85. "We were £1.5M in debt": The turnaround strategy that could save your business | Zoe Paskin

0:00Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business, management and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who bootstrap companies, masterminded investment models or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture. Success doesn't always mean sticking with one part. Sometimes it means starting over. Today on All About Business, I'm joined by Zoe Paskin, the restaurateur behind some of London's most well-known venues, including The Palomar, Evelyn's Table and The Barbary.

0:46In this episode, we discuss reinvention, building multiple brands and the realities of running a restaurant business in a rapidly changing environment.

0:59Today on All About Business, I'm really delighted to welcome Zoe Paskin. Zoe is the co-founder and managing director of Studio Paskin, one of the most influential independent hospitality groups in the UK. And Zoe works alongside her brother, which I'd like to talk to you about later. Zoe's interested in the dynamics of that. and and studio paskin is behind several acclaimed restaurants um including the palomar which is in london soho the barbary which is in covent garden in london and also notting hill near where i live and evelyn's table in soho which is a michelin style rated restaurant and i just looked it up And it's also rated 4.9 on TripAdvisor.

1:50So even more highly rated than our podcast, which makes me envious. And it's not easy to get a 4.9 rating on TripAdvisor, is it? No, well, thanks for coming in, Zoe. I know you're really busy. And I'm really interested and excited to learn more about your business. But what sort of strikes me is that you're expanding in restaurants at a time when lots of people are saying, oh, it's really tough out there. so how come and what's your what's your sort of magic formula if there is one um it is really tough out there um well at the moment um we are doing a lot of consolidating in this current year everything from guest experience all the way through with the hope that we can do something next year so our journey really began with the palomar and then our last opening was in 2024 so we're going to go a little bit more slowly while we find our feet in the current marketplace but But we are hoping to do something next year, for sure.

2:42But I applaud you on what you've done so far. Really highly rated restaurants that are giving a lot of people a lot of pleasure. You started out, though, in a slightly, well, an adjacent but different line of business, which was nightclubs, was it not? It was, yeah. What's the origin story of Studio Peskin? Okay, so I've got an older brother who ended up being my co-founder. And there's a few years between us. What's his name? His name's Leo, Leo Paskin, and he is part of the dance at Leo and Bushwacker. So in my teens, he was coming out of university. He was really into dance music and everything in that era was breaking then.

3:20He was going to talk to warehouse parties. And once he graduated, he said to my father, who's an architect, if you come across any sites before they get developed where I could throw a warehouse party, let me know. Were these sort of raves? Yeah, in effect. Yes. so some months later my dad came home one day and was like well i actually found working on a site and on top of everything else they actually think it might be suitable for a nightclub so the the naughty innocence of maybe throwing a rave became the possibility of opening a nightclub um but they didn't have any money there wasn't you know but slowly he got together the people he knew in dance music one of which was mr c who was a fan of the shaman and uh without hesitation he put the money down for the lease and slowly but surely they raised the money so where was this and what was it called it was called the end the end and it was not far from here it was on the back of jury lane on a back street called west central street right um and so my dad was the architect of that of that nightclub and in 1995 they opened the doors and kind of changed the course of everything really because I was at university by then um obviously and then I was sort of like didn't really want to just follow like exactly in those footsteps so I actually went to live in Spain for a while and then my brother needed some help and that really changed the course of everything so I went home for a month so he was running the end at this point yes and and he asked you to join him yeah so what what was going on why did he need help what was your particular sort of supporting act if that's the right way to describe it at this point so i think they'd gone from like all the sort of like the energy of like underground dance music and opened this incredible venue um that was designed by clubbers for clubbers um in the sort of heyday of the heyday yeah and um but it was probably a little bit ahead of its time so converting that into a business um and sort of his own career was beginning to take off um well he was doing another job well he was a dj producer himself at the beginning of a career that did take off exactly so in the one end it i mean it had a decent turnover but you know it was it was hemorrhaging money really we they'd also opened a venue next door called aka um it was in year one and he was just overwhelmed he'd done all this in his early 20s um he's incredibly creative person but all of the other skills around managing a team and business well he didn't have particularly in his wheelhouse yet and also didn't really have time to do it i had a perhaps a teeny bit more of that but mostly led by instinct really than experience you're young yourself i was young i was younger i still am yeah my brother always he always likes to pretend it's the other way around but you'll always be younger than him yeah so but but you'd been in spain what were you doing there before you came um i had gone out there Really, I'd graduated in psychology.

