Why I Wouldn’t Open a Restaurant Today: Tom Kerridge

0:00I have to be honest, I wouldn't do it today. It wouldn't open today, not in this day and age. As businesses struggle with new business rates and a higher minimum wage, could this plunge them into another crisis from which they will struggle to recover? This is not the market that's doing this. This is the government. Their prices can't really go any further. Who's responsible for killing hospitality? It's one that's in decline. There are three to four hospitality businesses shutting every single day. They can't just pretend it's not happening if we're loud enough. I want noise. I want to officially be fucking loud.

0:29I would never talk anybody out of running their own business, but it does come with cost. You never know how close you are to succeeding. If you give up now, you just have to keep going. If you love it and you work harder than everybody else and you do it because you're trying your hardest, eventually it does turn around. Taking your business to the gym is the best way of explaining it. Tightening everything up. Look at every single aspect, but do not lose your DNA. do not lose the reason why you set up to do it in the first place. The moment that we start de-skilling, the moment that we start taking food away and buying pre-bought product, it becomes a race to the bottom.

1:06The country is being run by the accountant. Nobody's successful business is run by the accountant. So that's our biggest problem. What advice would you give? If you're a small business that's trying to operate, I would also say do everything you can to hold tight because we are pushing as hard as we can behind the scenes. 21 businesses are shutting every week. Hold on as tight as you can. What's the root cause of what's got us there?

1:32um tom carriage we have a meeting welcome to the podcast thank you very much thank you for joining very excited to be here very excited to have you and big open question who are you what problem do you solve uh i am tom carriage uh and i i actually i have no idea who i am like every day is different hats i gotta be honest first and foremost i is chef that's that's the background but it's also So like a chef, restaurateur, publican, author, television presenter, husband and dad, I suppose. And the problems that I solve are multiple from a new dishwasher in one of the pubs to why is the fire alarm going off to why the GP's not correct to my little man needs new rugby boots.

