I like how curious you are. You're quite a curious guy, which leads you to, and a bit fearless as well. Oh, but yeah, yeah. Thank you.

1:41:36Thank you so, so much for listening to the podcast. I really, really do appreciate it. If you liked that episode, only if you liked it, please do give it five stars, subscribe, tell all your friends, families, foes, next door but one, cat, dog, whatever. Please tell everyone about this podcast. It means the world to me. And I really want to understand what your pain points are as the new wave of Challenger food and drink brands. Please do hit me up on LinkedIn, search Dan Pope, and hopefully we can together create a more meaningful and powerful podcast for the next wave of Challenger food and drink brands.

1:42:10Thank you so much. Thank you.