The idea that young people don't drink has been massively exaggerated — 18- to 25-year-olds still flock to pubs and drink pints in the same way older generations did.

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(00:02:47) We are here in London, and so we wanted to learn about the business of pubs, of course. (00:02:52) And so we're bringing you first an interview with famed publican Oshin Rogers. (00:02:56) He is the co-founder of the pub, The Devonshire. (00:02:59) And then in the second-half, that will be an interview that was recorded live at a show that we're doing here in (00:03:05) London with the chef at the Devonshire, Ashley Palmer Watts. (00:03:09) Take a listen. (00:03:10) You know, we've talked about this before. (00:03:12) Some of my favorite episodes, and I mean this completely unironically, are when we talk to people in the food service industry in some way, because I truly think that (00:03:22) what we specialize in, which is sort of where the macro meets the micro, et cetera. (00:03:28) There are so many, whether it's labor costs, food costs, consumer sentiment, consumer appetites, et cetera. (00:03:35) There are so many things that only someone in that specific industry gets a real view on at any given moment. (00:03:41) No, totally. (00:03:42) Restaurants and food service in general are great microcosms of macro trends. (00:03:49) since we're in London, a lot of the same restaurants, a lot of the same things. (00:03:52) But of course, there are a lot of pubs here and we don't have as many in the US. (00:03:57) And to the extent we have them in the US, I think they're not the same. (00:04:00) They're like fake, right? (00:04:00) They're like, they're replicas, they're bars that have the aesthetics of a pub. (00:04:07) Can I say one thing? (00:04:07) So I woke up this morning and I turned on BBC News and one of the top headlines was two pubs closing every day. (00:04:16) And for as long as I can remember, since I (00:04:19) came to the UK for university and then stayed for a decade. (00:04:23) Every year, there have been these reports saying that pubs are closing down. (00:04:28) And it's been going on, I guess, for 20 years now. (00:04:32) And I'm very curious what is cited as the reason now, because you would feel like the reason pubs are closing in, say, 2002 versus why they're closing in 2026 would be different. (00:04:43) Yeah. (00:04:43) But the trend overall seems to remain the same. (00:04:46) It seems tough. (00:04:47) Supposedly Gen. (00:04:48) Z, they don't (00:04:49) drink as much, which I think, but that can't, that doesn't explain why that would have been a trend in say 2002. (00:04:55) Right. (00:04:56) That's my point. (00:04:56) There was another headline recently. (00:04:58) Apparently a pint has breached the 10 pound mark in some. (00:05:02) Oh, that is a lot. (00:05:03) Which is like a big deal. (00:05:04) It's just, I mean, in New York, if it's $10, it's like we're used to that. (00:05:07) But I guess the 10, you know, pounds are worth more. (00:05:10) There would have been a riot at my university if anyone tried to charge 10 pounds for a pint. (00:05:15) So anyway, while we're here in New York. (00:05:17) Of course, back then, we were all drinking terrible things like Bacardi Breezers and things like that. (00:05:22) But anyway, carry on. (00:05:23) You know, my wife, she briefly worked at a pub in Ireland, and apparently they got really upset with her for the quality for poor. (00:05:30) They're like, not drinking bad. (00:05:31) Yeah, she did. (00:05:33) Anyway, I don't think that lasted very long. (00:05:35) Anyway, we're here in London. (00:05:36) We got to do a pub episode. (00:05:38) Let's do it. (00:05:38) I'm very excited to say. (00:05:40) We really do have the perfect guest. (00:05:42) We're going to be speaking with one of the most famous, if not the most famous publican in the UK. (00:05:49) I don't exactly know what a publican is or what defines A publican. (00:05:53) You're about to find out, Joe. (00:05:54) So I'm about to find out. (00:05:54) We're going to be speaking with Oshin Rogers. (00:05:57) He is the co-founder of the Devonshire, one of the most popular pubs in the city. (00:06:01) We're going to learn all about the pub business. (00:06:03) So Oshin, thank you so much for coming on Outlaws. (00:06:06) Joe, it's great to be here. (00:06:07) Thank you so much. (00:06:08) What is a pub? (00:06:09) What's the difference? (00:06:10) I've flown all the way from New York City to London to ask just one simple question, then when I get the answer, I'll be ready to go home. (00:06:16) I think this is actually an important question. (00:06:17) What is the difference between a pub and a bar? (00:06:20) Well, everywhere has got bars. (00:06:22) Bars are places that people go to drink. (00:06:24) They're places for that occasion to just go and drink. (00:06:26) But pubs are much more connected into the fabric of British and Irish society. (00:06:31) I think, honestly, they only really work well on these islands. (00:06:34) I think what you said is right about the US. (00:06:36) Yes, you do have pubs, but they're not the same. (00:06:39) I think the pubs have a timelessness. (00:06:42) A lot of the ones that are really great have been around for a very long time, and they have a function for people to meet in a neutral space where you can actually have drinks, have a chat, end up meeting people you wouldn't normally hang out with. (00:06:54) And they're also a place of chaos and wonder and beauty and a bit of, you know, art and, you know, it's somewhere you can actually kick your shoes off and really enjoy and not know (00:07:04) what's going to happen next, and they're a place for great stories. (00:07:07) Can you explain the sort of landscape of British pubs where you have independent institutions, such as your own, versus a lot of chains? (00:07:17) I was in a Samuel Smith pub the other day. (00:07:20) We don't have bar chains. (00:07:21) Yeah, not really. (00:07:22) Hunch Taverns used to be the big one. (00:07:24) I guess Wetherspoons, oh my gosh, Wetherspoons was a place where I spent a lot of time in the early 2000s. (00:07:29) Just explain how it works here in terms of ownership. (00:07:32) So pubs go back at least 1000 years. (00:07:34) It's probably a lot longer than that, where people opened their houses and made ale or sold ale and let people come and kick back and enjoy themselves. (00:07:42) I think during the 18th and 19th centuries, mostly, the brewers started becoming more powerful. (00:07:48) So there was lots of regional brewers in all around, and there still are, and some of them are still amazing. (00:07:53) And they tended to try and buy pubs up so that they could sell their wares through those businesses. (00:07:59) And quite a lot of those pub cos in the sort of early 20th century, you know, right up until (00:08:04) the 50s, they'd have 1000 pubs or some had up to 3000 pubs. (00:08:08) And that sort of became more commercial in the 80s. (00:08:12) Those pubs started getting traded as lots and bulk. (00:08:14) And then there became like allied breweries at one stage had 6000 pubs. (00:08:19) We still have big operators that come from those brewers, like Stonegate, like Wetherspoons, like you said, you know, we've got smaller ones in London, like Fullers and Youngs, and you've got Michels and Butlers that own the majority of the successful pubs across the country. (00:08:34) Free houses have always been harder to find and more difficult to run because you don't have the economy of scale. (00:08:41) But I love a free house and I worked for a long time in the managed house business and it was great to work there too. (00:08:47) Before we get to your current pub, give us a little bit of your history. (00:08:50) What were you doing? (00:08:52) Prior to opening the dev? (00:08:53) Prior to opening the dev, well, go back to me. (00:08:56) I went to university in Dublin in 1986. (00:08:58) I studied chemistry, physics, applied maths. (00:09:01) I was going to become a food tech engineer. (00:09:03) I didn't enjoy university much, got a job in a pub called the Stag's Head, part-time, loved that more than anything else, gave up on university. (00:09:11) And since then, since 1986, I've worked in pubs. (00:09:13) And in 1991, had my first pub in