2:23So I like a multiple of problems and a multiple of jobs. So I'm not entirely sure I'm lost. Maybe I need therapy. This might feel like therapy by the end. I wish I had a clearer answer. Okay. So when I'm scrolling on Instagram, I live in Manchester. It feels like every couple of weeks, there's like a new cool place in Manchester that's opening a bar or a restaurant. I'm getting a bit of like FOMO. I'm sending it to my mate saying, we need to go here. we need to go here what is what is the actual reality of that because on one hand it looks like there's loads of places opening but then the stats look like there's loads of places shutting down yeah well i think it's the world of social media and instagram is there's a couple of it's a couple of angles that you've got there firstly it's manchester so manchester is one of the most progressive forward-thinking culturally rich diverse exciting cities in the uk where it's got it has investment and it has it's it's on a bit of a growth positioning where it's you know you've now got super exciting mission star restaurants that have been there you've got a food scene that's being completely taken seriously you've got um an exciting universities and sport and business and investment and finance and marketing companies and everybody that's manchester is a progressive city so when it's a progressive city most progressive cities are built around food cultures and culture and going out and enjoying yourselves and socializing because it also comes a part of attracting businesses hospitality sits at the forefront of that why would you go as a big marketing company or a finance company or a team there if there's actually nowhere to eat nowhere to socialize nowhere to entertain nowhere to being be in business and and take business opportunities and take people out and all that that kind of connection that people need um so manchester is actually one of is a progressive space so there are great spaces that are opening um and they're not always about mission stars and fine dining and they're actually about quite cost effective um exciting places where a food scene has changed in the uk from it's always been the best places were always the most expensive it's now you can have some of the best burgers or you can have incredible street food or you can have brilliant just very simple neighborhood restaurants that has a set menu of like four dishes and that's all you get but we've now got to a from a food culture and people eating out going actually they'll just go and have that what they're cooking and it's tasty and it's lovely because it's tomatoes from around the corner it's dairy that comes from over there it's a cheese from there it's a you know piece of beef that comes from that field up there and manchester is quite exciting for that um but you do then talk about you see it on social media in that world well we're now also in a world where um marketing um social connection is driven by our phones we spend all of our time on our phones you know we've just had a quick conversation of like about what i'm onto next to where i'm at you're looking at my diet i'm looking at my diary and i'm looking at the thing and as you do like you're always on that phone so if you're a new restaurant or just any new business to get connection you start you start hitting with social media spaces and then it's short form how do you make it exciting whichever places work it's it's work for you because you're getting excited by going to see this new thing through visuals through uh narrative through terminology through there might be particular words that just pop up because you'd be it scrolls through and it you know all of that sort of stuff becomes so it manchester is great social media is fantastic manchester is great and it's got foundation for it social media we all really know the realities of it that it's it's a make-believe world and it's one that we all oh that look amazing when you get there is it actually that good or is that you know um but the reality of the hospitality scene is one it's one that's in decline so um whilst there are new places opening it's new places opening in progressive cities and in london where we're sat now there's great spaces that open um but there are three to four hospitality businesses shutting every single day and that's the reality of it so if we were to this has all been a dream and tom carriage is starting out today yeah what are you actually up against in terms of like building a brand in terms of actually starting a business opening somewhere for the first and what's the reality of what you'd be up against i have to be honest i wouldn't do it today i wouldn't open today not in this day and age not without the um uh not in the current climate not in the current situation it's very very difficult i opened the hand of flowers 21 years ago when um you know social media and the internet wasn't really a thing you know and and and that has progressively grown and you use written press as the terminology and i've used a solid classical background and an understanding of how restaurants operate in a particular world i opened in 2005 um we weren't in a recession 2008 the first recession which was really really difficult for business um but the market space was a very different one the margins were not easy to hit but in hospitality you would be able to you if you work very hard and you drove yourself and you as a business owner you put yourself into positions where you're working 80 90 100 hour weeks you could drive you could drive a business forward and you would hope for return on investment of some sort and we were able to do it with small investment like I mean I say small it was all our own money I was 31 years old and and you beg borrow steal you max out credit card you lie to the bank a little bit but you can't do that anymore I can't you can't lie to the bank I lied to the bank told them I was doing extension on a small little property that myself and my wife and we took the tenancy of a pub that can't happen anymore you can't do that you know you get and the realities of opening somewhere is it's way way way more expensive now and then the margins are so so so fine even if you are operating at a profit or doing breaking even and you're busy and you're packed the costs that have dropped into those businesses so hard um that return on investment is almost not happening so unless you've got some crazy crazy deal or a huge amount of investment that's come from behind where they're moving money and they want to invest into you and into a restaurant space it would be very very it's very very difficult to make any money let alone return on investment on a new space right now so i would i would hold tight if it was me if it was me back being 31 then i would be as desperate as i want to do it i mean maybe the maybe that maybe i'd still do it just and it wouldn't necessarily work maybe you just gung-ho enough to just go just do it maybe after 20 21 years of of business experience i'd look at it and go actually now i'm not so sure i would do the same thing yeah so if i'm a bit daft and i don't quite understand what's going on and why what's the root cause of what's got us here so we've got to a point where um we're almost at saturation point for pricing okay so guests are not going to pay any more money um which we completely understand because the cost of living crisis and people's realization of eating out is now being defined as a luxury and whether that's a midweek pizza at a high street space with a name that we all recognize or whether it's at special occasion restaurants and places where people go and spend a lot of money you cannot there there is a price point there is a price saturation point and then the moment you out price yourself from a business perspective it disappears it goes backwards um everybody's trying to hide cover their costs as much as possible.

9:52But it's the back-end stuff that has been the big, big difference. Post-COVID, the last five or six years, the costs of running a hospitality business just do not add up anymore. So food inflation, absolutely massive. Utilities and energy prices through inflation have been driven absolutely through the roof. And then some parts of food aren't as expensive, or have gone up but not to the same percentage. other parts massively have things like cooking oil and beef now those are two of the most highest food inflationary um uh products that have gone up in the last five years and you look at them and they're pretty much the mainstay of most restaurants right cooking oil you're cooking it a lot even the cheaper places deep frying it everybody's like cooking oil is is massive that's gone up well over 100 in the last five years and beef as well and beef is now that it could be fillet steaks in the finest spaces or it's burgers or it's slow braised stuff or it's a where everybody goes if you're going for something i'll just have a burger well the burger is still like it's beef it's gone up and the fries that have gone with it are in oil that's like all of those processes so food inflation is absolutely massive utility bills huge have gone up but on top of that you've then got national insurance contributions that have been driven incredibly high you've got minimum wage it's had an increase in the last three uh three times in the last two years and then you've got business rates that are not fit for purpose and then by the time all of that's gone in into the business the profit there there is nothing there most hospitality places even on a good time are offering maybe at the best at a 10 ebitda like a return right so you get 10 profit which sounds i mean it's not massive okay by the time all of the costs and everything's come out now by the time everything of all those other costs have then gone into it then all of a sudden that 10 has been eradicated it is just gone so um whilst minimum wage going up we're a minimum wage industry most places operate by people you know they can only just afford to pay minimum wage i completely agree everybody needs to be paid a minimum and they're not expected to work when i first started 80 90 hour weeks for doing you know for for a really small salary that becomes i completely agree with the workforce don't get I am a Labour Party supporter and I am a full backer of workforce is the backbone of pretty much every business in every industry.

