The £100,000-a-Week Restaurant Built From the Ingredient Every Chef Throws Away

0:00Hey guys, this episode is super sick. It is with Phil and Abs from Poor Boys. Poor Boys is an amazing business based outside of London, just outside London in Kingston. They do more revenue from this one site than six, and I can't say the name, six pretty big burger chain sites combined. It is mad the volume they do from this. We dive deep into their thought process, how they use social media, the danger of relying on social media to get people through the door, how to do it. deliver consistent product and offering there's tons in this episode guarantee there's gorgeous insights to help your business grow faster buckle up strap in hope you're hungry to feed your hunger so very very early days i come in as a waiter how did you ask me i was gonna see i came for food i literally came someone told me about wing wednesday i came from liquid wings back in the day and then i came for a saturday night on a my girlfriend might say it but a date night with another girl um and it was the most chaos fun night i think i've ever had in my life it was um they had a band playing at the bottom of the stairs but back when it was just the other side of the restaurant the small side they had a band playing at the bottom of the stairs so the waiters couldn't get up and down the stairs to bring food out my table was delayed it was just pure chaos but like the most fun restaurant i think i'd ever been to and then on top of that was the food the drinks that went with it and i had my first oyster here it was just like such little things i was like you know if i was going to do a part-time job on top of what i was already doing that'd be such a cool place to be and such a fun place to be didn't particularly have a hospitality background i've done anything other than pulled a hospitality business yeah i had a hospitality business i'd have like it was like it was a coffee shop cake kind of sandwichy thing right with homemade breads but like back in the day before homemade breads was like such a big thing i kind of was that based up in leeds yeah back up north but i think i was maybe ahead of the time that you haven't caught on and it was just and then there was all the fun it was just not great timing but you know so i had that background in it but not really kind of waiting that kind of experience so just it wasn't about like it was more about having the right people fun people people that could talk to customers people you could engage with and sell food and that was kind of nice thing with it and then it was interesting how phil became totally immersed in the business so i found out he was working in a different industry while he was working here part-time and i found out while i was at my other job at the time that he was he was going to come out of that um and i knew he wouldn't just totally immerse himself in the restaurant um because i knew that wasn't that i sort of roughly knew that wasn't it that wouldn't be his bread and butter but so i looked for an angle to um hook him in and if the angle became um it became a by-product when we was at a chicken wing festival we had a massive queue so um and we couldn't get through the queue quick enough but we wanted to feed the queue so we had some chicken skin so we created a chicken crackling product like pork scratchings but chicken i had it it's great well partly the reason it is great is because we worked on it in phil's apartment i said look come we're going to open a side an offshoot of this business as a chicken crackling company so that's what we worked on initially so we developed that in phil's kitchen yeah like so many iterations of the chicken skin as it is now with all different flavorings and seasonings and techniques to make it crisp and dry and brining it frying it different temperatures different combinations flowers can't just all different so the game so the game this is the game essentially poor boys was up and up and running six months in you're working in recruitment up in leeds and we talked about that previously you're like so abs you're like right this guy's Phil's amazing.

3:45Let's get him involved. Let's do the chicken skin business and turn that into almost like a retail product. Yeah, absolutely. Interesting. That was the plan. That was the plan. Yeah, but I love it. It was a 50-50 role. I was doing business development out on the road. We'd go around Dalston. We'd go around Post Ballon. Selling little buckets of chicken skin. That's like a retail product. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Indies or into pubs? Just pubs. I can just pubs with it. Go to taste it. Give them some samples. Hook them. Get them to buy the product and start supplying them. took them to farmers markets did all sorts i mean it's just such a waste of product and then the requirements of restaurants change in terms of that's still going that part of the business well we can't we can't create enough to do that and supply the restaurants it's a really interesting point like because i think sometimes you know sometimes in in in you know business i think we're talking about before is you've got to deal the cards you're dealt with at that current period in time and what i don't like about all these big strategies is let's look into three years time and we're going to make this game plan this way we're going to go it's like well you don't know what's going to happen and the guy called john hegarty who's a genius marketer he like almost built built levi's he came on the podcast he goes you don't need you don't you don't need a five year plan you need a five minute plan yeah yeah and everyone's like yeah you should plan into the future i appreciate planning is really important but like as you say it's like you don't know what's gonna you have to be able to move and adapt and we're experiencing this now like we're doing way more events like you've got to change i come with a structure i'll come with a day and a plan and i'll have a week structure a day structure know what i need to do and what i need to achieve and there's some things that are negotiable some things that aren't and on a daily basis there's stuff i have to do one email can change that whole day one conversation can change that whole day one interaction with a member of the kitchen like can just completely change how that day was supposed to be into something completely different and that's a beast of hospitality it just changes i always think of this idea of like macro focused micro scatty so like yeah in the day-to-day you're all over the shop yeah so what are the non-negotiables you guys put in place and make sure you're delivering the poor boys brand from yeah just the poor boys brand consistency consistency consistency like it's making sure that our product's the same and we've even tried to break our product down and pull it backwards and have a set recipe that we can roll out as a recipe but just not possible we tried it what do you mean as in like just like a the way we make a mac and cheese ball the way we make a brisket donut it's all done as much as you want have a set recipe and set ingredients that go into it we know the core ingredients but it changes depending on the fatness of the brisket the taste of the brisket and all that so so like even just a little development of a recipe is almost impossible because quantities change they'll measure a handful a handful his hands bigger than mine's a different handful i think i i think i have like um my sort of like i have like family principles that i try and install the kit like instilling the kids but i think it comes into the business a lot so i think like like it's like three ppa so passion persistence and adaptability yeah and so having that passion like that like it's hard like to keep pushing and making sure you want to create that that good product every day like the brisket donuts are tough to make like like like the brisket like we come and some the smell of the brisket in the morning when you come in every day breakfast you know it's like narnia yeah that brisket donut was again it was an offshoot product it was it was initially created so that we could have um a waste product from the original from brisket that we didn't use from the day before but so but actually very quickly it became such a iconic product we had to start cooking briskets just for the brisket donuts so um yeah like intensifying them flavors and uh and then like it's even talking about the brisket donut it became so i i think it's fair to say barbecue is such an inconsistent product in terms of like smoking it and like to get that crust and everything and then um it barbecue dries out so quickly to get a consistent barbecue product um and the elements of the fire and the wood and stuff it was about trying to create like this incredible bite of barbecue flavor and barbecue texture in a sort of consistent safe way and that's what the british donut became so say if you're like people does it sometimes as a stigma attached to smoke i don't like smoked foods um so we stayed away from being a smoked barbecue type concept or flavor profile um and then the brisket donuts was a sort of safer thing for everyday people to get into the barbecue gateway drug yeah to get into the into the barbecue obsession and after the brisket donut i don't know if you've had them yeah yeah so to get into that to get that capture that barbecue flavor and that barbecue um that barbecue texture and um but that it's it's it's hard it's really hard that to get that and continue to push that so that's the conceit you said passion consistency adaptability like yeah talk to me about the adaptability and persistence because i know like okay maybe we can unless as i say this will jump all over the shop yeah reflowing as hell so maybe we go back to the um the the chicken crackling yeah you're going around ballum going around yeah you know i love like that as a concept amazing my i think i was telling my friend lukey you run speedboat in uh that thai restaurant in soho he does his own crackling as well with a cold beer yeah oh my god it is just it's a different level yeah it was orgasmic it's so yeah use the first half of the word and it is it's almost like that yeah yeah yeah yeah i don't know if it's fair to reference that but you know what i mean it's it i feel that strongly it's good i test pretty much every day they come down fresh from the kitchen and every morning i'm eating them i'm like this is like it's nine ten o 'clock and i'm eating chicken skin for breakfast but like like, some of them products, especially for me, the Louisiana hot one, the buffalo type one, that's my favorite one.