London. (00:09:16) And I've run a lot of pubs in London in that time. (00:09:19) And the Devonshire is the one I occurred here. (00:09:21) What year did you open the Devonshire? (00:09:23) Devonshire opened in November 23. (00:09:25) So we're there about 2 1/2 years, but it feels like 20. (00:09:28) Oh, what was the thinking? (00:09:29) Because as you say, opening an independent pub is a pretty big challenge. (00:09:34) Well, I think the Devonshire might be a little bit more than a pub. (00:09:37) We've got this wonderful restaurant upstairs. (00:09:39) It's in an incredible location right in the center of the city. (00:09:43) I always felt that the West End and the city, while it has some really great pubs, most of them are very small and a lot of them are not amazingly good. (00:09:50) And we wanted to open something that was really attractive, that would make people feel comfortable and safe and happy and have really great products. (00:09:57) And we found this great big site right by Piccadilly Circus. (00:10:00) And we just turned it into a pub on the ground floor with an amazing restaurant upstairs. (00:10:04) And it's been fun. (00:10:05) I will say the reason I was in a Sam Smith pub last night was because we were waiting for a theater ticket and there weren't a lot of good options. (00:10:12) I probably should have gone (00:10:14) next time, Tracy, you'd be so welcome. (00:10:16) It'd be great to see you. (00:10:17) mentioned food just then. (00:10:18) And this seems to be a key thing in the survival of pubs nowadays, which is if you can tack on gastronomy of some sort and good food, the economics seem to shift quite a lot. (00:10:29) They completely change, if I'm honest, for lots of reasons. (00:10:33) when I go back, 20 years ago, there was very little food in pubs. (00:10:37) Everybody smoked in the pubs and you could smoke at the counter and the whole place was full of smoke. (00:10:40) So you wouldn't consider eating anything. (00:10:43) And that gradually changed. (00:10:44) So we moved more towards snacks you could eat standing up and then table meals. (00:10:49) And then the gastro pub started in about 1991 to 95. (00:10:53) And that's really become a thing where gastro pubs are now really restaurants. (00:10:57) And there's a sort of a real border happening between pubs and restaurants where you can do both. (00:11:03) they can be very successful because the pub brings people in and people can drink before and after the meal in the bar area. (00:11:09) And, it's a really nice convivial environment. (00:11:12) And they're not as codified as restaurants, if you know what I mean. (00:11:15) You can sort of, they're more higgledy piggly. (00:11:18) You can sort of get away with a little bit more chaos. (00:11:20) And, you know, they're more fun, I think, in a lot of ways. (00:11:23) You know, you find a great gastropub in the country, you're going to want to go back. (00:11:26) And the same across London. (00:11:27) We've got some amazing ones. (00:11:28) Wait, just on the history real quickly, (00:11:32) Did you say it was more like because of the elimination of indoor smoking that actually created the space for this notion of a gastro? (00:11:40) Was that crucial? (00:11:41) I would say that was an economic earthquake for pubs for lots of reasons, because lots of the old drinkers at that time would have stopped coming in because they couldn't smoke indoors and they would have gone on strike and drank less. (00:11:55) So something had to be done. (00:11:56) So they needed to attract a new audience. (00:11:58) And it was really exciting for people to go back to pubs because your clothes would (00:12:01) It wouldn't smell of smoke anymore. (00:12:03) So when you sort of audience started coming in and younger people started drinking in there with an expectation of cocktails and Bacardi breezers like you mentioned earlier came straight out of that and all those hooch drinks and stuff. (00:12:14) You know so it's always been changing but at the same time it's always been timeless and the same. (00:12:19) We're in the business of making people feel comfortable, safe, happy, welcome, well looked after and people need that and they love it. (00:12:26) Does anyone still drink snake bites? (00:12:29) I hope thankfully not. (00:12:30) No it is. (00:12:32) It was like this terrible concoction of, it was beer and then some sort of cordial cider and then like a sweet thing in it. (00:12:40) A black currant. (00:12:41) Well, it always worries me that you've beer, which is clear and beautiful and fizzy, and then you've cider, which is clear and beautiful and fizzy. (00:12:49) You mix the two of them together, it becomes this really cloudy thing. (00:12:52) That you've got to color it purple with the black currant in order to make it sweet enough to drink. (00:12:57) I'm certain it's not good for you and I don't sell very much of it, thankfully. (00:13:00) Can I ask you a question, and we're not going to name names here? (00:13:03) What's a bad pub? (00:13:04) You say like, okay, you said, oh, you looked around, you didn't see many good pubs. (00:13:08) What is it? (00:13:09) You walk into a pub and it's like, this doesn't have it. (00:13:11) What's missing in a bad pub? (00:13:12) I think there's lots of things. (00:13:15) I think. (00:13:16) How we are made to feel is always an amalgamation of the inputs that we got. (00:13:21) So that's what we hear, what we smell, what we see, what we taste and what we touch. (00:13:25) If you walk into a place and you see that the person who's likely to be serving you is miserable, or the lighting's too bright or too dark, or it sounds wrong, like the music is wrong, or it smells horrid, or something's not quite right in terms of the visual noise that you see, and it's not beautiful, the chances of you having a great time and feeling great are already diminished (00:13:46) before you go anywhere near the counter and buy anything. (00:13:48) So we always think about those sensual inputs when we're being good in terms of making sure that it looks clean and bright and that the staff are in the right mindset to make people feel comfortable, in that they're comfortable and safe and happy themselves and well paid. (00:14:02) And, it's an amalgamation of those things that makes atmosphere. (00:14:06) And atmosphere is the key and making sure that that is there. (00:14:09) You know, and I think of pubs, okay, there's the beer and then there's certain dishes that I associate with pub food, the scotch egg, the sausage roll. (00:14:18) And I'm always fascinated by a lot of, in any field, a lot of creativity comes from figuring out what you can do with a certain set of constraints. (00:14:28) And I have to imagine that there is a certain, (00:14:30) you deviate too much and it's no longer a pub anymore. (00:14:33) It's a bar or something like that. (00:14:35) What are the constraints with which you feel like you're in a gastro pub where your food and beer or food and alcohol? (00:14:42) What are the formal constraints where if you go beyond this, you're something other than a pub? (00:14:48) I think it's a really good question. (00:14:49) I'm going to answer it by saying it's a kind of a spectrum. (00:14:52) So on one end, you've got the codified restaurant where you have to reserve and you sit at a square table and you never talk to anyone else apart from your server and your guest. (00:15:00) On the other end, you've got a wet pub that doesn't sell any food at all. (00:15:03) And you can just wander in there, have a pint and end up standing anywhere you want. (00:15:07) You can't reserve any area and you can have a drink and stay as long as you want. (00:15:11) In between, you've kind of got the gastropub, which is in the middle. (00:15:14) Some of it will be reserved for guests and some of it will be chaotic and you can go and have a beer. (00:15:19) And there's this whole sliding scale all the way along. (00:15:22) And the bit from a good wet pub with good food to a gastropub that is definitely a restaurant is actually really wide. (00:15:29) So there's lots of different places you could go in between. (00:15:33) So it's really hard to define. (00:15:35) And actually, I hate the word gastropub because it no longer means anything. (00:15:39) Because that middle of the spectrum is actually