12:17And that workforce deserves the opportunity and the right to have every chance to succeed in themselves through, you know, they should have the right for transportation, for an education system, for a health care system that works. All of these sort of things. and be able to afford a mobile phone and pay bills and buy a car and get a mortgage and all of these things that allow people to operate in life. And that includes a minimum wage. But when that goes up to that point and you go from, I don't know, maybe a 22-year-old five years ago working a 45-hour week with a variant, I don't know,£21 ,000,£22 ,000 a year.

12:54By the time national insurance has gone in and minimum wage has gone in, that same person is now costing well over£30 ,000 a year. Now, if you're a hospitality business and you employ 10 of those, then all of a sudden that's a massive, massive wage increase for the same amount. And if your business only turns over, I don't know, a million pound a year, maybe, which is a really good, sustainable, individual, independent, small hospitality business that could do those sort of revenues. But actually, if that then is that minimum wage just that minimum wage on those 10 people have gone up all of a sudden that's you know 80 grand a year 100 grand a year out of your well that's that's that's everything gone that's the profit gone there without the food increase without everything else without everything else and then the supply chain the bigger conversation of the supply chain all of those costs have gone into the supply chain your fishmonger your veg guy the farmers the all of those things have had a massive effect on everybody that supplies into hospitality so across the board the numbers just don't add up anymore.