10:02That's the one we developed. And we actually got great taste awards for it, didn't we? Yeah, we got great taste awards. Come on, yeah, it was really great taste. So you were making these in, and they were in like buckets? Buckets, these little buckets, where it was hand-stickering them, filling them up, and then doing a bucket of buckets, and just taking these chicken cracklings, these buckets of buckets to pubs and selling them, and then weekly orders. We used to do like three or four different flavors, but the two that stuck was the barbecue and Louisiana hot. We used to do a just a salt sea salt one and then we did a salt and vinegar one salt and vinegar one the vinegar powder just didn't quite work it made it soggy so it took away from the product so we scrapped that one but the initially the idea was to try and follow that pringles flavor you know like everyone loves a pringle and that pringles flavors it was trying to like can we replicate something along the lines of their flavors into a chicken skin because nobody was doing it nobody's doing a chicken skin you go into any supermarket any farmer's market it's pot of scratchings for days it's just one flavor you don't get a different flavor pot scratching and you get the inconsistency with a chicken crackling your every life yeah it's more palatable like the experience of eating it yeah and it slides into that kind of almost healthy snack ish it's similar properties to like olive oil so it's got that kind of healthy issue you know the people on the annotation of it Yeah, keto diet, people and stuff like that.

11:20It falls into the keto, so it's got a level of kind of a bit of a healthier vibe to it, and it's chicken skin, and it's just, you know, it was that waste product. We used to buy chicken, we used to buy the Chicken Supremes with a little drum on. We loved the French corn fakes, Supreme. Yeah, yeah, Chicken Supremes is bang, because you get the bone, it's the richness, that's why the juice is in it, and it's moist and fresh. We used to trim the bone off, and then we used to make a chicken lollipop, so we used to flip that on itself to make a chicken lollipop so that wasn't wasted. We then used to take the skin off, make the chicken skin.

11:51And we used to love that because it made the cost that breast affordable throughout the restaurant on the byproducts. You could buy three revenue streams out of one product. So what's the... The wing, the lollipop, the skin as the crackling, and the breast as the tenders or whatever makes the sandwich. Interesting. So that kind of links to that sort of persistence in it. Yeah. Yeah. So how do you take something and 3X your... It's sort of like that concept of nose to tail, but without sort of, like, it's not really nose to tail. It's nose to tail of what you've got. Yeah. Yeah, it's an element of it.

12:23It's a nose to tail to revenue. Yeah. It is. So I think a lot of people, you can have all those... Blasphemous, me saying that. But, like, it's like the other point is, like, how do you actually make money? Because restaurants are so hard. It's like nose to tail is, like, it might be great with some, you know, the rock starification of chefs, of people who want to be like, you know, Marco and all that. Actually, where I think delicious bits of wisdom here, mate, is it's like, how do you actually turn that into a free revenue stream? We used to rip the skin off it just going to bed. I was like, what are we doing?

12:54It's just madness. But, you know, we've never kind of cut back on the cost of the quality of the ingredients. That's been one of the biggest things we've always done. Yeah. To the detriment. Well, isn't that the biggest mistake you've done? No, no, no. It's not a mistake. No. Because that's the reason there's a cure, I think. No, sorry, sorry. Sorry, you're saying you did cut down? No, no, we don't cut. You've never cut down? Yeah, we never. You've got the same surprise. So from the chicken spreads, we moved away because it's a bit of that yellowy kind of colour in there that just wasn't long-term.

13:26Customers ask questions, why is it yellow? Why is it this? Because there wasn't really use to having that as a fried chicken. And it was too small, the size of it. Another thing, the Europe thing. The corn fed chicken comes from France. coming out of Europe and then sustainability so in terms of the transportation the carbon cost of bringing stuff from abroad as opposed to bringing it from farms in Yorkshire now and the process is it's finding a farmer who will help us prep the chicken and our farmer from Yorkshire loads our fridges for us he puts the chicken in our fridges which i love that like that's amazing so on a monday the birds are in the field they're they're they're butchered and then cut and then on a tuesday that chicken that was in the field on the monday is now in our fridge on a tuesday ready to be prepped and cooked for service yeah yeah that is like that's a crazy over like half a ton a week of that's mad like that's such It's a crazy concept.

14:34600 to 1 ,000 kilos a week, depending on the week. And, you know, the little love story we have behind it. I've had a little bit of love. We know the farmer. We know his wife. We've got his kids. We've got a personal relationship with the farmer. The farmer also buys the feed for his chickens, which is herbs, from his sister who has a herb fed farm just down the road. So all that little love story that goes into it. We love the fact that, you know, we know the farmer. It's not just coming from a chicken farm. It's coming from a chicken farmer we know. it's coming from a field that we can see you know you can see on google earth you can see the you can see the field you can see the chickens in the field you can see the little hen runs and everything it's just such a nice little story yeah i was gonna say i was gonna say that it's free range or yeah why don't you don't think it doesn't fit in with yeah we've never we've never sort of identified or resonated that fits in with the customer base that we're going for yeah okay talk to me about that because that's interesting because like on the one side that's a very brave bold move because when when and this is i believe and this is not true about this place because i've eaten here but with that type of food that almost mass market food for the poor food like food for everyone yeah there is a massive misconception sorry massive truism that a lot of it is very poor quality yeah but it but you know there's enough sort of you know you put enough fucking spices on it put enough blah blah blah blah blah and it will taste good when i came here and we were talking mate you got the same butcher as the devonshire and the guinea grill absolutely and i thought well how come you guys are not shouting about that like because on the one hand people like you know if you look at these businesses you know a lot of restaurants you go to and it will say exactly it will say sutton woo or sutton who suffolk you know chicken on the menu yeah they're shouting about their ingredients or the chocolate will be like um oh my god what's the big chocolate uh brand that everyone uses talks about not i otherwise my friend's business islands but also um anyway a chocolate brand is on the menu yeah i was like you guys are using like proper good gear how come i'm not shouting about i just talk to me tell me about that decision because it's really interesting we um yeah i think that the the early other time i've had this conversation he's with Tom brought a guy Tom's our social media manager he's been with us from very early from early days from 3 ,000 followers up to now