6:20I think I still thought I wanted to be a psychotherapist, but I was like having a year off, wanted to learn another language. I was taking the work I could get because my Spanish was pretty beginners. So I was painting, decorating, converting bars in the old town and really just making ends meet and having quite a good time. I just kind of renovated a sort of apartment, you know, buying things from the flea market. It was the beginning of my career, really. not even the beginning of my career um but i'd done a lot of work in bars and restaurants you know throughout my degree um when i had graduated i'd gone to work at brown's in saint martin's lane which was about 350 cover restaurant so i'd learned of quite a few of the basics of so you were just soaking it all in really i was soaking it all in and i was it was hot in barcelona at the time that we met we actually met up in ibiza for me to do the guest list uh for a like a tour they were doing which is when it all came out that he was feeling like there's a lot to do so i offered to come home for a month right and that led to a partnership of 10 years so a month turned into 10 years totally like running the end in can yeah i said to my boyfriend i'll be back you know in a month and then i mean we always joke i sort of landed i went straight to a meeting and it was so obvious so quickly i wasn't going to be going back and it had all of the sort of innocence of learning on the jobs with like unbelievable speed um so what were the immediate challenges that you faced doing well i began really working on aka next door so that he could concentrate on the club um so they had different challenges the end had built up debt that we needed to sort out whereas aka was a year old and whilst in some ways it had you know already it was like again it was a bit ahead of the curve it was like the first dj bar but had a really quite refined restaurant on the mezzanine floor oh so it was a bar and restaurant yeah so it was and really it needed to take more the restaurant and the ground floor were fighting one another so there was like the cultural piece of how they're going to work sit together um and so slowly sort of working away at what the offering was adding to that offering the programming um and then just everything from sort of what we were spending on flowers through to cutlery crockery uh the team we had you know there's always bad actors in a team when there's problems slowly getting the right people to fit all the seats of the place um so when you say bad actors you had to sort of weed some people out of the team yeah what what what sort of bad things were they doing well on that in that particular project there was a you know it was the era of incredible mixology in london but there was you know people that were just obviously taking there was people with their hand in the till at the time or you know that their career was ahead of the business itself um we needed to create a heart to that business um so many ways it needed someone to really nurture it and i guess that was where i stepped in i looked at everything from what we were spending through to but this is interesting advice for anyone who finds themselves in a turnaround situation which kind of i'm assuming this is yeah it sounds like it is yeah so you have to look at every detail you're saying really every single thing i mean i i mean i guess i just look everything we were spending money on or had spent money on so like next time we're going to buy cutlery what would it cost because they had really expensive um cutlery what we was do we need that level of flowers coming to a business like that linen you know when you're losing money it's amazing how much more money you can lose and once you start protecting it and then nurturing it it's it can the dial can move as well so it was really just all that attention to detail the programming to draw people to west central street um and it really then in that following year with working with my brother as well and the team and programming it became more of a dj bar as well as this lovely restaurant on the first floor and just a bar downstairs so you did this you say for a decade i ended up doing it for a decade um i slowly that was not i got back in 99 and then in about 15 months the club was in a lot of debt and my my brother's career was really taking off in music and we had an offer on the table to sell to mean fiddler um but i just really didn't think we should do it and we were kind of a you know loggerheads about it uh you and your brother we were yeah was he in favor of selling and you weren't I think he was the other way yeah I think at that point he couldn't see his way through it all and he he didn't think as as the as we were close to having to present it to the shelves I don't think he could fully see the way through it when you're deep in problems in business I'm sure anyone that's been there it's can get very very overwhelming but I was it was so incredible what had been created there um and had so much potential opportunity although I didn't think I was the person I believe we should try and find managing director.

11:13And in the end, in the minutes before the shareholders extraordinary general meeting to take it to the shareholders, he finally said, well, let's see what they can decide whether they want to find a new MD or take this offer on the table. Did you know that there are nearly 1 million 18 to 24 year olds who are currently not in education, employment or training in the UK? This is simply not good enough. And I want to do something about it. That's why Reid is launching a new initiative giving£20 ,000 to young entrepreneurs to help them grow their small business. Visit reed.com forward slash entrepreneurs to find out more.

11:53We want to support and encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs. So this was a situation that was decided by the shareholders. So who were the shareholders then? They were a mixture of, you know, So Mr. C, music contacts of his, a few family members, just people, you know, business contacts of my dad. A lot of small shareholders, about 30 shareholders. This was a meeting that was held then, what to decide what to do. And one option was to sell to the mean fiddler and the other was to carry on an appointment and managing director. So there we presented the offer and I didn't really yet officially work on the end, but I then presented the offer of let's find a new MD and try and turn it around.

12:37It's a risk. We owe lots of people money. We're in about one and a half million pounds worth of debt, which in 99 was a lot of money. Still is. Still is, but it was a lot more money then. And the shareholders decided to go with my option. So you put your part on the table. So there's a lot weighing on you then now. Yeah. I mean, no one was thinking it would be me. I certainly wasn't. So did you become the managing director? I became the managing director. You pitched the, we need a managing director, then you ended up being the manager. that's good that's clever no it wasn't it wasn't the original but that wasn't the but the share how did that come about the shareholders and why did you do it Zoe or what was it it was just before Christmas it was the 21st I think of December and we said we sort of pick it up in the new year I sort of got on with the I guess the turnaround work as I saw it then and we started having meetings in the new year for managing directors they're not easy to find someone to give the keys to your business and the months went by and I was just working on the business like i had on the business next door if i'm honest i can't really remember how it morphed it just probably over this is quite a long time ago i think just slowly it just without me even i wasn't doing it consciously it just it just became my role and then it was it was working and you're the managing director today of your studio asking group so you've carried on in that vein yeah but then this business this this nightclub business you you ended up selling it is that right Right.