so wide that you want to know where that business is. (00:16:00) Support for this show comes from public.com. (00:16:03) If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions by... (00:16:08) the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. (00:16:12) On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. (00:16:17) Just describe what you want to do in plain English, like if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500, or if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. (00:16:30) You approve of the workflow and your agent handles the rest. (00:16:33) Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. (00:16:39) An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. (00:16:43) You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. (00:16:48) Go to public.com/market and fund your account in 5 minutes or less. (00:16:53) That's public.com/market. (00:16:56) Paid for by Public Investing. (00:16:57) Brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., Member FINRA and SIPC. (00:17:02) Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC registered advisor. (00:17:06) Complete disclosures available at public.com/disclosures. (00:17:10) Get the news you need in just 15 minutes. (00:17:13) Start your day with Bloomberg Daybreak, the podcast with a global view on the stories that matter. (00:17:18) I'm Nathan Hager. (00:17:19) And I'm Karen Moscow. (00:17:20) Join us each morning for curated stories on current events, politics, business, and foreign relations. (00:17:25) Plus one conversation on the day's biggest developments, all in just 15 minutes. (00:17:30) Subscribe to Bloomberg Daybreak for a precise, thoughtful take on the stories that matter. (00:17:34) Listen to Bloomberg Daybreak each morning on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen. (00:17:40) So I take the point there are different formats, so to speak, of pubs, such as ones that just serve drinks and others that serve food. (00:17:47) But have you noticed in your decades of publican experience, have you noticed a shift in the way people actually use pubs and why they're there? (00:17:58) I think so. (00:17:58) I totally have. (00:17:59) I'm going to go back to the smoking ban again, because before the smoking ban, every pub had stools all the way around the bar, like you do in the US. (00:18:08) Whereas before the smoking ban, they thought that they could sort of mitigate against it by moving people away from the bar so that the staff wouldn't be breathing the smoke in. (00:18:16) And they thought that was going to be okay. (00:18:18) And so therefore they didn't allow people to sit at the bar anymore as much. (00:18:21) So people sort of retreated away. (00:18:23) And I think it became a little less social then. (00:18:25) And we're trying to bring that back. (00:18:27) So we've brought all our stools back to the bar so people are likely to be shoulder to shoulder and chat away and stuff like that. (00:18:33) I think it's always changing, but it's also always the same. (00:18:36) There are places where community gets together. (00:18:39) And the great thing about pubs as well is they tend to be very democratic. (00:18:42) In other words, you'll get people who can just about afford to have a beer, and you can get people who could buy the whole place. (00:18:47) And they can be shoulder to shoulder, too, and chatting to each other. (00:18:50) And there's a kind of a leveling when you're just having a pint. (00:18:54) And I've seen it many times where you'll get the guy who's been sweeping the street or cleaning your car or fixing your car, sitting beside a CEO or a judge or (00:19:03) a senior leader and they'll have great fun. (00:19:05) And that doesn't happen in many places. (00:19:07) And I think we're really proud to be able to do that and have that democracy. (00:19:11) Let's talk more about the business specifics of the dev. (00:19:14) You already hinted at it, but tell more. (00:19:16) Let's start with, okay, location. (00:19:18) What did you see in this specific spot such that you had, this could be an ambitious. (00:19:25) big investment. (00:19:25) Well, I really felt that democracy of demographic and of age is really important so that you're able to attract everybody. (00:19:33) You're right in the middle of central London, literally at Piccadilly. (00:19:36) It's about the busiest footfall place you could possibly find. (00:19:39) So we knew the market was there, but what we needed to do was make sure we made a place that people would want to come to as well. (00:19:47) So we just did it and we thought about it for a couple of years together, me and Ashley and Charlie, and we were very careful about what our unique selling (00:19:55) would be and we really stuck with those. (00:19:57) We also felt that it was important that people would feel that they had value for time and value for money when they came in. (00:20:02) So as well as being able to spend, 2 1/2 grand on a bottle of 2001 Chateau Le Fite, we can still have a pint of beer for 4.95. (00:20:11) So and we stick to that now. (00:20:13) We've got the set menu for 29.95 or the Scotch egg for 4.95, which I hope you had last time you were in. (00:20:20) And you can still spend, 150 quid on an incredible piece of dry aged Scottish beef, which will be amazing. (00:20:29) So you've got that whole sort of sliding scale of spend. (00:20:33) And that's really important to us that people can get in there, have a great time and not spend a lot. (00:20:38) But at the same time, if they want to spend a lot, they can and they do. (00:20:41) Just to be clear, which came first? (00:20:42) Was it the building was coming up for sale and so you thought this would be a good opportunity or was it you wanted to start your own pub (00:20:50) And so you went out looking for locations. (00:20:51) So we were out looking for locations because we wanted to do a pub. (00:20:54) We knew we wanted to do a pub with really great food. (00:20:57) There are very, very few big pubs in central London. (00:21:01) Because it's a very large building. (00:21:03) Well, the Devonshire as it is was a pub before. (00:21:06) It was called the Devonshire right up until 2009, but it was less than half the size it is now. (00:21:11) In fact, probably 1/4 of the size. (00:21:13) So when that closed down in 2009, (00:21:16) The landlords took the building back and they put it together with the building next door and they knocked it through to turn it into a huge restaurant. (00:21:23) And that was Jamie Oliver's first Jamie's Italian. (00:21:26) And he was incredibly successful. (00:21:28) I love Jamie, by the way, and he did a fabulous job there up until his business ran away from him a little bit in 2019. (00:21:35) and it closed just before the pandemic. (00:21:38) So we'd always had our eye on it, hoping that, we could persuade the city to turn it back into a pub and that we might be able to operate it. (00:21:45) And that was a big journey for us to make that happen. (00:21:48) Just real quickly, does the city have a finite number of pub licenses or like, or is it just, it's have to meet a bar? (00:21:56) What's the... (00:21:56) It's a very complicated question. (00:21:58) Basically, if you have a pub license, you can operate it and obviously trade it and sell it, but in the same location. (00:22:04) When pub licenses (00:22:05) like the old Devonshire one lapse, they're gone. (00:22:08) So to apply for a new pub license and be granted, it is very unusual, particularly in Westminster. (00:22:14) But we managed to make it happen. (00:22:15) So this is one of the things that always comes up when you see the reports about pub closures in the UK. (00:22:21) It's too much tax, heavy regulation. (00:22:24) Can you walk us through like when people say regulatory burden on pubs, what exactly does that mean? (00:22:29) Well, the biggest regulatory burden we have is licensing, which is obviously for public safety to make (00:22:35) sure that you don't do things like have too many people in, open at the wrong time, serve people who are drunk, encourage crime, all of those stuff. (00:22:42) But those can be very burdensome in some locations for lots of reasons. (00:22:46) You've also got to make sure your neighbors are happy, that you don't make too much noise. (00:22:49) I