17:00172 that's just on Instagram and then similar on TikTok oh wow we just keep floating with 173 and it just keeps going there and back it's just annoying so yeah yeah yeah Benny here so what's the strategic marketing decision well I wouldn't be bold enough to say strategic i think the reason the reason why we use one is it's that like we talk about it we talked about recently when we come to work like ultimately we come to work we want to do a good job we want to do a good product and be confident in what we do um so using that that level of product we can feel confident that ultimately at sometimes the core of it it's just chicken and chips but it's the best chicken we can get yeah it's the best potatoes we can source um to make a great product or great plate of foods um and it's just the situational factors that hold you as well as sticking to them core principles the size of the wings that so the chicken is free range and free roaming um yeah but the reason the reason we stick one of the reasons as well as stick to the core principles is the size of the wings on free range birds and people like a big chicken wing yeah yeah yeah so that helps us stick to that supplier ticks a box there as well as the it's in the field on the mandale and yeah um so but in terms of not marketing it we just identify well we we've not identified we feel that it's it's not the type of business and the customer base is like the reason people are coming is they're not looking for to go to a place that like we're not we're not leveraging off our suppliers to to to give people a reason to come it's so interesting right so i had a brand strategist on the podcast and he's been doing some work with hungry as well yeah and have you seen the the brand bold bean code since supermarkets it's becoming really big and and and basically he was saying when you go to um brands and products and stuff you can talk about so many great things you do you know you can talk about there's almost like a buffet of things you can talk about the issue is everyone he was saying he's worked at uncommon it's a big big agency yeah and he's a genius brand strategist and he was like well actually the issue is if you try and shout about everything you become lost and bold bean co they could they had sort of three things they could talk about one was like saving the planet with the soil stuff like you know so they could have shown images on their instagram of you know beans and soil and stuff like that um the other one was sort of like more the health angle you know so like beans are healthier they're lower carbs you could do fitness stuff or the other ones is actually beans are just really delicious and can you know so they come up with this whole campaign they sacked off the the the farm stuff they sacked off the health stuff and their whole campaign was giving you the best of beans to make you obsessed with beans.

20:10I love that, yeah. And it's, I suppose, linking it to your stuff. It's like, customers are probably, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but they're not coming, they don't care in a nice possible way, they don't care if it's a Sutton Hoo chicken, they don't care if it's from the Guinea grill, the same butchery. But when they do come, it's like, bang! The taste is so fucking good. I think from outside as well. I think that's a really great point and probably resonate to us that we're getting people here for flavour. Yes. And Southern-style hospitality in portions. That's why people are coming. The exciting offering of the product.

20:44What, as in the big portions? Big portions, yes. Southern, you go to America and you think, oh, I want to... So when you come here, we're trying to transport you to America to get that Southern hospitality and that Southern-style eating and experience. Bold flavours, comfort food. So they're the core principles we're trying to push home and hit home and get that message across. We're developing our loyalty app at the minute. Yeah, that's in progress. Some of the tags we were talking about yesterday. I've just been in Nashville. We just did a podcast in Nashville. Mate, the portion's there, man.

21:21It's fucking wild. And I'm a glutton. I can tuck it away like a dumpster truck quite easily. but the um even like the bougie places like even their sort of small plates places that we went to like gargantuan portions at a small plate restaurant which is you know hilarious but so that's so interesting so you believe out of the priorities of your consumer it's southern hospitality yeah fun big portions and actually where that chicken comes from is kind of nebulous but when they eat it it tastes which we have is okay i think how do you guys get to know your cost me better is like anything systems you put in place or is it just a staff so and coming back to the chicken side of things though like one of the things i think is you want to be proud of the product you put out you want to be able to talk about the products and when people do ask i want the staff to be proud of what they're selling so if somebody does ask about a chicken where it comes from people do care and people do ask on the whole most don't but if the ones that do ask ask the question we can tell them a really good love story with confidence do you know what i mean so we can tell them where it's come from we can tell them fam to fuck we can tell them all the stuff they want to know and the majority the 90 don't really care but the ones that do care you were really proud about a good product i think that's one of the big things like you know i think as any restaurateur any chef you don't want to put a rubbish you want to be proud of what you're serving if you can even though it is fried chicken and chips do it right back you know we are doing hand cut potatoes every day we're getting sacks of potatoes delivered hand cutting them cooking them we had one influencer come once a really funny guy um and crazy guy um i'd followed him before he come and when he come i was buzzing like so excited um and um he's obsessed with the chips being salted and he was just say he salted them and then so he'd always mention it um and one of the first things he checks when he goes to places the chips and he was eating the chips and he was like he was looking at me from behind the camera and he was like what what is on these chips i don't know he's done they've done something to this and he was like oh boss man what have you done to these chips why are they chips and what he couldn't understand is they're real potatoes yeah where we'd eat and they were obviously frozen chips and he couldn't and i was like they're just potatoes man and he was like what what do you mean i was like it's just a potato to chip so that's why it tastes unfamiliar yeah that's what i'm saying but it's and it's because and again there is a conception about these these sort of places across the country when you sort of see the the instagramification of food is that sometimes you go there and it's a bit vacuous because you actually eat and you're a bit like oh it's stodgy whereas this is a complete anaesthetist to that and it's like you can just as you to the potato it's a potato rule do you know what i mean it's when we turn up at events and we find that the other we're carrying 20 the other traders is just like 25 kilos sacks of potatoes into an event and some events we can take a ton of potatoes some events we're taking and they're looking at 500 kilos carrying these we're there cutting them by hand out the back and then doing the first cook and then getting them chilled ready for service and people like what you're doing and they're just they're just slicing a bag open and serving you're like oh my god and you know it's the same price point but like for us it's the the pride of the products we're giving we don't want to cut back we don't want to like give people like a i don't know just you want to be able to go to bed at night knowing that you've done like you're doing the right thing in the morning yeah yeah yeah it's hard right it's hard yeah there's a cost always a cost yeah but you know that cost i think outweighs there's a queue for a reason you know there's people coming back new customers coming all the time people traveling return customers all the time and i think all of that comes back to the product the way it's cooked the love that goes into it and like all the effort that we do behind the scenes that people don't realize you know a a lot of restaurants will have microwaves in the kitchen.

25:10You've been in the kitchen. There's not a microwave. Like nothing's, everything's being made fresh on that day. Everything's being made today for tomorrow. Everything's being made today for today. Like sauce are made daily. Loads of butter, loads of honey. Yeah. All the cool, good bits. We'll get on to the kitchen because that's a wonderful story in itself. But I want to go, so we're now, 2026, 2017 is when it opened. Roughly around the year. Roughly around the year. And so, kind of in that period, you know, And now there's long, curling, winding, snaking queues of, you know, people feverishly, you know, excited to come in here.