14:01What happened? What was the story there? So, I mean, it was obviously an incredible decade. But we were wondering how to, you know, what next? We hadn't worked that all out. And then we got an offer to exit the business because it was on a kind of island that backs off New Oxford Street. And we had many years left in our lease. But we were now incredibly successful. So the offer had to be quite compelling to get us to leave our lease early. and so looking at that offer and what we might we'd have to live maybe someone want to redevelop the site oh i see it was a compelling offer we had so they just needed you to move on yeah they wanted to knock it down and develop it basically what happened well it was the plan but then it was by the time we actually completed which there was a long uh exchange of completion uh it was summer 2009 and there was a crash and it just the whole development plan fell apart um and then it's ended up then so people took over temporarily as a nightclub which was pretty heartbreaking and called it the den instead of the end and they lost the license pretty quickly and it was an incredible 24-hour license by that stage anyway it then sort of sat really empty for a long time upstairs was apartments um and literally very recently they finally knocked it down so that that we closed the doors at the end of january 2009 and just now and 17 years later yeah so it's quite a project is underway for a variety of reasons so you you were given a good price you say yeah to exit the property the premises but that meant the end of the end it seems is that right it is and it would guess it was a decision of the head rather than the heart because i think after after that suddenly we closed the doors and i literally so you thinking sitting here now i wish we hadn't done that um we sometimes have these conversations um i i I don't think...

15:57Well, knowing what you know now, knowing what I know now, you know, nightlife has changed dramatically in the country. I could definitely have run it for a few more years. I would have had to have begun again, whatever. And I guess what I know now, and there's perhaps a bit more naivety at that point, is that the role I had and what we were doing and the standards we were doing it to within the genre was so extraordinary. So to suddenly find myself without any of that purpose and identity was a massive change and this is what happens to people who sell businesses so you felt without purpose and identity because you didn't have that yeah i just go into and run and it was a really exciting job you know on the one hand it was obviously an all-night venue and i was enjoying it all night and all those things but i took my job really seriously i turned the company around i worked incredibly well with my brother we had an amazing team and loyal following it was it was petty times but you know really serious enterprise at the same time and all of that uh changed and i didn't really know what my skills were at that time because i'm probably quite a generalist in many ways and i didn't know that that in itself was an asset so i've heard the phrase seller's remorse is that does that mean anything does that strike a chord with you look with endings you're always going to feel like that until you find the new thing and so that was what you needed to do yeah and you you realize that i guess yeah so then so then what happened so you'd sold the end and you were you were thinking about so yeah i took i planned to take the first the first period off i'd um so i took a year out just doing all sorts of things i wanted to do and then i started trying to find a new project and the world had crashed as well so um and i would be given all sorts of introductions but maybe without clear idea of why and I just nothing really happened um and I didn't really know where to put myself because you know I'd fast-tracked so many things um and I'd cared passionately when I'd gone to help Leo because it was my brother my my brother and dad had created this thing so I was giving more of myself than I could ever have imagined it was so sort of instinctive in so many ways so yeah I my flame was beginning to go out a bit after sort of several months of not quite knowing not finding the right thing what were you doing I mean how were you passing the time well I did do a couple of short-term projects on business turnaround and people that knew me um so I did bits and pieces I was going to introductions sometimes interviews um and I was remembering a particularly difficult one um What, interview?