13:55Oh God, I'm so tired. I've just been talking to qualified prospects all day without any wait time. How have you been doing it? Because I've been cold calling people on my mobile and I reckon I've spoke to one person. No, no, no. Stop that right now and use nooks.ai. Why? What does nooks do? It finds me the right people to call and it calls them and it connects with them over and over and over again. So you're saying it's nooks.ai and I can just be speaking to qualified decision makers all the time no other better connection right wow nooks.ai so it sounds like the advice if someone's sat here listening thinking i want to set up my own hospitality business is like hang fire see where the economy goes there'll be people that are listening to this that run small medium-sized hospitality businesses what advice would you give to them in this current economy so in this current economy my business is exactly the same i'm sat here and i've done podcasts and I have conversations and I've been on television and I've done interviews on whether it's news night or question time or sky news or whatever it is as a face of the media is somebody who's done 13 cookbooks someone who's got five restaurants someone has a television career that's where so in terms of my voice being used and externally where my other businesses in terms of a media profile work i'm okay for cash like on a personal basis my businesses however are struggling the same as everybody else's so the process that we go through the same as everybody else's we have management structured meetings we look at where we can save costs we try and take our businesses to the gym when when people leave we look at can we afford to re-employ and the reality is no actually if somebody is left and like a natural kind of moved on we go right let's see if we can divvy that job out between existing staff members and how do we make sure that that you know we're not losing quality standards without having to bring the cost in of trying to find someone now then that has a knock-on effect through recruitment people through whatever you know if you think you're having to pay a percentage to a recruitment consultant then they become under pressure like the knock-on effect is massive so i would say it's about streamlining business understanding it taking your business to the gym is the best way of explaining in it tightening everything up look at every single aspect but do not lose your identity do not lose your dna do not lose the reason why you set up to do it in the first place because that's the thing that makes you different that's the point you set up for a passion for a reason for heart and soul and an understanding the moment that we start de-skilling the moment that we start taking food away and buying pre-bought in product the moment that we start looking at it becomes a race to the bottom and then all of a sudden then we just end up with plastic high streets that are repeated are exactly the same that are all on process and ultra processed food that are de-skilled nothing there we've built a food scene in great britain over the last 25 30 years that's something we should be super excited and proud of it's one that reaches global um uh conversations people all over the world know now that london where we sat is a hotbed of incredible restaurants brilliant chefs fantastic front of house teams wonderful bars great spaces to go and visit um and with a food scene then that then spreads up and down the country some of the best restaurants are not just in london you go you know they're in wales they're in scotland they're down in cornwall they're all over this amazing food scene and that's because we've been able to have creativity grow embrace beautiful and wonderful produce the moment we start taking that away it it shuts down it goes backwards it's it's an it's an absolute nightmare we start going back to the 1950s which is not where we want to be it's not a progressive thought and that has so many knock-on effects to bigger businesses and other businesses because hospitality is the lifeblood of towns center city centers community spaces that is the lifeblood of village villages countrysides that it's what connects so many different people and that connection brings bigger business other people invest in spaces and you know rejuvenation so keeping um a real focus on who you are what you do and your identity of what you do that and why you did that business in the first place is super super important and if you were looking at opening now i would say hold tight if you're a small business is trying to operate i would also say do everything you can to hold tight because we are pushing uh as hard as we can behind the scenes and forward thinking with the vats the problem um website and campaign to show government that a reduction in vat um from 20 to 10 to bring it in line with the rest of europe where as an operational chance to show that if 10 of your revenues come back into your business all of the other problems everything else that comes in they're all problems they're all issues and each individual business has a different bill that's higher than another one like they might not have paid the paye they may not pay their butcher they may not have paid there's lots of different things that they're juggling with allow those businesses is that that 10 back and work out where it is that they need to drop that money how they make it work how they can survive and how they can keep going so hold tight and get your guests to sign that petition because the more people that can sign that petition the more the government will listen and the more we can keep pushing and then the more hopefully they would get an understanding that we would hope by next budget um which october that there is an understanding that a reduction in vat is something that has to and must happen to save hospitality 21 businesses are shutting every week hold on as tight as you can because the more we push the more they'll have to listen the more chance we've got a reduction in vat which gives everyone a chance of survival who who do you think is responsible for killing hospitality oh it's built over a number of years and it's just um and it's very difficult i don't think there's anybody that's been responsible for it um i think we we we suffer as an industry um we don't help ourselves we haven't really had a singular voice we we've got lots of different factions and it's because it is so diverse you know it's from small little coffee shops and sandwich bars and neighborhood restaurants and local pubs to big name pubs and pub companies um to uh five-star hotels like we sat in now to seasonal seaside bed and breakfast you know it's such a amazing exciting and eclectic mix but we've never somebody's never really tied it all together but we all suffer from the same problems all of those five issues that i mentioned earlier affect every single business whether it's a seaside hotel whether it's this one whether it's a neighborhood restaurant whether it's a three mission style one around the corner they all have the same issues and the same costs that drop into them and this is the first time that whether you know big breweries or pub companies or people that represent UK hospitality for example as a trade body we've been able to tie everybody in together and go actually as a singular voice we need to push that forward we haven't had a we don't have a minister for hospitality we haven't got a ministry for hospitality there isn't a civil service for it it's built over different sections whether it's business and trade or whether it's culture whether it's a and they all kind of feed in and say oh yeah but my local pub needs this and the business and trade one i'll go yeah but the great big pub companies will need this to be able to survive them and quite often you tie big pub companies in as the bad guys but they're not they're not the bad guys they're they're a big they can you can see them so they they are businesses that make money but for if you use i don't know stonegate one of the biggest or green king or fuller's or they might own 2 000 pubs that they own the pub and the building and the landlord the pub landlord the business owner buys from a pub company they buy their beer from their reduced rate at slightly higher rent that's kind of how the business model sort of looks although pub companies now know that that rental model has to change and has to be adaptive but it's 2 000 individual businesses it may have a green king sign above the pub because the properties are but that's just like any other small business you're paying a landlord most businesses don't own the freehold of the property most businesses are paying a rent into wherever it is whether it's retail or whether it's hospitality you know or whether it's you know an office based space you don't own that building you're just paying the landlord the rent so the green king or the stone gate they're just landlords it's the 2 000 people that run those businesses that we need to worry about those are the people that we need to care about those are the people that need to be able to operate and move forward so tying all of that in together is so so important that hospitality has a singular voice and is being able to be heard by front bench government and that's been previous government it's this government it's been for years and years and years so it's not it's not been taken seriously enough but we haven't been a collective force together as a hospitality industry i don't think to be able to push on the doors of whichever and whoever is in power and go this listen to us we employ over three million people in hospitality further down the line there's five million people when you talk about agriculture fisheries farming when you talk about all the knock-on effects of travel and tourism all of those people You know, that's a huge amount of workforce in the UK that are either frontline or kind of secondary involved in hospitality.

23:32And we're not represented in the right way. And we're represented in lots of great ways for individual spaces, but a collective understanding. And then government haven't got a team of people that they can talk to. They pull on individuals and ask opinions and they ask. But there isn't there isn't actually a collective. There isn't a ministry sat there in a building somewhere in Whitehall around the corner where there's industry experts that know what's going on, that have their finger on the pulse and really understand what's happening to the small little coffee shop or the local pub or the five star hotel to be able to go.

24:07Actually, this is what we need to be doing. This is what you need to be doing. And this policy needs to sit like this. And there isn't really an understanding. So I don't think it's it's not one particular person to blame. It's a culmination and a knock on effect of the last 15 to 20 years. As we've seen growth and hospitality become exciting and it's a wonderful industry to be in and the food scene grow, the reality of it is actually behind the scene, we still haven't become a united force in being powerful at what we do. You mentioned earlier that you thought when you were younger, oh, I'd love to own a pub and it's great.