heard noise ordinances were also a major issue. (00:22:51) Yeah, there's a big issue with that, particularly in the suburbs outside. (00:22:55) There's lots of regulations about when you can have deliveries because of what time they'll come and go, how much noise they'll be, where you store your bins, what time they're collected, how your bottles are handled. (00:23:04) There's lots and lots (00:23:05) lots of things. (00:23:06) But of course, all of these regulations are there for the benefit of our society and our communities. (00:23:12) And most of them are great, but some of them can be quite burdensome for businesses. (00:23:16) I mentioned at the beginning, I really was not trying to put my wife on blast by mentioning that she got scolded for her porn, but I take it that (00:23:25) Labor is an important factor. (00:23:27) Skilled labor is an important factor. (00:23:29) Absolutely. (00:23:30) Talk to us about the market for that and the supply and the ease with which one can hire not just a bartender who's capable of the poor, but someone who's happy and someone who, if you put such an emphasis on making the customers feel welcome and warm and so forth, what does that look like today? (00:23:48) We really look for people who will feel comfortable in our environment, so people who've got great skills at relating to others, great skills that (00:23:55) people to have a nice time. (00:23:57) People who will work hard and are able to believe what we believe in terms of... (00:24:02) Is it hard to find if I like, if you found a skilled bartender today, would you be like, yeah, come in? (00:24:08) Absolutely. (00:24:09) We find ourselves quite lucky and anecdotally... (00:24:11) I don't see that issue that people keep saying that young people don't want to work. (00:24:16) Our best workers are between 18 and 23 years old. (00:24:19) We've got a dozen amazing examples of that who are so reliable, so hardworking, incredibly happy, very efficient, and thankfully really well looked after by us. (00:24:29) And I'm really proud of that. (00:24:30) And it's great. (00:24:31) And a lot of my colleagues in town and some of the better restaurants are saying the same thing, that the kids really are all right. (00:24:38) How competitive is your pay in the world of pubs to this point? (00:24:42) And then also, were you affected by Brexit at all in terms of your labor supply? (00:24:47) I think Brexit was once again a little bit of a shock in that we did lose (00:24:52) A lot of our sort of casual Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Greek team, a lot of those were able to apply at the time for a right to remain and stay, and a lot of them did. (00:25:05) But we lost a few, but then the tap turned off to them. (00:25:10) However, we are finding that there are other nationalities and other channels of people coming through, and a lot of our very best employees are British now, and we're very proud of that. (00:25:22) The 10 pound punt. (00:25:23) What's going on with that? (00:25:25) And is it just a few locations? (00:25:27) And what are you seeing pricing wise? (00:25:29) I think prices have gone up and that's gone up because of the cost of production, the cost of transport, the cost of the raw materials, the cost of everything going on ahead. (00:25:38) But I think it's rising at the same time. (00:25:40) steepness that it always has. (00:25:42) And I can never remember a year when public house people, pub people all got together and said, oh, we've been amazing. (00:25:49) It's smashed to this year. (00:25:50) It's always, there's always an element of doom and gloom. (00:25:53) And, you know, I try to avoid it as much as I can. (00:25:55) And we try to give people great value for money. (00:25:58) We keep a pint on that's less than a fiver always. (00:26:01) Our biggest seller is Guinness, which is 720 now. (00:26:03) I think that's fair. (00:26:05) But I think it's true. (00:26:06) You can, if you want to, go and find a pint for 10 pounds. (00:26:09) But is that the place you're going to really want to drink? (00:26:11) I don't think so. (00:26:12) How does it work with your suppliers? (00:26:13) How much pricing power or negotiating power do you actually have when you're putting in orders for your drinks? (00:26:19) So what we try and do, and I think what most of the industry does, is to fix our prices for a long period of time. (00:26:25) So we'll know what volume we're going to do. (00:26:26) We'll speak to a lot of suppliers and tender out our purchasing. (00:26:30) They'll come back to us with a price. (00:26:32) We'll make a decision, and then we can do the budget. (00:26:34) We try and keep it as (00:26:35) simple as that. (00:26:35) And you know, with some of our suppliers were fixed more or less now for three years. (00:26:40) So I'm pretty happy with that. (00:26:41) On Guinness specifically, people are very weird about, oh, you can't get a good Guinness in the United States. (00:26:48) And then you're in London, you can't get a good Guinness in London. (00:26:52) I can never know if that's just like one of these things that's in people's head, et cetera. (00:26:56) Where do you stand on the question of, (00:27:00) Is one even capable of getting a good Guinness? (00:27:03) Like within, is there a certain diameter around Ireland in which the quality of your Guinness pours declined? (00:27:10) All of the Guinness in the UK now is made in Dublin. (00:27:12) It's exactly the same as what you get in Dublin when it arrives in the pub. (00:27:16) However, there's probably 30 variables that can make a difference as to what it tastes like when it gets to the glass and you taste it. (00:27:25) So in order to get those 30 variables spot on is really, really difficult. (00:27:29) What are some of the key ones? (00:27:30) The key, the temperature of the keg, the temperature of the room it's in, the width of the line it comes through, the mixture of gas that you push it through with, the temperature of the cooler, the speed it comes through the line, the kind of tap you've got, how clean your glass is, lots and lots of things. (00:27:46) Do you do a lot of testing on these things and like. (00:27:50) All day long. (00:27:50) So like talk to me, as someone who at one point went into, was envisioning going into food science, talk a little bit about that science of how you figured out (00:28:00) for the dev, the optimal temperature, mix of gas, and so forth. (00:28:05) This is what I was talking about. (00:28:06) What we actually do, I've been selling Guinness for 40 years, so I knew that most of the way it's done in the UK is different and not necessarily the best way. (00:28:14) All right. (00:28:14) So when I was, before we did the Devonshire, me and my business partners went to Dublin. (00:28:19) And we spent some time having a look around. (00:28:21) So we went into the cellars where the beer was being stored and we had a look at the temperatures, the pressures, the gas they were using, the night of time that they left it to sit, how wide the lines were, what temperature the coolers were, how quick it was coming through at the top. (00:28:35) We looked at the nozzles, the taps and all of that. (00:28:37) And we did a big study on the best way to do it. (00:28:40) And we put together our way of doing it, which might not be exactly the way anyone else does, but somehow it works and people think our Guinness tastes great. (00:28:48) And I'll (00:28:49) I'll believe that if they tell me. (00:28:50) So I'm very pleased about it. (00:28:52) Can you explain, I guess, from a cultural perspective, why the pouring of a pint looms so large in the UK psyche? (00:29:00) Because this is something like, you don't really have this in the US, right? (00:29:03) Like, people are not going to complain that, like, the foam was like a centimeter. (00:29:09) Well, I'll tell you what I think it is. (00:29:11) I think it goes back to that timelessness. (00:29:14) and that there's a performance that happens behind a bar. (00:29:17) If you think of the best pubs you've ever seen, the bar's always kind of in the space where you can see it from everywhere. (00:29:24) So it becomes like a stage in a theater and the staff are like the players. (00:29:29) So the customers want to know that they're doing their very best and that they can talk