18:37Yeah. I went for about five interviews for a job once. What was going across your mind when you were remembering the difference? Well, I got told at the end of it that it was a job in the end for a general manager of a restaurant. And I had quite a difficult final interview. And the CEO of the interview, meaning not the founder, said that I didn't know enough about running restaurants. So I was remembering it because I then went on to open a restaurant. But I'd say it was just quite funny. But all of it was quite difficult at the time. Was that person right or wrong? well I'd like to think I learned enough to run restaurants I mean well you do now yeah well no they were obviously wrong obviously yeah now as time is told that's often the way um so what did I do so then my I you know we the difference between making some money versus life-changing figures I had some money in the bank but obviously I had been spending it to live um I think my brother maybe more than I at that stage had an idea that maybe we should move into restaurants um and he was like look why don't you go and waitress you have structured your days you won't erode all your capital you're free to go to all sorts of meetings dot dot dot all right so that's what you did so that's what i did where did you work so i dumbed down my cv and i got uh you dumbed down your cv well yeah like because i was worried i wouldn't i was 35 i wasn't you know a spring chicken in front of house terms right um this is interesting so you had to make yourself look less qualified well i felt like i needed to yeah i thought i might people wouldn't really know what to do with me and actually i wrote to about 10 restaurants uh with my cv and i think i only got offered one trial right so there must be something in it so then you changed your cv well no then i went to that trial and i so that was with the dumbed down yeah oh right yeah yeah that was with the dumbed down so then i got the then i got the trial then i got the trial and then i got the job where was that hawksmoor hawksmoor tell me about hawksmoor so i mean great place to have found myself um and for people who don't know oh sorry hawksmore um well it's probably one of the best in the country and even possibly the leading in the world uh restaurant built around steak um so if you want to eat steak go to hawksmore yeah if you want to eat steak go to hawksmore they do it incredibly well it's an amazing organization and they're grateful that i crossed paths with it um so how long did you work there it wasn't that long in the end it was probably about 15 16 months yeah but you were thinking about your next move well what ended up happening was i quickly got promoted um first to agm assistant general manager and then presently to general manager so i took over the site uh the first site they did actually this just keeps happening to you doesn't it what's the aura you give off because it might be helpful for people to know this just keep getting promoted to run well I guess because I'd already run a business I had an idea so while I was with them I was learning a bit more about restaurants and details specifically um and but I was really unhappy and I think um presently I went I didn't know there but I didn't know when I went there but I guess I learned however good a company I was in that I didn't really want to work for anyone in a conventional employee way again.

21:53I wanted to be answerable to partners, my team, but having done 10 years running a business, I couldn't really go and do that again. You wanted to be your own boss. I wanted to be my own person, my own boss. So, and I went away for a couple of weeks to really sit with it and think about it. And I thought, well, I've got a year to try and earn this salary in terms of how my life was arranged at the time so I've got a year to do that um then I went back and apologized to Will um that said I needed to to go and do something else and not long after we decided to open a restaurant right you and your brother again so the old team was put no team was back together right and and how did you go about doing that so if someone wants to just open a restaurant yeah what do they need to think about sounds like a big deal to me yeah we well he was still doing a lot of performing so we went away together um to have a few days just to sort of brainstorm the like what how where um and then we went back to a restaurant we really liked and met some chefs that wanted to do something in london so that created the in really to do a project in london which was going to be a pop-up but then in the end to do anything to the standard you want to do it and all the components of opening restaurant we were like let's just go all in and that uh beginning of the following year we decided to look for a site in london and after a few second places with landlords we got offered the site that became the palomar on rupert street and that was your first venture yeah and then and then how long were you running the palomar before you then added to the portfolio um two years later we opened the barbary so it was it was it was pretty quick i mean the palomar was a pretty incredible opening um and yeah we we so describe the palomar to people who haven't been there so the palomar is a smallest restaurant in rupert street which is really defined by the kitchen bar um and then at the back we have a dining room um there's also a terrace it's about 45 covers it's a restaurant with an awful lot of atmosphere um very warm uh sort of intoxicating feel to the service and hospitality um and yeah it's a place i think you'd have a really good time yeah and the kitchen bar is it is like a bar you said yeah kitchen bar so that the kitchen is there and you're sitting in front of the chefs um there's actually we've made some changes over the years that's now got sort of 19 seats in front of the chefs right um uh and people like that that was a sort of innovation of yours in a way well no i know it's not exclusive no the other people doing it well i mean i'd lived in barcelona so i think i'd first come across it a lot there yes um and then here uh peers that you know hold in incredibly high regard like barafina had really done that incredibly well as well i mean all of us have done it slightly differently but uh i think the palomar ended up being uh having with our music the background that we had in music it was a place that had an awful lot of energy and atmosphere and is quite well known for uh playlist and so on and so all of our experiences I guess came into play in that so Zoe so that got off to a good start the Palomar but interestingly to me you decided as you said to open your next restaurant and call it the Barbary so it's not like you know the ivy where they've recreated a lot of ivies all over the place you decided to do another concept in the Barbary which is a strategic choice why did you do that what what what did you take that route I guess ultimately at that time and and probably part of uh how we like to work is it's there's a lot in designing something you know from scratch rather than replicating it and I think at that point in the beginning of this career uh restaurant career you're not thinking about all the things that I might now be thinking about so we wanted to do something that wouldn't compete with the Palomar but would be as beloved um so yeah we weren't thinking about scale then at all and certainly at the time, I don't think we even would have used the word portfolio, but in essence, that's what's happened.