25:45But in those early days, how are you getting punters in here? Where we are in Kingston, obviously, I used to come out here and get smashed up because, you know, we used to go to John. Yeah, that's what Kingston is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hilarious. And actually, my mum used to take me to the Byron Burger when I did, like, my GCSEs and stuff. So I know this area. Where we are is down quite a secluded place. There was nothing down this alleyway. The coffee shop I think was here. It just stayed quietly ticking over for the early days. How did you get people in? What were you doing in those? Whatever, whatever restaurant did.

26:18Go to the marketplace. Taking samples out. Take samples out and just get friends and family and trying for it to be as good as it can be. We used to give out samples in the market, walk the marketplace, talk to people. Service has always been kind of a family-style service here. so like I worked in the service so I know I saw it from day one it was like you know when that customer does come in sit with them explain the menu spend the time kind of give them the love that they want do what other restaurants aren't doing take care of that cold service you know it's about you know you're coming into our house you're part of our family kind of thing it was all about that back in the early days and then once people tried the food had the food they was like look I know someone's going to love this and it was recommending recommending and then it was taking the food out to people that got the further The referral to our circle expanded.

27:06So people from that wider circle started coming to us. What were the actual products you were taking out? The deliveries and stuff. Oh, you know, we'd take out a piece of chicken, we'd take out a piece of shrimp. You know, we'd always give first-time customers, we'd give them a sample oyster, try an oyster. It was always like, sorry, but maybe the table's a little bit late or a bit behind. We'd give them something. It was a little hook. But it was just getting out, giving people, letting them try stuff. And I think it's back to the consistency. you know being open every single day what you tend to find with a lot of restaurants if they're failing or a lot of restaurants when it gets quiet is they start chopping and changing their opening hours they start getting inconsistent like you see restaurants now that aren't as busy and you'll be like oh what's going on are you busy now i'm not busy we start shutting early on sundays or we don't open now on a monday it's like you know them days you start not doing it it's ultimately you're a service provider right and you become a reliable option for people if you're open 12 till 10 you open 12 till 10 you don't cut it because there's nobody here you know if somebody walks in at 10 to 10 you give them a table if that's your only table that evening back in the day you take it because you want the revenue you don't go home and think mate it's um it's mad so i was there's a really interesting company they're called eat club my mate pan runs it and it's been invested by it's basically like dynamic pricing for restaurants and his whole point was you know so if you are quiet you can use it's not this is not a plug but like as i said it's just a really interesting app that you you can you can use to get to sort of change the pricing as and when you're quiet and his whole point was the people think oh we're shutting and it's almost unintended consequences so first thing is oh we're not busy no one no one goes to restaurants on monday tuesday wednesday whatever we'll shut those days he was actually the nefarious unintended consequences of that are one you you're um not being consistent internally as a team two you're allowing yourself to be um you know, the restaurant that's over the road that is open will win that custom.

29:00They've got an opportunity to deliver a great experience that people can come back to there. And it's like, when you're shut, like, you're actually massively, massively losing. Monday is one of our best trading days. Monday, Monday to Thursday. Thursday starts ramping up the weekend, but Monday, Monday, Tuesday, Monday is our best trading day usually of the week. Probably assume because other restaurants are closed. I think it's a bit of psychology. Yeah, and the thing, you come out, Monday's a tough day for everyone. Like, right, you wake up, oh, we're back on Monday my favourite day to go for dinner is Monday such a pony day I've got through Monday we're one of them places where you can come and you can really treat yourself on a Monday I think Mondays just work well for us it surprises me always still to now how Mondays you always get a good especially lunch trade you generally have a queue on a Monday like 5 to 12 where people just come on I need to feel good now on that Monday when you're feeling rubbish if you can get a plate of food that hugs your back that's a good place right and I think that's what our food gives you that little and also like with British culture in the summer like the amount of people who are boozing on Sundays yeah everyone's hung out the other day come out stodgy food let's do it yeah yeah yeah it's fascinating there's a restaurant in London and the name's gonna I think it's either Flank okay yeah or I was gonna say Flank or Skank it's definitely not called Skank that's a stripper steak restaurant but it's a it's only open monday to friday yeah which i think is genius yeah um and it's like it's like if you're open the days people aren't open again there's some weird i don't know what the answer is some weird psychology to to the almost behavioral science what that is do you mean yeah so just going more into what the the overarching so so it's about so we sort of said as you said it's about persistence and always being open like what other things do you do that other restaurants probably don't do like how are you contrarian we we break everything down quite often and we still do it to today we'll we'll pull apart a recipe just because we're not particularly happy with something or we'll see online feedback you know we because we're not a top heavy company we're not owned by a corporation or anything like we can do as and what we want so like if we see a negative review on something we're not happy with if we see get some feedback on a dish or there's something on a certain post we can pull it apart and rehash it and redo it and make sure it's perfect so we we tend to as good as it can be yeah yeah i mean perfect doesn't exist in hospitality does it like as perfect you want to be but you which we listen to what people are saying so we'll look for instagram comments we look for the dms we take on board the feedback we look at the online reviews and pick all that apart to make sure we're actually what are the customers saying and what impact can we do and then we'll we'll put that into our dishes so how many mondays have we remade a dish or rehashed something i think it's we're quite blessed it's it's quite easy here the team will really care about like the the for some reason the people that have come part of like the team they're all so passionate as well and they're all so quick to like if they cease to identify some because we can't be here 24-7.

32:13So you come in on Monday and you speak to the team and if they've... It still shocks me like how much they care. Like if they see a plate go out and it's not on point, it's like, it's like, I'm not happy with them under me. It's like, they could be better. They'll remake them all. That is a perfect example. I get pictures. My phone is full of pictures from the staff like, do you think this is okay? I'm like, no. Stay back to the kitchen, look, can we have these again? like that's not yeah yeah yeah and that's they're not waiting for customers to comment on that so it's that it's because there's a journey from the kitchen you've seen the spiral staircase that tortuous spiral staircase so on that journey down there assessing the food assessing the product how good is it is it as good as it can be is a portion enough and yeah it's almost that that it's again turning a bug into a feature yeah that long spiral staircase gives you a lot of time for quality control yes let's talk about this because the thing my office is the spice rack so i get to see it coming down the space so you originally started delivery yeah sort of wags on wheels business now six years later much bigger yeah like now you've brought on eburys and sort of delivery side of things how are you using that as one not only is delivery but marketing to see where you open new locations?