about something that's banal and won't cause offense. (00:29:38) So the great thing about talking about your Guinness with someone you don't know is you know you're not going to fall out because you're not going to get into any political territory. (00:29:46) You're not going to talk about religion or race or anything like that. (00:29:49) You can go, well, I know a place where there's a slightly better one and they do this and I can split the G. (00:29:54) And this tastes really great. (00:29:55) And this is my favorite one. (00:29:56) And it's kind of a gorgeous, beautiful, banal, sociable thing. (00:30:00) to be able to banter about and know that you're not going to cross any red lines and know that you're going to have a fun time. (00:30:06) And I think that's really important. (00:30:07) There's both the theatrical and performance part and then there's the sociable part. (00:30:12) It's a really lovely thing to be able to talk about. (00:30:14) I think British people also love to complain and so having, and I can say that because I'm married to a Brit, but like having something to unite around and complain about. (00:30:23) Yeah, that makes sense. (00:30:24) It's such a piece, like talk to anyone, you're never going to get in too much of A fight. (00:30:29) It's never going to be too (00:30:32) I've literally never seen someone fall out about a Guinness or a conversation about Guinness. (00:30:36) It's always fun. (00:30:38) Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. (00:30:40) So speaking of speaking, as I've gotten older, I've become very sensitive to loud places. (00:30:48) I like walk by a place and there's booming music. (00:30:50) I'm like, I don't want to walk into there, obviously. (00:30:53) I want to have a conversation with someone. (00:30:54) Talk to us about sound design and building an environment that is conducive to a conversation. (00:31:01) I think that's really important for pubs, and I have a particular view on this that people might not always agree on. (00:31:07) I don't think that having sports and TVs in traditional pubs is a good idea. (00:31:13) I also don't think that having background music on speakers is a good idea. (00:31:17) And some do. (00:31:18) Some do and some disagree with me. (00:31:20) But for me, I think it's best to leave it out. (00:31:22) And I think that the sound you should hear is the sound of convivial chat in the background and the, you know, the clink of glasses and people having fun. (00:31:30) And I think that's a very calming sound to have. (00:31:33) And we think also really carefully about (00:31:36) how sound would travel through a space. (00:31:39) I think the very best posts, and particularly the old ones, if you look at them, they've got screens and little places you can hide and sort of textured wallpapers on the ceilings and on the walls. (00:31:50) So the sound doesn't bounce around as much. (00:31:53) It's a much more dead space. (00:31:54) And they use really thick old carpets as well, so that, you know, you can have a private conversation and you can't be overheard. (00:32:01) And there's places you can hide and places you can sort of not be seen. (00:32:04) And I think that's really important. (00:32:06) important. (00:32:07) And having, a lot of, sometimes places are great big square boxes where if you say something, the sound travels everywhere. (00:32:14) And we really avoid that in our design. (00:32:16) I love pubs with little like hidden nooks and crannies. (00:32:19) They're the best. (00:32:19) There's a great one, which I recommended to one of our producers yesterday, the Cheshire Cheese, just down Fleet Street. (00:32:26) It's a great pub. (00:32:26) I love that place with all the little rooms and things. (00:32:30) So, we mentioned the headlines about pubs closing. (00:32:33) Can you diagnose the problem here? (00:32:36) Like if you had to give us a summary of what exactly is going on, what is it? (00:32:40) I think a lot of it is down to historical stuff. (00:32:45) The pub was, 100 years ago, the place where people spent all of their leisure time. (00:32:50) Whereas leisure time has now been carved up with sports, with live music, with concerts, with TV, with Netflix, scrolling on your phone at home on a couch. (00:32:58) You can do that at a pub. (00:32:59) Yeah, but I think... (00:33:02) And the best pubs are up there fighting alongside it for those occasions. (00:33:07) And I think we're entering a golden age for pubs because, you know, while the world is saying that we're all going to move into this two-dimensional AI space where we'll be, you know, playing games and looking at stuff on screens, I can see anecdotally that people are coming in and really loving the shared experience of the chaos of being in a room full of other humans. (00:33:29) And I think that that's going to translate into all sorts of stuff like sport, into being able to go to musical concerts, into going to the zoo, or spending time in spaces with real people. (00:33:41) It's far more exciting than what everybody's banging on about with AI. (00:33:45) Don't the Sam Smith pubs, I'm sorry to keep going on about them, but don't they ban phones or something? (00:33:50) They certainly do. (00:33:51) And that's a really interesting company and worth digging into because old Humphrey Smith, who runs that firm, he's a bit like Willy Wonka in a good way. (00:33:59) And (00:33:59) all of their beers, they still make themselves, they make their own vodka, they bottle their own wine. (00:34:04) They, it's a really closed, closed company and very interesting. (00:34:09) One of the things you hear is that young people don't drink as much as the older generations do. (00:34:16) Another pretty contemporary trend that is not young people per se is the rise of GLP-1s and which supposedly also curtail people's desire to drink alcohol. (00:34:27) I can't imagine Guinness (00:34:29) Yeah, I wouldn't think so. (00:34:31) But what are you saying in terms of like consumer tastes among newer, younger people right now? (00:34:38) I think this whole story that young people don't drink has been massively exaggerated. (00:34:44) I see loads of people, you know, between 18 and 25 still piling in and, you know, having pints and having fun in the same way as I did when I was that age. (00:34:55) And yeah, maybe they are overall drinking a little bit less and maybe being a bit more (00:34:59) healthy, which is a great thing, but they certainly enjoy a few beers. (00:35:03) And I think if you start off in business thinking, young people don't drink anymore, so I'm not going to look after them, they certainly are not going to come in. (00:35:11) I think we need to look after those guys and make sure that they feel comfortable and safe and keep the pub as a center of community for them so that they can use it in the same way we did. (00:35:21) This is a very cliched journalistic question, but what's the hardest part of running a pub? (00:35:27) The hardest part, I think, is deciding your (00:35:29) going to do it. (00:35:30) Because if you do it and you do it well, it's a real vocation and you do it all the time. (00:35:35) It's not a part-time job. (00:35:37) I never turn off. (00:35:39) So I spend six or seven days a week in the pub. (00:35:42) I'll be there at least a few hours a day, sometimes the whole day. (00:35:45) And to do it well, I think you've got to be there. (00:35:47) What are you doing when you're there? (00:35:49) Like when you're on site, what are you doing? (00:35:52) Is it management? (00:35:54) Yelling at people, Gordon Ramsay stuff. (00:35:57) We don't we don't yell, but no, it does. (00:35:59) We've got 165 staff, so just meeting and looking after them and making sure they're feeling good is a really great thing. (00:36:07) I obsess about details about making sure that everything is clean and there's no visual noise around the place and that people know to keep that stuff correct. (00:36:17) I'm always looking at, you know, paint work and finishes and where stuff is placed and making sure things are like that. (00:36:23) But to me, it feels a little bit now I've moved on in my career. (00:36:26) It feels more like (00:36:27) conducting an orchestra, so I can see what everybody's doing. (00:36:31) I love catching my team doing things correctly and right. (00:36:34) I