26:07We've built a portfolio of things that express our interests. So the Barbary, you've opened more recently a second one, which I enjoy in Notting Hill. You describe sort of Mediterranean or the Barbary coast is North Africa. Yeah, it's sort of where Southern Europe meets North Africa as a loose way to lean into all the ingredients it's built around cooking with fire um so the breads i mean the original bar bread you know we've got the tandoor um for the breads at this one we've got the gosni um cooking with fire and then the ingredients sort of build out what's a gosni it's a very special type of um oven in fact we've got is that how the delicious bread is cooked yes yes at the knotty hill it is superb yeah it's really delicious anyone listening should try it And your coffee rub chicken.

27:00That's a signature, yeah. Is it? That's superb. So I've never heard of that before I went there, but it's really delicious. So these are sort of Mediterranean, North African themed dishes. Yeah. So it struck me as really carefully thought through. And the service there is very good. I mean, there's a lot of attention to detail I've observed in the way you run the barbree. I think in a good restaurant experience, I guess these are all the things that either you don't notice because they are going well. And when we're getting it wrong, you do notice their absence or whatever. And doing the Barbary there has been very different to the Barbary in Neil's yard.

27:35So I guess that's where the fact... Why is that? But I think, again, we haven't done a like for like. So Notting Hill, it's got the kitchen bar experience, but then we've done a dining room there, which is our largest one so far. so they are related barberries but they have quite a different feel in many different ways even down to the courtyard arrival of neil's yard sure but it allows people you know larger parties to enjoy the barberry whereas in neil's yard it's just 24 seats around a kitchen bar which is some people love but it's not for everyone so evelyn's table that's your talk me through this location because this is very interesting this is your other yeah um so i guess sometimes in And I mean, I don't know, should I say we got carried away?

28:23But like being near some of our locations is almost why we've done them. So like the Blue Post was sitting empty for quite a long time. Being near, what do you mean? As in we're two doors down. Physically near. So we saw it there. You saw it empty. We saw it empty and we just got sat with the idea for quite a while. So your entrepreneurial mindset thought that we should do something with that. Yeah, basically. And then there was like... The Blue Post was in a pub. It was. It is a pub. But it was just empty at the time. Yeah, yeah. And then I think I probably persuaded my brother for us to put our hat in the ring for this one.

28:53We always joke when we've made good or bad decisions who started it. I think I pressed for this one. Is that because it's a good decision? I don't know. Now it's turned into one. It definitely wasn't the easiest of all our openings. You know, you make mistakes along the way, of course. But there's about 40 people going for it. But we managed to win the competition. I was bidding for it. Yeah. and it's like a little doll's house really because it's quite a small footprint but it's we've actually made it three floors we've converted the beer cellar into a chef's table which is Evelyn's table and that seats 12 12 that's all yeah that's all and as I understand there are two sittings is that right two sittings um every night uh six and eight 45 it's a tasting menu um and does the chef determine what the menu is yeah so you turn up as a as a guest and you get looked after by the chef yeah and uh there's some sommeliers and it's 4.9 out of 5 yeah so who's the chef um Seamus Sam right um who's been with us a couple of years now and doing incredibly well um and so this is a whole entertainment isn't it as an experience yeah it's it's quite it's not that formal i mean it's obviously very uh the food is incredibly high quality but the energy in there because it's converted beer cellar the music but yeah it is a whole piece you're sitting there watching them prepare it all for you and we do like a kitchen bar um and then you've got two front of house who very strong on their wine what is it what is it about a kitchen bar what is it about that connection with the chefs for me um i feel like you're more in the experience than when you're at a dining table.

30:36And whether you're completely engrossed in your company or you're taking in the atmosphere, if you're watching how things are being plated, how ingredients are being used, it has something of a dinner party about it, even though you're not actually at one. Right. That's interesting. Yeah. So it's a bit more like being in someone's home. Yeah. If, you know, a kitchen bar that's how I like kitchen bars when I'm enjoying them is there is a little bit of, whether it's literally talking to the chef or the front of house behind the bar or not, But there can just be a sense that you're part of each other's experience if there's an awareness of the guest and so on and, you know, playlists, all these elements to it make it feel very...

31:16So when was this one awarded the Michelin star? 2021? 2020? 2022, probably. Right. Yeah, about four years ago. Was that a surprise? Well, at the time we were working with Luca Selby and an incredibly talented chef. It's always a surprise. You don't take these things for granted. But it was something we were hoping and dreaming of for the restaurant. So that's fantastic. Oh, congratulations. So you've now got this portfolio. You said you're sort of consolidating. Because when I suggested it was tough out there at the beginning, you said it is. Yeah. So what's going on? What's making it tough? Why did you say that?