33:32Because you've got the van in Chelsea. The van at Chelsea in Spick and... Sorry, Croydon. Croydon, we've got a site, yeah. How do you use it, not just as a delivery, as almost like a business... It's a touch pool, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. Do you know what? It gives you an opportunity to get such a broad market space. We've always done our own deliveries. We've always got our own platform. We've brought in Uber Eats very recently. and do you know what we've our customers are our customers and they're our customers because the fans of the restaurant or the they know the restaurant or they've been or they've been a a long time person or follow instagram but this just opened up a whole new market space that we never had access to and it just well as because they've got they've got such a big share yeah they've got a bigger fleet of drivers they've got such a market share that's open to so many more people than we've got access to and just on our platform and we've got a big following but that following is worldwide it's uk wide you know it's not just intense in this area whereas i think one of the nice things with uber and i use it personally is you open it and you can search through the food you can search for recommendations on what you've ordered and what you've had before and it just gives you that space where you can see it so it's much more visible and then the other side of it is the fleet of drivers that goes with it so we've always kept our delivery and takeaway kind of very structured we allow a certain amount of slots per 15 minutes we've got drivers on it's delivered by ourselves but the restrictions in that is how many was in your fleet we have on a busy saturday night we have five drivers and they all go because i remember you show me in and out in and out yeah as in like so we're in kingston the furthest they'll go is richmond or cobham isha epsom loads of chelsea footballers yeah so we've got a little pocket where we just have for footballers there's a couple of footballers there's one in particular we do right there.

35:22So the hotspot. Literally, well, we know there's a couple of footballers that live there and they're fat. Some of them play abroad. Have I seen their family are ordering on their credit cards? So they come back. Yeah, I won't mention who, but in case they get the family in trouble and they stop ordering. We always kept it so structured because obviously first and foremost versus the restaurant, this, that bread and butter, this, you know, serving a customer in front of you is much, it takes a lot more. You can't delay a customer that's sat in front of you. Deliveries can be delayed. Delivers can have issues, but with customer in front of you is the first and foremost priority.

35:56Then it comes to the delivery side of it. We have our own drivers that come in and out. But again, we only let so many slots go because we didn't want to run over on the kitchen, but also getting delivery drivers in and out. So we couldn't just let it go wild. So we resisted for a while, backwards and forwards with Uber, resisted. An opportunity came up. We thought it was the right time in terms of for us as a business. Where we'd got to with the plates and everything we was doing kind of led to like, look we're gonna have site in Kingston we're gonna have a site in Croydon the Croydon side of it we knew we would do well on the delivery platform somebody was like okay let's give it a go there let's touch base there first so you could see like your personal like heat map kind of yeah we could see that heat map yeah I know right yeah it's science yeah yeah um we love some customer data we love insights we love being able to see them heat maps and you know you look on the delivery platforms it's saturated with a lot of the same things and it's like look this is very different this is a shop where you can get a lot of different things that suit like we said suit everybody um and then obviously with the driver fleet there's no restrictions we just let it go loose and we're so worried about doing that especially the first weekend he just like right it's open and it was like oh my god like how we're gonna i'm so surprised how supportive uber are yeah in terms of trying to give you opportunities for you for us to yeah to continue to grow that pushed us into events and even holding events for us to cater for them like yeah it's not just will you use it as like a um a way to find new sites yeah so i think they've got they've got such good data they can give us from what their delivery partners are doing on their areas yeah sort of like where where the where there's they can offer what particular areas are ordering what yeah so what what items so for example have you got a particular area that where chicken and shrimp would do well with the market with the local market from they've got that opportunity to test to test areas from different items and that can give us an indication and insight into oh yeah would actually do really well in north london that would that they've got they've got restaurants that they know have performed well there that offer the chicken and shrimp and that gives us insight without with minimal risk so interesting so the other thing i think is really interesting is again back to the adaptability place is context um like core brand principles up the top here upstream right at the top of the sort of the stream if you want to call it that but then downstream is like say croydon's this and then the outside stampford bridge you've got that lorry or truck like how do you think about that of like deliver like in terms of what you serve in terms of making it you know you can't in a football stadium you're on the move like how do adapt in that situation?

38:44We have a fast serve events menu that we roll out. Sometimes we change and add dishes. We'll add brisket donuts, we'll add mat balls depending on the event, but we'll do sandwiches. So we'll do the po' boy, brisket, shrimp, cauliflower. We'll do the dirty boy, brisket, chicken, shrimp, cauliflower. We'll do them on the road because it's quick serve. Nobody wants to wait. You know, when you come to a stadium or you come to an event, you want quick food. Yeah. So Croydon, it's not got the full menu. It's got reduced down menu because it's got to be quick serve whereas here the full dining experience we can offer that and we can offer the full menu on uber and our under the platforms but in croydon we can't offer the same full menu because it's not the same dining experience it's a much enhanced quicker sharp service also i suppose it gets because do you know have you been to black bear burger yeah yeah so have you met stew yeah uh the founder of it he's a g he's a really good man yeah we did an event there actually um and he was saying oh yeah mate that me so the me so mayonnaise one is just mate it's fireworks yeah um and he was saying that he uses some of they have like it's like was it like market halls you know those yeah yeah he's like we purposely won't put the sides in those places one logistically but two if the burger's banging enough it creates enough intrigue that people come so actually use it as a marketing vehicle to get people into the restaurant yeah you see what i'm saying like i suppose my question was this like how are you going to use this delivery Uber as a way to entice people in I suppose a lot of people it still blows my mind such an online presence there's still people you talk to people and they've never been to the restaurant we'll probably deliver to customers that have not seen us before apart from an Uber and they probably didn't even know who was here and it still blows my mind in this area brand awareness yeah I think like I was saying there's much more to it than just a delivery platform I find and I didn't realize this before we kind of got involved, that it's not just an A to B delivery platform.

40:40There's way more kind of behind it that we've had out of it and the experience we've had from it. We've got a great relationship with our account manager. I think we're quite blessed with him. He's great. He's always on call. Just message away if I need anything. And he's always putting opportunities away, which is another way of like a brand awareness. This is the first time we've sat down and had a conversation like this. I think it's something we miss out and we should do more of. that's what you was talking about singing about products and shouting about them because we we've kind of just always stayed behind the scenes yeah that's why like that's why i was so excited to do this unsung heroes is it's the um is it is like when i when i tried the food i'll be honest like because i saw the instagram i was like i've been to some of these places like my mate's taking me some places that are just a bit you just eat the food it's just it's not the quality it's just like you've got the instagramification of it but the quality actually backs up yeah the um you guys don't um or didn't use plates for a long time which is wild especially like an actual bricks and mortar restaurant um i think giving some context on that would be brilliant and i think it's really interesting this again one of the things i'm kind of obsessed with at the minute is dealing with the cards that are in front of you you know if this is this is what you've got to do you've got to be adaptable you've got to move as abs that's one of your you know your principles is it be adaptable but yeah mate if you feel if you want to go into like the kitchen yeah and sort of paint a picture what it's like and then what how that impacted the business so the kitchen is such a tiny space like it's a very narrow it's almost a loft space you know it's tiny yeah it's really small so we have to get as much as we can out that kitchen the demand far outstripped to the size of that kitchen um so we're really kind of confined to what we can and can't use so in terms of plates or bowls or packaging so when our demand did increase we was originally in place when our demand did increase we just couldn't get the food out and keep up with the demand in the way we did things and then because of covid we flipped to takeaway style packaging and that just worked so well so quick and the coming in and out of lockdown and everything like that was just meant we stayed with this kind of takeaway style packaging that made service so much slicker so much quicker it used to be the say is that we'd build the dish put lid on it put it in a bag run it to the tables drop on a table in a bag done and we managed to test a packaging product that turned into a plate essentially folds out fold it out and so it became a plate style experience but also was a transformer because you could fold it back up and turn it back into a takeaway packaging and relid it and it it sort of went back together and took its original form.