love them going above and beyond, and I just love working with these brilliant people that I work with. (00:36:40) So, you know, just spending time with people is what I've put my life to, and it's really great. (00:36:46) Sorry, I'm laughing because I'm thinking about the story that you told about your wife not being able to pour a pint, and-- Can I tell you, that was not her fault. (00:36:56) because if she had been properly shown how to do it, then that would not have happened. (00:37:01) So that was completely. (00:37:02) I think she was just thrown in there. (00:37:03) Yeah, absolutely. (00:37:04) This is exactly what I was going to say. (00:37:05) So my husband very briefly worked as a bartender at Wetherspoons, got zero training, was basically thrown into it and made all sorts of mistakes, including pouring everyone like the top shelf gin before he was actually told about the cheap stuff and also mixing up hoisin and BBQ sauce at one point and things. (00:37:25) things like that. (00:37:26) But what I was going to ask, actually, working in pubs or restaurants is sort of a notoriously pressurized environment and sometimes kind of an abusive environment. (00:37:37) Has your management style changed at all over the years? (00:37:40) Do you find the way you manage people now is different to what you would have been doing in the 1990s or early 2000s? (00:37:46) I don't think it's markedly different, but I am super aware that managing people well and making sure that they feel (00:37:55) empowered and that they know what's going on and that they feel comfortable, safe and happy is everything. (00:38:02) Because when our employees feel that, I know that the business accelerates. (00:38:07) And that has been really what I've concentrated on. (00:38:10) In terms of having seen, you know, unpleasant things in the past in kitchens and around, once again, thankfully not in my places, but certainly I think there was a lot of that around. (00:38:20) And I hope there's not much of it about now. (00:38:23) Just to, just to on the business question, having started, the inflation that happened in 2021, 22 exploded everywhere. (00:38:32) Yeah. (00:38:33) You mentioned that you're always going to have a. (00:38:36) pint that's under 5 quid. (00:38:37) But talk to us just about like, when you think about menu design or when you think about beer selection or just when you think about the business in general, managing a pub today with today's raw input prices, et cetera, versus say if we had been having this conversation in the mid-2010s or in the mid-90s, like how different is it because of the reality of just the high cost of anything? (00:39:01) I think footfall is hard, has been hit the most in pubs and that's. (00:39:06) big killer. (00:39:06) I think if you're selling hundreds of pints a day, you're not so much worried about the margins. (00:39:12) Okay. (00:39:12) And you know, I'd like to, I always have flipped it on its head for us in that we've always gone for volume. (00:39:18) So when we're full, we're not so worried. (00:39:20) Yes, of course our costs are really high. (00:39:23) But when you have margin and that it kind of balances itself out. (00:39:28) And what's the key in a business, finding a business partner? (00:39:31) This is always a really difficult thing in any business, right? (00:39:35) Going into business with someone or two people or finding the right investor that will be aligned time wise and margin wise and return wise. (00:39:44) Having done this now, what are some of the important things to know for whether it's a pub or even anything about the type of person you're willing to go into business? (00:39:52) I would say don't go into business with someone who has got the same skills as you because you will both be doing the same thing. (00:40:00) You need to find someone who has completely different skills to you. (00:40:03) And in the case of me, Ashley and Charlie, it's a perfect example. (00:40:07) Charlie is a big picture guy. (00:40:10) He's set up his own restaurant chain, Flatiron, and was incredibly successful there. (00:40:15) He thinks really from the top down. (00:40:18) He's very commercial. (00:40:20) He's brilliant in meetings when it comes down to the financial side of things and great like that. (00:40:25) We've got Ashley, who spent 20 years working alongside the best chef in the world, earned 5 Michelin stars in that time. (00:40:33) He's attention to detail on the food and product and purchasing side. (00:40:38) He's second to none. (00:40:39) And he's also a wonderful guy. (00:40:40) And I think you're going to be speaking to him, which is great. (00:40:43) He has the best palate for tasting things I've ever seen. (00:40:47) He knows ingredients inside and out. (00:40:49) And he was able to really choose dishes that we could do all year round so we don't have to change them. (00:40:55) So we don't have to be seasonal like everybody else. (00:40:58) And that makes a big difference on the impact of cost. (00:41:02) And then there's me, who's the front of house guy. (00:41:04) I'll front the business, talk to everybody, (00:41:07) operate the thing. (00:41:08) So we're like three corners of a working triangle. (00:41:13) And for me, that has been unbelievable. (00:41:16) And we do have some similar skills in terms of the business, but the main ones are all very, very far apart. (00:41:23) And that has made us really strong. (00:41:25) This is actually the perfect segue into the next segment of our conversation and our next guest. (00:41:30) But one other thing I would love to ask, and I apologize in advance for asking it so directly, but what are the margins actually like (00:41:37) for a pub like yours? (00:41:39) We're pretty happy. (00:41:40) I think I'm, because we're a private business and we don't necessarily have to say, I'm going to keep that discreet, but we're certainly at a similar level to the marketplace, if not maybe a little bit higher. (00:41:54) And I think good pubs are still converting at, between 15 and 25%. (00:42:00) But, it's a great position to be in if we were at that. (00:42:04) Osh, thank you so much for coming on Oddlast. (00:42:06) That was great. (00:42:07) Joe, I'm absolutely delighted to be on the podcast. (00:42:09) I listen to it all the time. (00:42:11) And seeing and hearing your voice at the same time, same for you, Tracy, has been a great pleasure. (00:42:15) So thank you so much for having me on. (00:42:17) No, thank you. (00:42:18) I'm glad we made this happen. (00:42:19) Yeah. (00:42:19) Cheers, buddy. (00:42:35) Support for this show comes from public.com. (00:42:38) If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions. (00:42:43) Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. (00:42:46) On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. (00:42:52) Just describe what you want to do in plain English, like if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500, or if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. 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(00:43:49) Our fifth annual Asia-Pacific Summit will explore how business and finance leaders are shaping the next phase of globalization by strengthening resilience and driving a multi-speed energy transition across Asia's (00:44:00) diverse markets. (00:44:02) Join us for solutions-driven discussions and networking opportunities. (00:44:06) Thank you to our participating sponsor, Burrito Renewables. (00:44:09) Learn more at bloomberglive.com slash SBS-Singapore. (00:44:15) All right, so that was our conversation recorded in our London studio with Oishan Rogers. (00:44:20) And now you're going to hear our live episode recorded with Chef Ashley Palmer-Watts. (00:44:24) I love the Devonshire, by the way. (00:44:26) It's a great spot. (00:44:27) That's a good start. (00:44:28) Yes, a good start. (00:44:29) Now, (00:44:31) I'm going to ask you to expose your trade secrets and give us, in the most excruciating detail possible, the conditions to serve the perfect pint of Guinness. (00:44:41) Oh, how long do we have? (00:44:43) We have an hour. (00:44:44) So pre the pub, I asked my now partner, Oshin, what were all the myths busted and what were the truths? (00:44:52) And he said, look, it's going to take an hour. (00:44:55) We don't have an hour, so