Espresso: Oisín Rogers, The Devonshire: Why Following Trends is Dumb and Dangerous

0:06There's a quote I want to tease out some quotes from Irish writers because I think it's as fascinating as kind of like a launch plaid. But Oscar Wilde's got a quote which is, everything popular is wrong. And I think about that a lot. And I'd love to know, what's one truth you believe, staunchly, that you think most people would disagree with you on? Oh, I'll give you a good one. I don't think there's any such thing as a good trend. Is there any such thing as a good trend? people always ask me or often ask me in these things um what do you think the next new thing is going to be what's the next new trend what what do you think are the trends going to be next year and i've always kind of avoided that because if you if you try and think oh everybody's going to drink i don't know pear cider and you and you focus on that it might work for a little bit but it won't work for a long time and eventually you'll be seeing as oh that's the parasiter guy you know you're much better off thinking what do people always like and what have they always enjoyed decent beer comfortable furniture good lighting bit of fun and i always think that way about things that are timeless rather than of a time timeless versus over time yeah I think there's a there's a guy in the view called Rory Sutherland who's like a marketing really interesting marketing guy who works for Ogilvy and he was saying that you can only see the longer you've been in business you can see how pointless trends are but when you're in it for so short a time it feels like this is where it's going and I think even vegan meat like that everyone thought the whole world was going to fucking change yeah obviously there's a there's always a vegan dish on the menu now but over even that's beginning to subside yeah they've got burned those companies haven't they quite a bit recently completely burnt yeah um it's it's endlessly fascinating and what is the story you would like we've talked a lot about stories but like what is the story you want people to go and say say to their friends after they've been here um i i can answer that really simply i want i want people to tell their friends that they felt good that they felt that they had value for money and that they had value for time and to express that in a in in a way that will make other people feel positive about what we're trying to do and then you've you talked about time versus timeless yeah super interesting how do you how do you how is the devons you're going to say stay timeless oh times times are really interesting i mean we have a good conversation about time because everyone talks about value and you know obviously you do need to have value and we've thought carefully about that you know about the set menu not 29 quid you know about the pint of bex for 4.95 the the um the the budvar is 4.60 and you can come in here and get a get a gin and tonic for eight quid double gin and tonic for eight quid so it's so from a value and price point uh we've done that but price is not value and i we've proposed the the uh concept of value for time rather than value for money because time is that currency that is way more valuable to people than money i think time is more important than money and when someone decides that they're gonna spend part of their evening or their whole evening or a lunchtime with us that's an investment that they've made that they think, all right, I'm going to go to the Devonshire and I've got a reservation at one o 'clock and I'm going to be there till four and I might stay till six for some pints.

4:01That's a huge investment of a chunk of their incredibly valuable downtime or their investable time that they give to us. So I think from our point of view, we need to deliver on that. So to make sure that the time they spent, they spend it in a way that they feel good about and that's I think a lot of the bits and pieces we do in terms of values and how people feel and the training and the bits and pieces and the experience and the food and the drink should all feed into that and that's really where we're coming from on the time front