43:22She was able to take it away again where the Southern hospitality comes back into it and the portion sizes. Yeah, very rare. Very rare anyone finishes. And then you pack it away. Dog your bags to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. So, yeah. So that's knowing the bank going back to really having that real empathy with the customer and knowing your... I haven't thought of it like that. Because a lot of comfort in taking the leftovers away, I think it's generally sort of you feel uncomfortable taking stuff away you know when you go asking for a doggy bag you've got to ask yesterday I had lunch have you been to Hoppers and oh mate if you want some amazing blow your mind Sri Lankan grub yeah Karen came on the podcast a couple of days ago last week two weeks ago and they gave us like went there yesterday for so much you've sent out extra couple of dishes and I was like oh my god it's like banging like you know chicken and like beef but then I had to ask for doggy bag and it's not in America it's very normal but like in British thing I think the Brits are too polite and it's a bit icky you know asking for it um I think that's where the packaging worked for us yeah look we really take so what so it almost like it was almost like so the yeah the sides just peel off and it just opens like a plate and it just sits nicely and it was it was two parts to it the first part was the originator was for takeaway and delivery we want you to have a five-star dining experience at home we want you to have the restaurant in your house we want to give you the hospitality that quality that we gave in the restaurant in your home so it was like look you can open this up it doesn't have to be that awkward takeaway box you want to feel like it's a plate you peel down the sides of the boxes um and then you've got a sense you've got to play here um and then the way it goes back together the lid holds it recompasses it back to its original form so it then look guys don't feel pressure to finish it now if you want to pack it up and take it away and have it for your supper later here you go ready to go now it's not that now you've got plates again talk to me about that situation look we always wanted to go back to plates really it was it was it was a fix to get us out of trouble after Covid in and out of Covid back into Covid we just never knew where it was going to be and then our demand was so high that we couldn't think of another way of doing it obviously on the flip side of that the impact of the recycling the impact of the cost and everything we always wanted to go back to place because we wanted to be a full dining experience not a takeaway kind of grab and go style restaurant so it was always going to be on the cast to come back but just how we brought that back in a gentle format that didn't overwhelm the restaurant the kitchen didn't have an impact at all on service and sales and also kind of helped with the recycling side of things.

46:10It was just a whole change in the flow of the way we did the whole service. So it was a way of trying to bring that back in in the more testing, timing, with stopwatches, times to get to tables. It's even cold plates. I suppose what was really interesting is there's a thing called, in psychology, the peak end rule. So it's like how an experience ends is more important than beginning in the middle. So it's like why Oasis will play Wonderwall last. right you know if you want that house hour event ends it's like and it works across everything it's like you know why in curry house tradition they give you the mint all those things yeah i'm thinking from a takeaway perspective like that transformer packaging is a gorgeous piquen wall because it people piquen rule sorry tongue twist uh because it just naturally you can just fold it up bosh you're out the restaurant whereas it is it conducing as brits to ask that so like how do you dance that tension like how do you make yeah because like now they're eating on a plate because the pros of a plate is it's way more instagrammable yes it's better for recycling how do you keep that kind of effortless this smoothness at the end of the meal when the portions are so gargantuan of our service like customers know they're gonna take it as well we we make that as comfortable if the staff are ready there with the boxes yeah we take them rather than waiting to ask just say hey guys like here's your here's your here's this stuff for your leftovers.

47:35There's some boxes and a bag. Solve the problem before you realize it. Yeah, absolutely. We'll take the box, the bag, the bill. Here you go. And then the ease in which they're packaging it. So giving them an easy vessel in which they can repack their leftovers. So you saw in the kitchen, we had the plates, we greaseline them. So we have Paul Boy's printed greaseline paper. There's two parts to it. One part is for making it easy to separate and take off the food waste. But the other thing's for the customer. they can just slide that straight into the takeaway box making that process easy it's little things that people don't realise whether it's the cutting the chicken supreme into three things and turning it into trifecta revenue stream or it's the greaseproof thing what other things have you done like that, the intangible things that lead to profound tangible results for the customer I have no idea I think it just comes from the conversation and like extracting them.

48:31Yeah. Do you know, like it's little things you just don't think about. How do you think about it? Like, well, let's look like with the Breats now. So you can these guys as your partner. As I said, I interviewed Nisha from Mowgli. He's amazing. Yeah. We're talking about these coffees from Seager. Yeah. Whose packaging must cost a small, you know, it's almost like it's the Lamborghini of packaging. But again, it has that premium feel when you're like, wow, Mowgli did the same thing with their packaging. It's like, and it's really trying to extend the experience into the customer's home. How do you get the poor boys, je ne sais quoi, the fucking, you know, energy as...

49:13So we dress our dishes the same as we do in the restaurant. We grease line all the boxes. So we put the paper in the boxes to brand it. We've got the see-through lids on there, which kind of hold the packaging really nicely together, but you can see the food to deliver. So, you know, you can see your present coming, you can see the food, you can open it, it's just there. We're still using the same packaging we used back then and it still opens up like that plate so it's still got that same kind of at-home dining experience where it's opened as a plate. It's all got Po' Boys branded on there, it's got the stickers on the top telling you what it is, telling you it's a Dirty Boy, it's a Mac Boy.

49:40So it makes it really easy for the customer to see. We give them the sauce in a little pot on the sides. We worked out quite quickly that if we sauce the dish, put the lid on it, by the time it's gone to the delivery to the house, that sauce just kind of disappears like there is no sauce. So we put them in a nice little pot on the sides so they can drizzle it on. so it gives them that experience of making the heat as best yeah and it almost continues cooking the sauce because of the temperature of the food so it just disappears and there's nothing there so we put in a nice little pot on the side all labeled up telling them what it is and they just drizzle it on the top interesting and then i think the create your own dish concept is like gives that chef inside everyone an opportunity to create you can do that on the delivery yeah yeah yeah so you've got your salt you can source it the way you want you can choose that's build your own yeah yeah so yeah yeah so create your own protein protein your own base your own source combination so it opens up a massive world of opportunities for you to become a chef during your takeout experience oh i'm gonna put this i'm gonna let my i'm gonna fill you've got to try this combo yeah oh my god it's like an amazing like so it's all these opportunities come up so and then that sourcing it yourself you're almost finishing it yourself like you're drizzling it and yeah you're like you know the nike id trainers it's almost like the nike id trainers are grub and like and i think again i think there's a lot about i love behavioral science i think it's just fascinating but there's two things it's one it's the the uh you know customization increases perceived value because you feel like you're actually doing part of it then there's the other thing which is the ikea effect which is when you're actually building the furniture when there's effort from you again it increased the perceived value so it's like super personal it's like my poor boy is my poor boy uh one but two you kind of get that customization nike id trotter of yeah well you take ownership in it becomes your dish right yeah yeah and then you then you put in then it's really a talking point yeah absolutely yes yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah my poor boy is better than your poor boy yeah and that food's designed to share it's designed to bring people together you know it goes on the middle of a table you've got your own dish but you want i want to feed you what i'm eating because like i want you to have that i want like i'm eating this but you you have to try this like it's gonna be the best bite of food you're gonna have today this week whenever do you know and you're meeting something you're gonna be so jealous what i'm eating try some of mine you know it's like that kind of i guess it comes back to that southern hospitality the sharing the big portions and then just that experience that good food in front of you do you guys do i don't think do but a healthy dish.