24:41And so many people still think that. And I think part of the government still think that actually it doesn't matter if they close and someone else will walk into that space and open another pub and restaurant. but that's beginning to fall by the wayside because when you talked about it when you went actually I looked into it and went why would I do that like the reality of actually oh my god I can't see how I can't see how it works so we're now getting to a point where people used to just go yeah well if that place shuts somebody else will open it and someone else will do we're not doing that anymore hospitality is beginning to look like retail once it's gone it sits empty for ages I think sometimes people probably oversimplify this down to it's Tom Kerridge versus Keir Starmer, say, at the minute.

25:21But as you get petitioned, signed, and start looking behind the curtain a bit, what can you tell us about the reality of actually getting change done? Like, who actually makes the decisions? Well, there's a huge amount of people that have been able to build this together. There's a huge amount of people that have been able to build this together. So it started probably about 10, 12 weeks ago where I had a conversation with Nick McKenzie, who is the CEO of Green King Pubs. Now, Nick is the hand of flowers, 21 years in business. Green King is our landlord. We pay them rent, we do whatever. My conversations with them have always been quite positive and always been really good.

26:02They've been a very supportive company from word go, not since we won Mission Stars or been famous or done whatever else. They have been a really supportive company. Now, my conversation with Nick was, listen, I've been on Newsnight, I've been, on question time, I've been able to be at a meeting with Peter Carl, Business and Trade Secretary, in his office around the corner from here, that he invited me in. I sat there and went through business rates and what we need to do to understand how the business works, how hospitality can survive, that he understood. That behind the scenes, front bench ministers actually understood that a reduction in VAT is a process they own they own the key and the lever to success of this and it's gone to show because this summer they're doing the five percent uh vat on kids meals they're doing the encouraging people to go out to theme park they know that they have the levers to be able to encourage and show business growth in a hospitality world they know it it's an understanding of us being able to put that process together to show to prove it so i sat there with nick and went right how do we do this how do we build everybody on board because when i talk to them they know that they understand they are listening treasury might not be listening i haven't i haven't had a direct route to treasury i have been able to speak to people since then but treasury the ones with the money the operators the business trade secretary the culture secretaries the people that are in that know that they need to do something it's unlocking treasury to get to that so in that conversation with Nick is how do we bring everybody else on board all the other trade bodies the BII the BBMA the UK hospitality other breweries how do we bring you know Tim Martin from Wetherspoons how do we bring you know all of these big name people because it affects everybody it's not just a guy with two Michelin stars who's on the telly saying it it's everybody how do we how do we solve this problem and how do we put pressure on government so between Nick made some calls we got everybody involved we we managed to agree a date and a time we all sat around here in this table i fed them all and said we need to work together on this conversation that i've had i feel that we are pushing on a door that is slightly ajar this is a moment in time and an opportunity to take it further down the line you had nigel farage at reform saying that he would reduce hospitality vat to 10 you got the liberal democrats jumping on board with it you got the conservatives going yeah hospitality VAT needs to come down you then also got within party at that point Andy Burnham and Angela Rayner in Manchester stood giving a speech saying that hospitality VAT needs to come down the the noise about it cross party it's a non-political this isn't a political push it's political because it's a government that has to make the decision but it doesn't matter who was in power this is something that needs to happen that we'd need to push so as hospitality we drew together we built it together and then we constructed between all of us an understanding of how we'd launch what we would do build the branding get an understanding of time scales and go right we'll launch june the first saying this is the petition here's the website get on it june the first was launch into hospitality industry so that the industry get what's going on we understand what we're all going to we're all tying this in together for july the first to then launch by this point that's been announced this week all the collateral is there for um you can download your kind of like toolkit if you're in hospitality for um printing your own posters for putting a qr code on your bill billing system or your menu and then encouraging all your guests then from july the first here's your bill or here's the menu can you have a while you have a little look can you sign this petition and it's the easiest petition you could go through an official government petition that takes a hundred thousand um signatures before it gets talked about in the house of parliament but if you've ever looked or ever been on one of those it's like paying council tax it's the most dull it's the most boring people will click on it and then click off again it's like this is well i don't want that i don't i don't want an official one i want noise i want to officially be fucking loud let's tell them be as loud as possible they can't ignore they can't ignore loudness they could just it doesn't matter if it's official non-official They can't just pretend it's not happening if we're loud enough.