4:40and we talked about kind of you talked about your training we've talked about Octopaddy we've talked about what you're building here what would you say is like something you know that most other landlords don't know like what is what are some of your principles that you'd pass on to i know your daughter laura is um laura is working here as well like what would you pass on uh i don't know it's a difficult one i think i think you just need to be good try to be good and try to be good from the point of view of what the customers feel not what you think is necessarily what you should be doing i think it's important to put yourself in the customer's skin and shoes and think about how they feel what's the atmosphere like how what are they what what's what's what could be irritating and try and take those bits out quick one guys espressos have got a brand new sponsor unleashed unleashes inventory management software that talks directly to your finance and econ software we use unleashed daily islands i bloody love it we've got our admin time in half saving approximately 30k a year why use it save money save headaches save stress get granular clarity on your margins know where your stock is don't miss availability look your favorite brands literally use unleashed as their backbone candy kins tiny rebel trip always religiously look there's a link in the show notes please feel free to book a call with josh and his wonderful sales team at unleashed they're amazing even nothing comes of it and even better news you'll get your first month free if you reference hungry thank you that's another thing about the kind of whether you call it gastro well not gastro wank's probably too strong the phrase but but those flat pack pubs is the noise because this one thing i've just thought about when i said on friday i was like because sometimes you can go to a pub and it's really echoey yeah yeah we think about that yeah yeah like how does that what how important is the kind of the the noise of a i think it's more that this is an interesting one for me because if you go back 40 50 60 100 200 years into pubs pubs always had nooks crannies they had little um dividers screens soft seating you think about snugs you think about those beautiful victorian uh screens that would be all through the pubs with glass and nice uh leather finishes and then they had the anaglypta which is this uh raised uh um uh wallpaper which by the way is very good for soundproofing and there's another one called linkruster that you'll see in old pubs it's like um a very very heavily textured wallpaper that's got swirls and stuff in it like that all a lot of that stuff was taken out by the the big pub cos in the last 30 40 50 years on the basis that they thought that if they took it out they'd have more space but actually i have a feeling that people when they come to the pub quite often want to hide that they want to find themselves in a corner or somewhere comfortable and soft and where where they don't necessarily want to be seen drinking restaurants are different i think people want to be seen in restaurants but in pubs i think it's important to have places where you can't be seen and we've thought really hard about that and if you look at the the boots and and and and the screens and the and the way the tables are done you've got places where you won't be seen and that's important and carpet is another one of course yeah um and a lot of these places a lot of those old victorian pubs they've pulled everything out and they've turned them into like big square rooms and from there you get this issue with noise and the fact that you can't hide anywhere that you're so visible and i don't think that's right for pubs not all pubs anyway you said your um your brain is kind of more chaotic or your mind the way you think and i i kind of relate to that a lot um what how does your your brain like work how does it oh god i don't know the answer to that but i do know i jump from from thought to thought to thought very quickly and that somehow works for for pubs but the the theme of chaos is very important too i think without chaos then pubs don't work there's an element of chaos that has to be there managed of course and looked after that makes the excitement and makes things uh happen i think if everything's ordered and and use all the same furniture and you you have everything really set like a restaurant or beautifully symmetric, then you don't get the flashpoints and the wonder that happens.

9:12The great thing about pubs is you come in here and you stand, you have a pint, you don't know who you're going to end up talking to. And we've always said that we'd like for the bin man and the chairman to be able to meet on a level playing field out there. and that's really really important to us that you know you could be a billionaire and you could be stood there and you could be talking to somebody who doesn't make very much money but you can still have a fantastic interaction and a really good experience and that believe it or not happens here all the time and how do you create that because i love the word chaos is something i i think yeah the reason i like chaos and imperfection is because every human being is has an element of chaos and imperfect even though with all this people present ourselves as perfect i think one of the reasons i think pubs work is as you say it's a place you can kind of hide or um the ones that work really well are those little elements of all the as you said the nooks and crannies and the imperfections like that's what humans are ultimately yeah and i also and i also think most people's lives are now are so incredibly ordered you know people have jobs where they have to be at the desk at a particular time leave at a particular time they have to wear a certain uh uniform they're not allowed to put their feet on the chairs they have to work in these spread sheety ordered zoom meeting that type environments where their lunch break is at exactly the same time they get the same train home to work uh and then at the weekends they're they play golf at the same time and all of this stuff and i think you need to break out of that a little bit and i think pubs can really give people a kind of a different environment and sensation and it doesn't matter what you wear when you go to the pub it doesn't matter what time you come what time you go whether you might have to only have a half pint or one pint or you might have six if you have a scotch egg or not where you sit where you stand you can change where you move around and that for me is really really the essence of what the the british pub is it gives people freedom to be chaotic and live in a kind of a and spend some time in a chaotic place which is uh which is somehow wholesome yes chaotic wholesome chaoticness what yeah beautiful way i call it lovely chaos lovely chaos yeah thank you so so much for listening it honestly means the world to me i hope you enjoyed your morning coffee and go and have an amazing day let's be having ya if you want the full episode it will be in the show notes and link will be in the show notes the full episode thank you so much please leave friends as well means the world to me