52:15We do so we do a salad we do so we've got grilled shrimp, grilled chicken, obviously the beef products the ribs the brisket so we do it on a salad skinny boy base so the sandwich is fairly healthy. You don't have to have the the chips or the mac you can have a skinny boy base so it's a salad. Delicious salad as well. Great salad really fresh. But again that's not something you really push on socials is it? Do you know what yeah do you know obviously you push on sells yeah yeah but also this is really interesting thing is it's like it goes it goes back to like picking the right things that actually one sells but the reason it sells because it lands with the consumer doesn't yes this goes back to what we're talking about before do you know when you saying why don't you market the products you're selling where you buy them again because where do we market we market on instagram we market on tiktok like that doesn't really resonate with our customers same with certain dishes like we know if we start we're doing a soft shell crab on there that it's not gonna have the same impact that the brisket don't does at the mac and cheese ball does so you know you see what gets the interactions what what's being liked on socials like you know the stuff that is fun and people want to see that's the stuff we tend to push and post no it's interesting and i think one thing when tiktok came about in terms of when it started to create a bit of buzz we we it was an opportunity to show the restaurant in the third dimension yeah so what do you mean by that so um we're always on stills aren't we yes there's a still of a food you see a still of a food or like the look of that tiktok gave you an opportunity to become like it to be an experience the dunking and the dipping and the pulling the cheese pulls yes so not only can you become a chef by creating your perfect dish you could also become an influencer by doing your own video so i can look let me do so let me see cgi cheese pool yeah literally yeah i can do my dunk yeah we got we got our social media guides sort of guide people look do this this is so much fun yeah you get messy do a big dunk like a speedboat to do that and then so instead of saying i want that people have come and say i want to do that can i do that the mac and cheese bowl so I could pull the jalapeno poppers to do that so we worked on techniques in creating the food so like testing the cheese pools were enough to give people that experience so building the dishes that way that's the third dimension that experience again this is something you guys have done naturally that we're sort of eking out in this conversation we don't always think about all the little things that you do that make it what it is it's as you talk and it sometimes it's pausing and getting off your phone every conversation like this yeah actually like eke it out the viscosity of the sources gives you an opportunity to do the sexy dunks if you like and the dips and um making that relevant um and it sort of where we sort of practice it from the social media guy so we can when he does his dunk we can then test if that source viscosity is the right level so that when you come and dunk yours, you get the same experience.

55:28And one of the things we've always been really keen on is when we do a social post, we don't make the food any different to what you and I would get any customer gets. It's the same food. You see a lot of socials. You look and you see the grab. You see the picture. It looks perfect. It looks like, whoa, I can't wait to get that. And you go in, in reality, it doesn't look like that. It isn't that same food. You look on the tagged pictures. You want a part on that. We look at the tagged pictures as much as we look at our pictures to make sure they're more important the customers get what we put out so we want you to have the same sandwich that we post on social media we want you to have that same cheese ball that same experience we don't make anything special just because social media is coming and taking pictures it's our staff our food yes he does his filters and does what he does with the pictures to make them look nice and sexy and at some time you do a plate full of like the whole brisket yeah like we'll do stuff to get conversation we'll cook a whole brisket and be like you could have this but yeah that's the other thing I was going to ask you is like how do you think about staying relevant yeah food is so capricious in the sense it just it just it just it's like a adh pinball machine where people's attention's moving you know one minute it's matcha now one minute be even oat milk now has kind of dissipated into the ether like you know and it just changes all the time we've only just got the oat milk as well yeah how are you how are you staying ahead of like where the the zephyrs have changed and and the waves are flowing so it's I think in answer to that the persistence comes into it talk to me about persistence so making making the core principles as good as they can be so that you ride the waves of the trends I think if you stick to your core principles you may not you may not capture every trend but you will you will stay on that level that you know that underlying factor that core product the quality of it so you can miss a trend that'll say you don't spot the matcha wave you don't spot that as long as you've still got great coffee yeah you've missed that peak potentially but you've still that core product what are those core things for you guys so it's the flavour yeah the portion the hospitality yeah because it's still part of that consistency piece you know like if you come back today if you come back next week you get the same product that ownership of the dish creating that yeah so I'm just I'm just thinking about this like do you know what we keep an eye on trends we see what trends do I think you can quite easily get distracted and take it off your game like if you follow every trend you lose your core principles you lose the stuff that made you what you are you lose the basics so we keep an eye on trends and some trends can't and then staying in your lane is a big one I always find yeah yeah I've got there again I think Toby's on my I've been speaking to him the grand strategy guy we're talking about is there's a book he recommended which is called Slay in Your Lane which I love talk to me about that because I think you know opportunity sorry distractions masquerade as opportunities like the new shiny thing oh they're doing that, their revenue is doing that oh we should do that but actually it takes real nerve and persistence yeah persistence talk to me about slaying in your lane like what's that about so for us i think we've we love the core principle of what we do fried chicken and shrimp is the core of us like that's that's deep south that's deep south hospitality and the the pull of i'll do a burger do a hot dog do this yeah it's And it's so difficult to continue to just commit to your original staying focused and persistent on that core product that we do.

59:23You see companies and businesses constantly being distracted and the pull of the law of doing the burger. The Smashburger market is obsessed and some of the Smashburgers just look so great and sexy. and it'd be so easy to have a smash burger po 'boy um but just just we just wouldn't be being true to what we do and what we what we do and what we do well and what we try to do well it's not a speciality is it like yeah it's just not something that fits with us like we still stick to that southern style food you know like we know what products are going to sell with us and in trend wise we've got the opportunity to go do wing festivals and try these new trends and try these things that we use that as an outlet do you know you're sort of able to satisfy your urge to do your I think the only trends we've got involved with is the hot honey one like we did the hot honey and like it's impossible we love the sweet and salty hot honey and how does that not go with fried chicken I love chicken and maple fried seafood yeah in terms of trends I'd say that's the only one really in recent times i can think of that we've brought into the restaurant the rest of the time we've used the outlet we've always played around with the sweet we love to play around with the food concepts being the sweet like the brisket donut we're always wherever there's an opportunity we like to incorporate a sweet element or a sweet suggestion but that's a bad thing in our savory dishes yeah like i have cajun spice a little bit sweet so like a traditional we'll have lunch.