31:57I think it's been a buildup of things over a long period of time. everyone's feeling the you know the economy being you know whatever strata of society you're in you're feeling it if you were going out whatever once a week before you're you might be going out you know two three times a month instead so people are having to you know think more about how they're spending their money tighten their belts tighten their belts restaurants feel expensive the pressure on restaurants is immense because it's every possible frontier from sort of utilities and rent all the way through to labor costs um you can't pass it all on so the the margins of restaurants have always i mean decades ago were famously quite modest so if you think that each one of these decisions is taking off single digit percentages in some cases um it makes it very hard and little things like you know decisions like tube strikes last week it can really wipe some businesses out depending on their location um a myriad of examples like it really extreme weather really hot really cold yeah you know it's a lot of factors um that then that are out of your control yeah definitely and the headwinds are really real i mean the last 18 months particularly has definitely been really difficult um and you know this is a massive conversation but i don't think anyone's feeling that confident right now so people are having to be more more careful across the board and you and your strategy needs to reflect that yeah i mean i think it always needed to but of course like you have to keep pushing harder and harder to make sure the experience is great because you you don't question value in the same way if the entire experience leaves you feeling uh better than when you arrived but that that is a lot of people involved in that experience so as you've grown the business do you feel there's anything that's been lost or compromised or in the way you approach things no i think we're probably on a tipping point now where the size of the company the number of venues making sure we get to everything and that personal touch i think we need to probably as founders evolve a bit in order to take on another business you know be lovely to do something somewhere else um of our own we've done a license arrangement in sydney it'd be amazing to do something in another city that that would be really exciting but you know i know that how we're working right now would have to change because i know how hard it's just to have the four restaurants i've got in london in different parts of london in my office in north london so but i think that would now we've hit four sites and being meaningful and you know on it co-founders we need to probably change how we're going to work to bring another one into the fold right right sydney is a long way from london sydney is a very long way.

34:46Is that your first option? No. We did this wonderful project for Glen Eagle's townhouse when they moved into Edinburgh. And from there, they said, would you ever do one of your own brands? What did you do for them? We designed a restaurant inside their townhouse in Edinburgh. They gave us an incredible room and a name they wanted to use. Is that the one at the back on the ground floor? Yeah. I've been there. Yeah. That's amazing. So we did that. It kind of the conversation begun before COVID and then COVID hit and they got picked up. And of course, we were sort of trying to protect and run our clothes business and that came along.

35:23So it was actually rather incredible going up and down to on empty trains to try and bring this project to life. And it opened in July 22. And then from there, they then said, would you consider doing one of your own brands? And they had an opportunity in Sydney. So we wouldn't have elected to go that far away. But that opened a few months ago. so yeah but maybe being able to find partners to do something else in another city of our own could be a really interesting thing to get sort of broad enough and strong enough to do but yeah we'll have to see what happens so you mentioned people might not go out quite so much do they behave differently when they go i mean i'm thinking about alcohol consumption so i'm told that people aren't drinking as much is that your experience is that not some people are drinking more yeah i'm sure we are but no i think there is there is a general pattern i think people take more pleasure in not drinking uh rather than just being like the old dry january abstemious piece like there's lots of lovely uh incredible non-alcoholic offerings um yeah that's very true i enjoy drinking but sometimes i might have work commitments the next morning i don't want to feel fuzzy i might start with a non-alcoholic drink and then enjoy wine with the meal you see these trends a lot more and something's health related some of it probably is budget related um but yeah i think people are more intentional people younger generations are definitely more intentional about their health and well-being than in you know my prime so it's different from the nightclub days at the end you notice they notice society changing yes definitely um so these you you've had you've had a an incredible sort of career so far in hospitality what what would you say of the key lessons from your experiences if someone was earlier in their career thinking of embarking into this world what would your key lessons or pieces of advice for them be i think that you're going to make mistakes being able to connect with things that aren't quite right in your i mean people-led businesses that aren't quite right because the more you connect with them the more you can remedy them.

37:32I think things are always moving around. Like I can have businesses now that are the stronger of the two out of the four and then that wasn't the case. So always having faith. Fortune's always hiding. I think you need to - So then again, fortune's always hiding. What does that mean? Well, I just feel like sometimes you can have a business and then you can make some changes that you couldn't have seen before and it completely alters the shape of that business positively. And I've seen that in our businesses, nearly all of them, I think, along the way. um you know now i know why they keep making you managing director fortune's always hiding you can find it is that what you're saying i think so so you keep that's an interesting insight so you look for it so sometimes it's just a different yeah you can do things at a different time you can i think it's really easy to feel defeated as well whatever whether they're your own sort of your own things you've got right or wrong or things going on outside in the macroeconomic but i think you know keep pushing keep being trying to be better at what you started out to to be there's always room for improvements uh there's always room for new ideas um what was your best idea being do you think gosh my best we love ideas here at reed oh what's my best idea been um i think maybe holding on to the end was one of my better ideas yeah back um i think that was uh would have been a terrible decision if we'd let it go it was the most incredible place and it formed so much for you may well not be doing what you're doing now i may well not be doing what i'm doing now but it was a really it was an institution and you know every it touched our lives ginormously and many others with your with your portfolio that you have now with these different restaurants with different names maybe call them brands how do you how do you see that evolving i mean because i mean is that a strength or how do you make it a strength how do you see that evolving i'm just interested in your thoughts around that as a strategy i think it's a strength in that it has meant that the restaurants have really resonated with people team and guests alike i don't know if it's and i think it is a strength in some way like we've ended up doing some really interesting other projects because we had a portfolio so people could could tap into so we ended up doing an incredible project glen eagles townhouse uh a restaurant for them we've ended up taking the palomar elsewhere now it's probably in terms of scale and business speak maybe not long term the best the best way and probably we'd need to hone in a bit more now narrow so if you were to open another restaurant would it be called palomar or barbary or something else um i think there's a chance that we will go on to develop one of the brands next year yes you look at taking one of those yeah yeah and doubling down on it yeah i think what are the advantages of that then i think uh being able to demonstrate scale i mean one of the challenges of our business is that we're constantly trying to hold together all these these different identities which when there's two of you driving that now that we've got the blue post is three identities in one you've got the barbary notting hill all the ones we've talked about today and then to keep maintaining them at their very best they've all got different elements to them whereas if we honed in a little bit we could focus more on you know still being informed by the location the building and so on but developing one identity or less identities would probably mean we could consolidate quite a lot.

