Three Things with Thom Elliot (Co-Founder of Pizza Pilgrims)

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We wrote this book about pizza and we did a lot of research into why people choose pizza.
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there's just so much evidence like pizza is the food that people turn to when their life's had a bad turn or they've had a tough day.
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if you are not obsessed
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with turnover, what are you obsessed
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with?
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I'm obsessed with happiness.
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In the Declaration of Independence, They don't talk about you being happy in this new country they've created.
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They talk about creating a country where the pursuit of happiness is possible.
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I worked in advertising for seven years.
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I think by the end I was able to manage one person.
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If you come into hospitality with the right attitude you can be managing a team of 30 people in a year.
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The only reason I wanna grow is to give people opportunities to grow themselves.
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I look at what we've got and I'm like, Why?
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Why are we growing?
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I don't wanna grow for growing sake.
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That to me is the whole problem.
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We could do it.
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But it would be not as good.
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Hello, I'm Jamie Mitchell and welcome to All Together's Three things where I get to explore the extraordinary careers of some exceptional founders and CEOs and straight into the mix.
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Today we're gonna talk pizzas with co-founder of Pizza Pilgrim's, Thom Elliot.
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Welcome Tom.
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Thank you for having me.
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For those, and I, I, I don't think there'll be many, but let's just, let's just play the game for those less familiar with pizza pilgrims.
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Tell me uh, your one line, your one line explanation of what pizza pilgrims is.
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Oh, strange to the hardest question of the day.
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Pizza Pilgrims is a collection of pizzerias across London and the UK, selling the best quality Neopolitan pizza we possibly can, in a fun environment that looks somewhat, somewhat modeled on a sort of teenage boy's bedroom, essentially.
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Ah, that's how I recognize it.
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Although that green, the green is not necessarily a color that was in my youth.
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we, for those who've just started listening, we won't talk pizzas and hospitality exclusively.
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but by definition we're gonna explore the story of pizza pilgrims as we get to talk more about culture, I guess, and growth and, how to deliver a consistent, brilliant product and service and good stuff like that.
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the last podcast, full podcast I did was with the founder of Pension B, Romi.
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And I love a, I love a business that has what it does in its name, pizza, pilgrims Pension B.
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But it, it surprised me given I knew a lot about the purpose of pension B cuz I'd been a customer for so long that we didn't talk about purpose until about, three quarters of the way through.
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So I just thought I'd kick off with it and I haven't found anything online to say what the mission or purpose or why or North Star, but by the way, that could just be my research, right?
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Yeah.
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But how, how would you describe why you get up every morning?
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Why the team get up every morning to sweat and toil, over hot pizza ovens for for their, for their client, their customers?
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Absolutely.
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the reason you haven't found it online is we're redoing our website at the moment.
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So it's currently only exists on my iPad being written as we speak.
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Essentially.
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I mean, our, our aim is to leave everyone we engage with happier than when we found them.
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So that's, whether that's customers teams.
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suppliers, partners, anyone.
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What we kind of figured out is that that was, that was what we like to do.
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We like, you know, we like the hospitality thing, we like people to come and have a fun time.
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Obviously that's a huge part of hospitality anyway.
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But then we started looking into pizza.
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We wrote this book about pizza and we did a lot of research into why people choose pizza.
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And there's just so much online evidence like pizza is the food that people turn to when they're like, they, their life's had a bad turn or they've had a tough day.
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It's the comfort food.
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No,
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it is, it's like a warm hug of a food People have the, the t-shirts like pizza is my boyfriend.
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Like, people talk about pizza, like it's their spouse.
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Sometimes, like people, you know, you cannot make everyone happy.
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You are not pizza.
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That kind of is, is quite pervasive and popular culture.
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so you are in the, you're in the happy business.
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So you're in the happy business.
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And I think my, my fear with that is that it becomes sort of a mi maniacal, like, you know, everyone be happy all the time.
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But I think what, what we're trying to create is this, this idea of sort of a long term happiness is part of the journey type thing.
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And all of our values feed into, particularly for the team, obviously feed into like it being a long term, a a long term aim and happiness.
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And I'm, I'm obsessed with this idea that in the Declaration of Independence, They don't talk about you being happy in this new country they've created.
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They talk about creating a country where the pursuit of happiness is, is possible.
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And that is, I think, what we want for Peter Programms.
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We want to create an environment where, for people who want to go for it, we're setting up the right structures and the right goals and the right long-term solutions to pursue happiness in your career with peace pilgrims,
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or as a, as a customer coming in to
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have a meal.
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Yeah.
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And I think obviously, you know, there, there's a version of that way, you know, our, our relationship with the customer is a long term thing because we'd hope they'd, you know, they'd come back to as many times and bring their friends and that journey goes with us and we have plenty of internal initiatives that look to drive both immediate short term happiness.
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Mm-hmm.
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Everything from, you know, our only question on feedback forms is did you leave happier to a whole initiative we have around, what we call super kind bombs, which is basically just fun things you can throw into a meal.
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Tailored to the particular table of wants and needs to make super kind
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bonds, super kind.
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SKBs,
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SKBs.
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Everyone loves a three letter acronym.
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Everyone loves a three letter SKBs.
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Give me an example of an skb.
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so it could be anything.