I'm going to top line it for you. (00:44:56) Okay. (00:44:57) Basically, it starts with obviously the beer coming in. (00:45:00) Okay. (00:45:00) And then you need to let it settle and you need to bring the temperature down. (00:45:04) Really, I mean, slowly, but I mean, it takes a couple of days. (00:45:07) Okay. (00:45:08) So it'll come into the sort of corridor. (00:45:11) I mean, we sell a lot, so we've not got enough space. (00:45:13) So it's everywhere. (00:45:14) Every door you open, it's there. (00:45:17) It sits in the corridor, comes gently down, then it goes under the street in the sort of old caves in there, and then it comes down, that's all chilled. (00:45:25) That comes down, then it goes into the cellar, so about two days later. (00:45:28) Okay. (00:45:30) It then sits there, doesn't get disturbed again until you tap it and you start serving it. (00:45:36) The pipes from the cellar to the tap are the shortest it can possibly be from the cellar to upstairs, so it's directly underneath the bar. (00:45:46) Then you have the right circumference of the pipe to allow the right flow. (00:45:52) Then it's about pressure. (00:45:53) Okay, let's talk pressure. (00:45:55) You need to put enough pressure through to pour it in about 13, 14 seconds up to the top of the harp. (00:46:00) And then you have that 90-second rest on the font. (00:46:05) The pressure of the gas, there's two gases. (00:46:07) There's nitrogen and CO2. (00:46:10) Now in Ireland, they do an 80-20, 80 nitrogen, 20 CO2. (00:46:15) in England, we're kind of made to buy a pre-mixed gas, which is 75, 25. (00:46:21) We actually mix our own, and our own little magic number is 82, 18. (00:46:26) And then from there, it's about the type of, there's a little plate in the pourer with five tiny holes, like pinholes. (00:46:35) And depending on which one of those, (00:46:38) You choose, gives you your texture, and then it's a balance. (00:46:42) So it's pressure, gas mix, temperature, and time. (00:46:46) And then trying to get everyone to follow that and really understand it and respect that. (00:46:51) And there you go. (00:46:52) That was awesome. (00:46:57) Can I just say, this seems like a lot of work. (00:47:01) I asked your partner this question, but I would be curious to get your thoughts as well. (00:47:06) And I'm going to play the role of like ignorant American here. (00:47:09) But why does pouring a good pint loom so large in the British consciousness? (00:47:14) Because in the US, you know, someone hands us a bottle of Bud Light, we don't really complain that much. (00:47:19) Maybe we should. (00:47:20) I guess it's quicker, I suppose. (00:47:22) But I mean, you know, the thing about pubs is they're so... (00:47:25) They're so British. (00:47:26) It's part of our heritage that I think it is for literally everyone, right? (00:47:31) It doesn't matter who you are, how rich you are, how poor you are, what you're there for, whether it's catching up with friends, or you're sad, or you're happy, or whatever, or just on your own with your own thoughts in your head. (00:47:42) I think, you know, it's about taste and appreciation. (00:47:47) And I often ask myself, Why is it that we love beer so much? (00:47:50) And I don't know the reason, because, you know, (00:47:53) You can only drink so many before you fall over. (00:47:55) So maybe that's the lovely tension between the two. (00:48:00) Let's just stick on the technical questions for a moment. (00:48:02) How did you figure this out? (00:48:04) So like, okay, like you've optimized something. (00:48:08) How did you go from, okay, you're going to start a pub, it's going to be a big investment up front. (00:48:13) You want to get it just right. (00:48:15) Was there AB testing? (00:48:16) Was there taste testing? (00:48:18) Like what does that process look like of making sure that the final mix of gas, everything, (00:48:23) that you know you have it right? (00:48:25) Well, I would say it's probably not finished. (00:48:27) And I'll tell you the reason why. (00:48:29) The question comes, and a good friend of mine who's very, very clever, he's an American guy, scientist, food scientist. (00:48:36) We're actually talking to him at the moment about the solubility of those gases in the liquid. (00:48:42) Great. (00:48:42) So at the end of the night, the gases are turned off on those cakes, okay? (00:48:48) And what that means is that if you leave the pressure on, the solubility takes too much of that gas into the beer, the beer becomes too foamy and too frothy. (00:48:58) But my question to him was, and we don't know the answer yet, he's coming back in June and we're going to try and figure this out with Osh as well, is that as the volume of beer in the keg reduces, the relative gas saturation to it could be (00:49:15) have a sliding scale of the solubility, but then there's the thing of saturation of the solubility of the gas. (00:49:21) So it's a really complicated thing, probably a little bit above my understanding. (00:49:26) But we're never happy just going, you know what? (00:49:29) That's finished. (00:49:30) And I think that's key with anything to do with a restaurant. (00:49:33) But you get to do lots of taste testing as you go along. (00:49:36) Well, it has to be done. (00:49:37) That sounds pretty good. (00:49:38) To be fair. (00:49:39) Yeah, it's not a bad place to be at work. (00:49:42) Okay, so I know you've been at a bunch of different restaurants, including famously the chef at the Fat Duck with Heston Blumenthal. (00:49:51) When you go around about setting up a menu, when you first like go to the drawing board and say, this is what we want our menu to be, how important? (00:49:59) important are the actual economics and the price points? (00:50:02) Like, would you say, This dish sounds phenomenal, and I would like to do it, but actually, the unit economics don't really work for it? (00:50:10) When I joined Option Charlie, originally, they just wanted one recipe of a dish that we used to serve in Bray. (00:50:17) I said, Yeah, this is no problem. (00:50:19) You can have it. (00:50:20) It's fine. (00:50:21) I said, Look, why don't we make something synonymous with the pub? (00:50:25) And it was more about creating things (00:50:28) The economic side is really, really important, but it's more about what is it you're coming to experience? (00:50:33) What are you going to feel? (00:50:34) What are we doing for you? (00:50:36) Why are you coming to us? (00:50:38) So after the hour's Guinness chat, we then brought Guinness into the beef, chicken, suet pudding and finished the sauce with some Guinness. (00:50:46) And it became synonymous with the pub. (00:50:49) The process of the menu, they had an idea of the framework of what this menu would be. (00:50:55) I came in quite late, obviously, just over a year before we opened. (00:50:59) So what year did it open for those in the area? (00:51:02) November 23. (00:51:03) Okay. (00:51:04) So November 22, we started talking. (00:51:07) And then in January 23, we sat down in Oshin's flat in Soho. (00:51:13) And we just talked about food for three days straight. (00:51:18) And it was based around that framework. (00:51:20) So we went through and there are a few things that were left off and a few things that were added in. (00:51:26) And I sort of was the conduit of almost like two parents' input on what they loved and what they didn't love about certain things of what this thing could be. (00:51:35) So we wanted to do a scallop dish, and if we could buy scallops from this diver up in Scotland, and I don't know, maybe we'll make our own bacon, and maybe if we could use malt vinegar somehow. (00:51:47) So I would distill this down into a plan, add my sort of, I don't know, (00:51:52) know, 25 years, 30 years experience in creating things, but then creating things that we could replicate on large numbers. (00:52:00) You know, we'll do 650 covers today in the restaurant, for example. (00:52:04) So it's great making it for 50, but you need to do it for a large volume. (00:52:08) So that's really where there's a lovely tension between that. (00:52:11) Actually, talk more about that. (00:52:12) I'm sort of fascinated by the idea of (00:52:16) Okay, you have a recipe, it might be good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna be able to scale for