41:01Right. I mean, because people do both, don't they, in the hospitality space? Yeah. And do both quite successfully, so it's interesting. I mean, we're a uni-brand, as we call it. We just put a stick read in front of everything, which is not very imaginative, but it sort of means that when we do advertise, there's, I think, a benefit that's shared. Definitely. So, I suppose in your world, it's sort of what do you want to be known for, partly, isn't it? If you go to one of your restaurants, what is it that I think the quality, I mean, the quality and I mean, what makes a great restaurant for me is obviously enjoying what you're, you know, the food and the drink, but that the, the wider experience stays with you.

41:42So I think. The wider experience of going there. Yeah, the atmosphere, the hospitality. I feel that places that stay with you and you want to replicate that experience by returning to them, obviously, is what we're doing. and I think it's touching all sides of somebody's experience. So you can get away with not having a great meal if you're treated really well and the music's right and the lighting's right, but really trying to hit all of those. So the recruitment and training of the people who work in the restaurant must be incredibly important then. Yeah, it's definitely really important, helping people settle in and really understanding the kind of essence of how we like people to feel in the restaurant and how to deliver the experience.

42:23How do you achieve that? how do you sort of inculcate that um by i guess the having strong people in the team that help impart that knowledge being having a spirit of hospitality in the company already because you can't expect people to give great hospitality if they're not feeling pretty welcome and part of a you know so when they join your group yeah the spirit of hospitality yeah definitely um and then it's training it's who that who's you know letting them see how the service unfolds touches we have in the restaurant to make people feel welcome the knowledge of whatever part of the business they're working in because the more you've got the knowledge the more you can bring your own personality to it if you're struggling with what you're trying to share with the guests whether you're on the bar or whichever part you know you're going to not be able to give your authentic self and I think the nicest moments are when you feel it can hand over to somebody you know who's to guide your experience in many ways because you trust that they're going to care about you having a good time and that's sort of the bit that you really want people to be doing and do you think it's helpful for you to be physically present in the restaurant a lot yourself or i think it is helpful it has got harder and harder um but because you've got more restaurants well i've also had children in recent years so they don't really like me being out of the restaurant so much in the evening they want to see their mom but i i do i used to love doing the door of the restaurants i mean we always are very present if we're opening a restaurant i would say now it's it's a bit of a challenge the battle of trying to be in all the places that one needs to be um but i think it's really important to the teams but we are we are very hands-on leo and i were forever going around to have different meetings how do you divide i'm interested in working with your brother we haven't really explored that how do you divide things up these days i mean you said how you did at the beginning with n we have stayed in the the title of those roles i think there so what's his time he's creative director and you're managing yeah at the time of course he was also traveling all over the world whereas now he's full-time involved in this so in many ways the overlap is greater we still are i'm naturally much more running the people side of the business um we overlap on a lot of good what does the creative director focus on do they do the menus or um i mean one of the ways i describe it is that leo is more about how things look and i'm more about how things feel but it doesn't help us who does who how things taste yeah well we both Let's do that bit.

44:45That's an overlap, is it? Okay. We can't both go to all the taste things. There's just too much to do. But we both do get involved in working with all the chefs. And we've got some development chefs. So here's the look and your feel. I think so. If we were dividing up. But, you know, we'll collaborate on all the best decisions and the worst decisions. I often have to deliver the tougher decisions. Because the feel is around people, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. So isn't the look sort of determined once you've got the restaurant built and designed? You're constantly tweaking and looking. You keep changing it, do you?