1:01:02Mate, that barbecue sausage dude. Yeah, but like, our Cajun spice has got a little bit of sweet in there. So like a traditional Cajun spice is hot. It's so you know, it kind of gives you a tingle in your mouth. You think of a New Orleans Cajun spice, it's spicy. So when you get Americans in and you're like, they talk about the Cajun spice, like how was it designed for English people? Like, you know, for the English market, it's got that slightly sweeter taste to it, but it's still spicy, but not that hot spice. that's going to leave for afterburn we haven't had to create a New Orleans an English version of New Orleans because basically I had one of these Nashville burgers in your socks off mate like I'd met some other random bloke I basically just got there I was on my lottery and so I was like fuck this I'm going to go the Six Nations had just started so that's what seven weeks ago and I was like it was meant to meet end up going to this bar it's like 9am we're watching the rugby having a load of Guinness dream yeah oh mate it was a dream and there was loads of English guys in there since they watched the game.

1:02:00And then sort of befriended some of them. They're like, mate, we're going to take you to this Nashville proper hot chicken spot. You know, what I like about there is that you have the hot chicken, but they give you like the really soft, crappy white bread. I know it's not good quality. It's a toast. And you just get the bread and it's like a vehicle for mopping. But anyway, so I had the first one and the second one, it was spicy to the point of you know my eyes were popping out we can give you that experience here with the Carolina Reaper don't we so you can do that we've got hot I think there's a lot of places to say they do a hot sauce but it's not really it doesn't tick the box for the hot lovers we've got a voodoo sauce we call it a voodoo Reaper it's a Carolina Reaper based sauce product and it is a real hot it's got real heat heat that stays it's not just a note the ghost lingers I love that so we've got that there for the customers that do want it but look our palates are we don't want that level of spice our most popular sauce is Cajun mayo like it's a nice sweet kind of mayonnaise it's just it's delicious mayonnaise just goes with everything right but you know that's our most popular sauce by a long way so yeah but we've got hot sauce we've got everything like i think we everything we do kind of touches that somebody's gonna like there's not many places kind of a one-stop shop for like beef shrimp chicken and all the other dishes that you can get in in one go so like you know if you've got a group of five six friends there's gonna be something on the menu that pleases every single one you know sometimes you go out and like you've always got that one awkward friend that doesn't like anything on the menu.

1:03:46I think it's really difficult to have that. You're not invited next time, but you've always got that one friend where I think here it's got something of everything, you know, from spicy, hot, to nice and sweet, to kind of that buttermilky. We try to give the whole American experience when you get it all around that deep south. Your brisket, your shrimp, your great fried chicken, all the great textures and flavour profiles. Yeah. One thing I love is like making decision hard decisions under pressure um again like did you watch rugby on the weekend again they absolutely shanked it yeah um again fruit away yeah fruit away so the context we're recording this just after england lost to france but i absolutely bottled it shanked it um but yeah they were celebrating i'm not sure if you watch rugby raps but yeah it doesn't mean it gets the rundown in the monday the point is we it's like conceding a last minute goal and clive woodward who was you know one of the world cup he was having this thing it's called tick up um calm decisions under something like calm decisions under pressure okay and he was basically like drilling these drilling his team to make calm decisions under under under pressure um and you know there's an earnest hemingway quote which is courage is is grace under pressure which I love when have you been really under pressure and like how do you steady the poor boys every morning stay true to them core principles regardless of the pressure yeah and I think it just gives you focus if you just know hone in on that I've got to stick to the persistence and committing to them core principles it just it just gives you that focus to be able to essentially remain calm under pressure what is what has been the most like other than COVID because everyone can say COVID but as in the moment you're like oh my god like this is rolling the dice here or like we are under the cosh we're on the five meat line getting battered like do you know what there hasn't obviously COVID was a big one yeah that was huge and it was out of your control wasn't it you've got to close now you have to close look just moving away from the boxes to packaging that was a huge decision and go back to plates.

1:06:05Yeah, even coming from wooden cutlery to proper cutlery, even washing the dishes, we never make a decision on the wind. We never put ourselves under pressure to make a decision there and then. We've always done a thing where... What's the mental models? What's the thinking behind? We always... We'll test everything as much as we can prior. Any examples?

1:06:29Delivering. I remember once we got the new uniform, we've got the delivery bags uniforms like the uh bomber yeah but i remember right right at the very early stage i think i've got a picture on my phone so it's a very early picture on instagram i look about 12 years old compared to now but um i remember stood there with the delivery bag i mean i'm right i'm going to ride around kingston for 30 minutes then test the temperature of the food when it comes back just to see just to see what heat it loses and that's just stupid testing it yeah and and then the timing of the table so so the the the box to plates boxes back to plates that was a huge one really a huge pressure point warming the plates that couldn't be perceived um making sure that because the restaurant in terms of like the the journey from say the mac station you've been in the kitchen we've got a mac and cheese station at the back of the kitchen, the distance that the crow flies from there to the furthest table at the back of the courtyard.

1:07:34That's about there. Yeah. So that journey, the mac and cheese, has to go from the back, from the Mac station, to the pass, all the way down the stairs, through in the restaurant, outside. Yeah, and for context for listeners, the spiral staircases are quite torturous. As you rightly said, it's a bit of a pun to get there. so what would you increase the what were the learnings from that then would you increase if he added a table out there would you put it in the fryer a bit longer or no it's just knowing it's just knowing how and how that impact that journey time so where we have such a tight turnaround for tables coming in it's the turnaround time of how's that going to impact that table turnover time so that journey what's that going to impact so going back to the plates so how the time that that's going to add on to the whole to the whole time that the rest every five seconds adds up doesn't it so we was doing a thing last week we was doing a piece on look we have on a saturday we we have really busy saturdays but what we've been noticed over the last few saturdays was every third hour speed of service dropped and the money going through the till the money going for the till in the hour wasn't the queue as wasn't fast as you need to It wasn't consistent.

1:08:54It dropped off by a good margin as well. So in that hour? Yeah, so that third hour was like, right, look, everything is... So this would be at 3 p.m.? Yeah, between 2 and... Yeah, 3 p.m. slot. Okay. And I was breaking it down. Like we were saying that every five seconds adds up. Every time that extra journey going from the A to B, how far it is, how long it takes, adds on. And that slows down the turnover of the tables. And we was looking... Getting to the queue and getting served as quickly as possible. Why was it being slowed down? Do you know what? We worked it back and it's the speed of clearing the table.