30:25So it is put your name, your email address, sign petition. No one sends you anything. If you want stuff, you can click and say, yes, send me some stuff. It's just that simple. It takes 20 seconds. It's done. And it's there and then. Go, right, let's get that into business. So all that understanding of that infrastructure has been built by a lot of people. Government have also known. I did warn government beforehand, the people that I have been speaking to, that we are building this. And this is what we're going to do. you know we will get to the point where you have to listen and then cross-party has been mentioned in the houses of parliament on prime minister's question time twice already when prime minister's questions twice uh it's been it's got a lot of news traction and then from there we have also now a load of other ambassadors up and down the country that are able to pick up and take on the baton so it's not just me it i was very conscious of suddenly turning into looking like the mick lynch of hospitality which is great i mean i don't get me wrong i love mick lynch i think he's great but I don't want to be that guy because it loses traction then and it loses the reality of we need people to understand it is about their pub just around the corner from them.

31:30You know, that's who we're trying to save and that's who needs that support. So regional supporters and regional ambassadors are now happening up and down the country as well. Jealous, greedy and terrible. I'm talking about Jack Frimston because he's got a request view that I think is outrageous. I'm going to ask it and I'm only going to ask it one time. If you are listening and you are enjoying it, please like and subscribe and make Two Little Boys dreams come true. I'm thinking as you're talking, me and Jack are from Blackpool originally, and Blackpool is somewhere that when we go back, you're like, there's another place boarded up, there's another place struggling, there's another place boarded up.

32:09For maybe working class towns where you've got a low living standard anyway, what difference would having that 10 % back give to... it's massive it's absolutely huge because 10 of revenues is the difference between being able to operate and not operate long term it's the difference between able to earn a living and grow and employ more people and it makes a big big difference it makes a massive difference if you think i mean an example that i would give is one of our pubs the butcher's tap and grill which is a really small pub in marlow that was a it's a booze area it was a it was a basic drinker's pub before we took it on and it's no it's no bigger it's only tiny you know it's it's and it's got um beer tellies steaks burgers fries like you know it's just a it's a boozer the world cup is on the whole time now and before we took it on the landlord lived upstairs would come downstairs uh they might make and this is like so many pubs and small businesses blackpool for an example where they'll live upstairs they come downstairs they still work 60 70 80 hour weeks they're getting the dray in first thing in the morning taking the deliveries getting everything opening the business hoping that people come through the door and and and maybe because they live upstairs they might earn 25 grand 30 grand a year and they live upstairs and they might but they're still working 70 80 90 hour weeks they might get on holiday maybe once a year if they're lucky that but there's nobody else to cover the business but then when the business rates changed and when they took that away my business rates increased to another 75 000 pounds in that tiny, small, little boozer.