45:15Well, not changing the look, but it could be down to, you know, tasting, dish development. It could be how we're going to do the why list. Different restaurants, we do it in different ways. I noticed you changed the windows in Notting Hill. Yeah, yeah. I thought it was improved. Oh, good, you like it. Good, good, good. So there's always creative decisions, how we're going to market something. I mean, the marketing, the pressure of restaurants now with marketing has changed a lot since I first opened a restaurant. um in what way just now you know you always have to be experts in marketing as well as hopefully run a great restaurant there's just the challenge so how do you do that so what is your mark what are your marketing channels all of the social media channels um all of your own sort of contact with your guests newsletter any actual collateral assets in the restaurant um depending on how far you're going to go into social media i mean we're not particularly doing things like TikTok, but these are all things you might be doing depending on, you know.

46:13So what do you focus on on social media? Well, we have, you know, the channels for each of the restaurants. We have a Studio Paskin one, and then we have, you know, we speak to guests. So Instagram, I think. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, Instagram. Yeah, there are others you keep up with, but that would be the main one. But you just have a presence on sort of behind the scenes, all this sort of SEO, digital marketing. And you have to do all of that? Yeah. we are we're PR then working with agency or in-house depending yeah so you're you're that's all to build awareness for your yeah being there yeah and yeah you need to you know you need the guests to have good experience the word of mouth always the most powerful but you know staying present in the you know online press whatever is is crucial really to a restaurant oh very interesting so how do you see this business evolving then from here you you've alluded to a couple of things Zoe but what's your plan I think this this year is a lot of it's about you know we we opened Notting Hill not that long ago the company went up by you know from 100 to 150 people I think this period now is a lot of consolidation looking at how we're doing everything maintaining and excelling in our guest experience so that perhaps when we open 2027 we feel ready to look for a site for something next year um but we're definitely doing a lot of you know consolidation process um may ask you do you have outside investors or is this we do we do have a couple of investors who are very supportive and so so they're quite ambitious too are they yeah definitely this has to be aligned yeah yeah absolutely exactly um but they're they're quite recent additions in into expanding to notting hill um but they're really supportive of you know the journey we're on well that's so important having investors that you are supportive isn't it you want to sustain that yeah yeah absolutely we're very lucky yeah um is there anything else i i should be asking you about the world of restaurants in the spring of 2026 you know i think that restaurants are generally very resilient places um it is look it is challenging we're seeing places that shouldn't be closing closing and hopefully somewhere along the line uh perhaps restaurants will get more support so that their margins can what would what do you mean by that what would you like to say i'm open i mean it could be anything whether it's on v80 or whatever but we're gonna have to do something to uh make them the math stack up we can't they can't just keep going like that because they will there will be something to make the math stack up yeah so there's been more and more cost pressures yeah the squeezing margins to the extent that places are going out of business yeah that's your concern yeah definitely well i think that's a that's a good message that the sector needs a bit of support yeah definitely i mean that's what i'm hearing so i think it's good to have it confirmed

49:08hey well thank you so much for coming thank you very much for having me um i always ask two questions at the end by guess um read we love mondays as you can see so what what is it that gets you up on a monday morning so i love fridays um monday mornings it's why do you love friday it's just known in my house i love it it's friday because i always associate mondays with like the toughest stuff's going to happen it's always a really productive day but i often feel like it's going to be the day where any of the bad news from the weekend's going to have to be tackled right um but yeah i like how densely packed mondays are they feel an innately very productive day and I've got to catch up on all the sites you know what's been happening sort of try and get ahead of plan for the week So that's what gets you up the knowledge that you're going to have to get stuff done Yeah it's quite a nice some days you don't feel like you've got enough done and you feel a bit adrift and Mondays always feel like a very productive day And my last question from my interview book Why You 101 interview questions you'll never fear again where do you see yourself in five years time?

50:15um i would like to have moved on from restaurants in about five years time moved on from restaurants yeah i think about about five years is the five-year plan yeah right i have a fantasy to go and live abroad somewhere right um so you want to build a business and then move it on yeah i think so i'll be able to work in some way less full-time yeah uh in the restaurants i haven't worked out exactly how i make the dream happen but the dream would be to be doing something a partner who thinks it's a beach bar i don't think it's a beach bar but something it's not far from restaurants it's not too far he could run the beach bar where will this beach bar be i don't know i don't know we need to do some research but i like the idea of the kids growing up and doing their secondary somewhere else and i have i never really got adventurous i never really got bar slown around my system i left prematurely so whether it ends up in spain or somewhere like that that's that would be the dream that i could uh get out of the pace of london for a few years and do something different.

51:10Have a different pivot. Yeah. Oh, I wish you all the very best with that and with your business, which in my experience is fabulous. So thank you very much for coming to talk to me. Thank you very much. Thanks, Zoe.

51:24Thank you, Zoe, for joining me on All About Business. I'm your host, James Reid, Chairman and CEO of Reid, a family-run recruitment and philanthropy company. If you'd like to find out more about Zoe or her restaurant, you'll find all the links in the show notes. Thank you for listening and see you next time.