and do it in volume. (00:52:23) I still like, in my mind, I don't understand how restaurants work. (00:52:26) How do they get so much food out so fast? (00:52:29) I don't really understand how steakhouses work. (00:52:31) Talk to us about building the repetition process. (00:52:35) Yeah, so I mean, it's about experience. (00:52:37) Experience and knowledge is probably the most powerful thing that you gain through your career. (00:52:43) You know, you think you know everything at 25, reality is. (00:52:46) 20 years later, you know a lot more. (00:52:48) I think it's about understanding how things work and where mistakes can happen, where gaps are that allow those mistakes to happen and fix in the root cause. (00:52:57) So reducing down mistakes gives you greater consistency. (00:53:02) So when I am building recipes around a dish, you want to put as much measurable control in there as possible, clear, (00:53:12) simple step-by-step approach. (00:53:14) You know, no information is stupid, really, because you don't want to assume that people know something that you don't make clear to them in the 1st place. (00:53:23) And then it's about, you know, for example, all the beef that we have. (00:53:28) We have a room probably a bit bigger than this stage where all the beef is aged downstairs. (00:53:33) We have a grill in one of the dining rooms called the grill room, and we burn oaken beach in a massive kiln. (00:53:40) It runs it. (00:53:41) 800, 900 degrees. (00:53:42) We knock the wood down into embers, and then we lift them onto the ember beds, and we cook at different heights and temperatures. (00:53:49) And so you can cook the whole way. (00:53:52) You know, if you wanted a medium steak or a medium, you know, beef chop, you could do that the whole way. (00:53:58) But it'd be a much more gentle process, slower, because you've got to allow that heat to transfer in. (00:54:04) We've set it up slightly differently. (00:54:05) We cook very quickly and quite hot, so that we create the crust, we create the sear, then it goes on to the next person, which is in the kitchen, and they control medium, medium-well, medium-rare, rare, and they look after it from there. (00:54:19) Because to do that for this many covers all the way on the grill would be impossible. (00:54:25) You'd need a grill five times the size. (00:54:28) Joe, why did we decide to record this conversation at dinnertime? (00:54:31) I know! (00:54:33) You were talking about beef just then, and clearly earlier in the conversation, we were talking about higher beef prices. (00:54:39) How much of an issue is that for someone who is actually serving that meat at the restaurant? (00:54:44) Yeah, I mean, it is a challenge. (00:54:46) I mean, it went up quite a lot over the last couple of years. (00:54:49) Yeah, and you specialize in beef. (00:54:50) You have a whole room dedicated to it. (00:54:51) It doesn't come down. (00:54:52) Nothing ever comes down, to be fair. (00:54:55) Occasionally, fish will come down, but pretty much, we're now seeing the effects, like the guys were saying earlier, the fuel and prices are going up, another 30p on a scallop. (00:55:04) It's quite a lot, I think you've just got to be clever. (00:55:08) I mean, we buy direct from abattoirs because of the scale that we can and Charlie's relationships with different beef producers. (00:55:16) But it's about having (00:55:18) An entry level, so we use skirt steak, which is on our twenty-nine pound menu for three courses: steak and chips, prawn cocktail, and then sticky toffee, and it's about utilizing the right cut at the right price for accessibility, and a sort of anyone can come to our restaurant it's not expensive, but then you can come and spend... (00:55:38) 100 pounds on a beef job, for example. (00:55:41) So there's that range, you know, it's top and bottom. (00:55:44) Wait, this actually, I forget who we were talking about this earlier, but we need to clear something up. (00:55:50) Is it true? (00:55:51) Oh, this was with Francine this morning. (00:55:53) Is it true that it's a really bad idea to order the second most expensive wine on the menu? (00:55:59) This is a thing that they always say, the dad is there for suckers and the dad's the one with the highest margin. (00:56:04) Can you talk about wine pricing? (00:56:06) Is it true that you're fooled to buy the second most expensive (00:56:09) Well, I'm sure in some places he could be right, but I mean, I can only talk about what we do. (00:56:16) And we have a nice list, and it does range, but it really does focus on that entry level. (00:56:22) So instead of that old thing of having your house wine and it's the cheapest one, and no one orders it because it's the cheapest one, and go for the other one, we actually work with one of Osh's friends in Portugal, and he makes our Devonshire wine. (00:56:34) Now, (00:56:35) It's not our house wine. (00:56:37) It punches a little bit higher up the list than that, but the prices are down where house wines are because we don't want to penalize people for coming in at entry level. (00:56:47) But I think when you construct the wine list, the higher you go up in the value, the sort of better value you get, the margins are less. (00:56:55) We don't apply a whole three or four times across the whole thing and hope for the best. (00:57:02) You want to be smart. (00:57:02) You want to reward people and encourage people to drink better. (00:57:05) How do you actually source new-- drink better, that's right. (00:57:10) How do you source new wine or new ingredients, new suppliers? (00:57:14) Are people pitching to you all the time? (00:57:16) Do they come to the Devonshire and they're like, we have some great scallops from the following origin at this particular price, or do you go out and try to find them? (00:57:25) A bit of both, but I mean, a lot of suppliers. (00:57:28) When you do speak to someone, you say, Are you sure you can do the volume? (00:57:32) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. (00:57:33) Yeah, we're gonna need like 3,000 scallops a week. (00:57:36) Yeah, yeah, it's not a problem. (00:57:37) And then you order 3,000 and they're like, Oh, you actually do want 3,000. (00:57:41) I'm like, of course, I'm not telling you 3,000 to get them 10p cheaper. (00:57:48) It's all about paying the right price, a fair price, for the best quality. (00:57:52) And that's what we're about, you know? (00:57:54) If you're trying to drive the price down on everything all the time, you're never going to have the best relationship with the people that either are farming it, catching it, and giving it to you. (00:58:04) Wait, actually, this is really interesting about that relationship. (00:58:08) How often... (00:58:10) Are suppliers changing? (00:58:13) Like when you come to an agreement with a supplier, let's say, okay, you find your scallop provider who can deliver that volume. (00:58:20) Do you lock it in? (00:58:21) Do you say, okay, we're going to do this for six months. (00:58:24) Is it for a week? (00:58:25) You come to an agreement, maybe you come to a price. (00:58:27) What is the duration of that agreement? (00:58:29) I mean, it varies massively. (00:58:31) The scallops, for example, it was last week, the fuel went up and I'm going to have to put 30 pence on a scallop. (00:58:39) Listening to the guys on before me, (00:58:40) we listen to those guys. (00:58:41) So when it comes down again, fair's fair. (00:58:44) But I think there are people out there that take the opportunity and, exploit that a little bit, I would say. (00:58:52) We like to build relationships that last and mean something. (00:58:55) And we bring a lot of our suppliers in to the Devonshire. (00:58:59) Most people come and enjoy it as a place to come. (00:59:03) and you just hope that you have this really great honesty and integrity with these guys, and that everything's fair. (00:59:25) Support for the show comes from public.com. (00:59:27) If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions. (00:59:33) the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. (00:59:36) On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. (00:59:41) Just describe what you want to do in plain English. (00:59:44) Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500. 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