33:45And you go, well, if you earn 30 grand a year and now you've got another 70 grand that you've got to pay, that's it, you're now 40 grand a year down and you're working 100-hour weeks or 70, 80-hour, that's where it shuts and that's where it goes. You go, well, business rates have got to make a difference. That's got to change. That's not fit for purpose. And then if 10 % of your revenue comes back, that means you can still operate. Now, there will be operators out there that are breaking even. Well, 10 % coming back now, that means that they can, well, they earn money. They'll stay open. they can earn enough money there'll be operators there that are making a profit there might be some lucky enough to be making 10 profit which is great and another 10 that comes back into them well that allows them to grow now when businesses can grow and be alive and operate blackpool is a bigger as a great example of going actually if you're there and you're going home and you go it's all shutting down it's all shutting down it's all shutting down no one's choosing to go there on holiday because it's all shutting down but actually if it's a place of growth and excitement and noise and busyness and and busy because hospitality places are open it attracts people to come the more people come the more revenue it's a revenue stream government will earn more money like it's about encouragement it's about like the lever of maneuvering stimulating growth is about allowing operators to do turn the lights on and have fun you'll find blackpool using example last year i went down to cornwall a couple of times i got friends with restaurants down there and you go into spaces even a busy place like new key like in the height of august absolutely pat but there's still places there that even in the height of august are only open five days a week because that's all they can afford because they haven't got the staff and then the people to be able to go and you know well they should there should be seven days a week revenue here because people are on holiday seven days you know you need to be able to to stimulate growth to be able to afford to employ people to then generate you need to be able to spend the biggest problem that we have is right now there is a non-understanding of business that comes from the treasury the treasury is being run by the accountant's department now we all need accounts we all need spreadsheets and we all need to understand the p &l and how it works but our business this business any any good operator anybody's business is not run by the accountant the accountant is monitoring and helping and seeing maybe problems that might be in the future if we keep spending that on that but it's the operator that operates it now and that's like that's every business not just hospitality anybody you speak to anybody who's entrepreneur or anybody who owns their own company they're not an accountant unless it's an accountancy firm they are the people that have opened something because it's something they love doing it's a passion project it's something that they feel that they can achieve it's a career path that they've chosen they're operators they make decisions they make decisions about money and investment and what we've got with the government at the minute is they're not listening to the operators the business and trade the culture the people that make the country have substance and growth the country is being run by the accountant nobody's business is run by an accountant nobody's successful business is run by the accountant the accountant is there to help guide and to be a part of it you've got to release purse strings you have to allow operators to operate because they're the ones that are on the front line with the touch the feeling the understanding of it so that's our biggest problem it feels like the wheels are turning to a brighter future fingers crossed like you're on this mission and there'll be people that are ambitious that listen to our podcast that like thinking maybe i'd like to do something you said earlier that you couldn't go and get a loan and say that you were getting an extension now like it's still going to be tough for people to start businesses we bootstrapped our business from the ground up and we know how tough it is without like money what are some of the low stakes experiments that maybe young ambitious entrepreneurs could do in the hospitality industry so i think in a hospitality world we're quite i mean i say lucky there are empty sites there are places that are closed there are landlords that aren't earning any money and there are opportunities to do small or short-term pop-ups to test the water to use that creative space most people that are opening a new business now are late 20s early 30s maybe late 30s that in hospitality they're excited about doing a space or doing something fully in touch with social media fully in touch with connecting that isn't just through straight advertising or from a conversation in a local newspaper they are they have a much better understanding of the way that um marketing pr um reaching out influence happens and hospitality is one of the most exciting and incredibly kind of um rich moving fluid industries people love going out people like new experiences people like to hear about the the new bar or the new space they want to be one of the first to go there there are opportunities where there are sites that are empty and shut and if you fancy doing a small pop-up for six weeks test the water low cost low budget think of what you can do borrow stuff borrow plates borrow so there'll already be kitchen equipment in there there'll already be something there's opportunities there for young young entrepreneurial business-minded people to have a go at testing the water there are those spaces there because sadly there are empty sites where people are looking for somebody to do something so instead of taking huge investment right now do a pop-up invite investors to go listen this is what i am looking and doing how excited are you by this how cool could this be once the marketplace has settled a little bit more so there are great opportunities that don't necessarily have to cost a lot of money right now and because of social media and i think the world i think before the pandemic when me and zach used to be big old boozes and we'd go out and stuff like that every every restaurant or something like had to have an experience with it like a bowling alley or clay shooting or something weird so it feels like experience is like a huge thing attached attached onto it whether it be the aesthetic of you're in a restaurant that's got a big pink blossom tree or whatever what what can you tell us about like is is the food good enough now or like do you need to have experience with it or the the the front of house like what what kind of advice could you give to people food food has to be like just from my experience like food has to be amazing for return right you can have experience where the food's a bit crap but the experience was fun and it was all a bit yeah but you've done it yeah like it's got no substance like it has you know it has an impact and isn't it great brilliant like you say yeah there was a pink blossom tree and i shot a clay pigeon thank you like it was brilliant like but what we had was crap do you want to go there again not really i want to go for something to eat so first and foremost food and the storytelling of food is great people people still like a narrative they still like understanding you know who the farmer was or where the foods or why the cattle is you know bred like this or why the flavor profiles have come like that or where the dairy comes from or how have you made that cheese or there's the season now people like connection they also like connection to other human beings you know the one thing that we notice pandemic wise is you know it was that social interaction and meeting front of house staff meeting people that you know connect with you say welcome you make you feel like you're special you know and just having the fundamental basics of hospitality good food where's it come from is it looked after do we care and a front of house team that make you feel welcome and say hello first and foremost get that right once you do like stories and they do like narrative there does need to be you know what what what is your point of difference what is the thing that will make you stand out from everybody else and it doesn't have to be clay pigeon shooting it can just be like actually it's beef from around the corner and i grew up there and i know the farmer and that's lovely people will love that story people will love that what's the so so so we're in one of your lovely restaurants today yeah and i can put an amazing review on or I can obviously I'm sure it never happens but I could put a bad review on yeah yeah no it happens oh yeah I'd be I'd be shocked um but then you've got obviously the Tom Kerridge brand but people can do the same there they can like let you know what they think about Tom Kerridge they do a lot yeah yeah yeah so sometimes I wonder like what there must be there must be a benefit that I'm sure everyone can guess what the benefit is but what's the cost of the Tom Kerridge brand like it being you yeah well like the first question you ask is not in being an entirely sure i have to gauge audience and who i am and who i'm talking to and what position i'm in and what's the narrative and where i am you know before i got to you i was in a two different meetings one was a structured meeting about a refurbishment of the of the dining room and bar space here the second after that was a pr meeting about launch and then you know and then you have to be in check you're the person that's in charge and being the boss and understanding what this is what you want then you come here and it's now a conversation about business and politics and then you go right how do you who is that person so it comes um it is something quite often weighs quite heavy of trying to work out who it is and what you're trying to put across and and then also the in terms of i think um uh timing i you never off you run your own business you never have a day off is it seven days a week there's always something you know even if you're not in a place of work or a space the phone will go something will happen and you're thinking about something there's never any time off on the flip side of that the bonuses of of running businesses and doing your own thing is you are making your own decisions you are in control of your own destiny if you fuck something up that's you you it's your fuck up it's nobody else's you you are you learn to take your own responsibility of it you you have to own those spaces um but with that comes the bonuses if you if you make a decision and it's a really good one and it's bucked the trend and it's different to everybody else and you've gone and it's worked, then also that's, you know, that's your bonuses.

43:51And you're just like, this is great. So I would never talk anybody out of running their own business. But it does come with cost. You have to have a very thick skin. Hospitality is a little bit like, I think being a professional sportsman, we're all watching England in the World Cup now and everyone's got an opinion and they want to say something about, oh, that was rubbish or this was that person's that. Hospitality is the same. you can go to a restaurant and say I don't like this or do like this or yeah that was rubbish or I don't like him or you can make an opinion on something because of what you've seen you've heard some words that I've said or you've seen the way that I've cooked something on a television you know and you and people can be massively abusive so you have to learn to have thick skin and take it with a pinch of salt and actually not care what some bloke you've never met before from a different city that you're never ever going to see and he's formed an opinion on you that he's never met on something that he's heard that he's decided to then write it and say it and shouty capitals on your instagram you got you actually go to reality that go actually that's more of his issue not mine like i don't actually don't care what you say do you know i mean as long as you feel that you're doing the right thing representing you your team your people everything that you do everything your mantra your dna of your business that you set up for in the first place is the right thing when we opened the hand of flowers 21 years ago actually from the moment my you know growing up i grew up on an estate in glossary my mum was always try it try your hardest be the best that you can be and make sure you respect to be kind to other people and you go okay well if you work with those they're very simple rules aren't they and you go well if i try my hardest and then you find yourself if you're lucky enough to find yourself in an industry that you love and you try your hardest at it then if you love it and you work harder than everybody else and you do it because you're trying your hardest eventually it does turn around things do come your way results happen from effort irrespective you know if you you know you never know how close you are to succeed and if you give up now you just you just have to keep going and if you're lucky enough to be in a world that you love being in it's you know although it's hard work you still end up persevering don't you still keep pushing so if you you sit with your morals in the right space and your ethics and what you set up for you try and use the best projects you can find and then when you find that best project you try and understand who is the guys or the producers the supply chain and what's there and if you'll generally find that the people that supply the best wines beers fruit and veg meat fish they also have the same attitude to you they're also we want to find we just want to find the best we just want to be really proud of what we do and if and if you start working with all those people along the line you find that by the time you're into your 50s that you've just built a way of doing something you've surrounded yourself with people with the same mindset and the ethics and the same understanding and you do something like you do everything and then that mindset goes into everything into work whether you know or life just everything you do something like you do everything then you've built yourself this kind of like protective i suppose box of understanding of how you work so that when somebody from outside of that box it shouts abuse it doesn't really matter it doesn't matter because you go actually it doesn't really matter because i'm doing well i know i'm know i'm doing all right and if he doesn't like it don't matter because this team of people do so it's okay amazing it's been great tom really lovely to meet you it's quite a pinch me moment i think for us to sit across from you i was watching an advert of you trying raspberries the other day yeah it's that across well that's it and you know what see that's the other thing when you get we talk about people that work in the right I wouldn't work with then I wouldn't work with supermarkets unless the reasons why so the raspberry story the things these are all people they supply into a bigger supply chain and it's a much bigger story and you can go into the ethics of how big companies work but the reality is the moment you scratch beneath the surface that the people work in that company are exactly the same and the supply chain the raspberry strawberry guys they're the same and they're great.

47:58Yeah, yeah. So if we're sending people now, so they've listened to this, they feel passionate and they want to do something, the petition, anything else that they can be doing? That's the problem, is the website. Sign the petition, get onto that and just keep supporting and understanding local spaces and individual businesses. And it's very easy to keep saying local businesses. And by that, that still means ZZ's Pizza Express. It still means the Weatherspoons. It still means, because they are local businesses, because even though it's a corporate company, the people that work in them, they're still local.

48:32They still live around the corner. The management, the team that are there, they're still somebody's daughter, friend of somebody, somebody's understanding. They're a mate of a mate that works there. They all still have jobs. And those jobs, irrespective of it, it's seen as a faceless boardroom company, are still under pressure. It's those people. It's everybody. It's every single person in hospitality. So keep getting out there and supporting them. Amazing. Thanks so much. Thank you so much, Tom. Thank you. thanks guys