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It's just the little things like, you know, when you order in this kind of, you know, in the sharing platter restaurants them now everywhere and there's three of you at the table and you order the sharing platter of everything and two of them are on the plate and you're like, or four, what we're supposed to do with that.
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So it's just like acknowledge that when someone, if there's five people and they order a Mac and cheese balls and there's three in there, they want five.
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So like, either throw them in or like find a way to make that work or, you know, if people are choosing to pudding at the end, they can't decide which one to have.
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Give them the other one just to try as a fun idea.
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Um, do you,
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um, have rules around that?
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I think Prep have a, a, each team member can give out a certain number of free coffees a day kind of thing.
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But there's a limit.
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We've actually flipped on his head and like, we set a target that you have to hit.
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So we have a button on the till, which is like, did you do a super kind bomb?
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A super kind bomb?
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And then each store has a target of like, this is what you need to be super clean bombing this week.
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And for those sorts, they're really good at it.
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what happens if they're super kind bombing everybody, it's gonna
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hurt at some point.
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Yeah, I mean, I think, look, we're very much a, a company about, you know, forgiveness, not permission.
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And I think obviously if you're, if you're, if you gave away 20% of your turnover last week in super crime bombs, it's probably a little conversation to be like, you've, you've moved over into the wrong side of this.
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But I, I think just making sure that people feel not only free to do it, but excited and encouraged to do it.
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Like,
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so, we, we are heading into the world of some of the, the, the areas I wanted to cover around team.
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But let's deal with this, this particular bit at the moment.
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This bit about giving this autonomy.
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not just to your managers, but to everybody in the business.
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Yeah.
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to go above and beyond for their customers.
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I kind of liken it to the early days for those who were old enough to remember a Virgin Atlantic.
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I always felt they had that kind of, or Southwest Airlines is the other one that's famous for it.
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They sort of didn't have the rule book, there wasn't the process to follow.
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and the box sticking exercise, there was an expectation that you think for yourself and you make sure the customer's getting a great experience, really hard to build.
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Into cultures and, and, and, and have at the same time enough controls that it doesn't go mad.
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It's really interesting.
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I think something that we learned is obviously, you know, us having started a business, we quite like a bit of white space and a bit of like, you know, just you, you do you and, and see what you think and we really still encourage that.
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But actually what we increasingly have to do is codify a bit.
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we're moving into an area that I would like.
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Here are some clear examples of a situation and a super kind bomb that would match it so that you can kind of more easily get people to go, oh, that thing I read about that, that's just happened.
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Let's do that.
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So I think you've got to give the people who are not confident to go.
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Examples to go for it.
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Examples.
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And I think
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what, how do you share beyond the examples that you have codified great practice inside the business when it happens.
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So if someone in, I don't know, your Oxford store does this really creative, super kind, bomb skb, does it get
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shared?
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Do people, so we have an internal channel called Happiness Days where people share the team get happiness days.
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So go and do something that makes'em happy, paid off.
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So that's where that began.
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But that has also morphed now into things that people are doing.
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Super climb bombs in store for customers.
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I did this great thing, this happened, you know, they left this note or whatever it is.
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but how do you share the, it goes, so we have, a Facebook workplace internally.
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Everyone is on which has been a game
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changer.
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I put, I put Workplace into, into Tom Dixon and loved it.
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I loved it because obviously, everybody knows Facebook and therefore it was like the, the adoption is, is straight away.
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Cause everyone knows exactly what it is they're doing and, and, and, and what it's there for.
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And it's well designed to encourage sharing and, and all the rest of it.
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Whereas I always found Slack, for instance, really hard to get used to.
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Cause I, I'd never it
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it's not familiar.
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Okay.
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Let's, let's go back to the purpose.
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They say happiness.
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This is the purpose you have developed.
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You've been quite honest in the past about your origin story.
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it may be a throwaway line, but at one point, in the previous podcast, I heard you say something along the lines of, all I wanted out of this business was to get out of advertising.
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Let's Tell the story because I am, and have been ever since the innocent days, a huge fan of origin stories and, their impact or their, how they act as a foundation for a really interesting and engaging brand.
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Okay, and yours is one of the best origin stories.
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but give us the short version as much as you can, from the very first, moment that you and your brother decided we should do pizza.
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Well, yeah, I mean, it, it, it is been a crazy journey, but we were, we were literally sat in the pub, it was probably May or June, 2011.
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we were bemoaning our, I was working in advertising.
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He was working in TV production.
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Neither of us were enjoying it.
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And we had been trying to get into food and not really had the capital law, the experience to get the capital, to do it.
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And what we are watching is suddenly a version of food taken to the streets in front of us and like genuine premium brands and products existing out of a van in Kings Cross or Peckham or whatever.
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And the world of street figure.
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The
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street 2011.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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When, I mean,
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it was beginning to pop, I guess.
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I, I reckon that was like absolutely like 2011, 12.
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And I think if you look now at the London food team, the amount of the great brands that started between 2010 and 2012,
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Is incredible.
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Okay.
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So,
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you were in the pub.
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You, you, you've been trying to get into food.
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Trying to get into
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food is, what does that mean?
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We, we'd like to get acquiring a lease on a pub.
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Just didn't have the money.
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You wanted to be a pub landlord?
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Yeah.
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Well, we, we'd grown up in pubs.
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Both of our parents had run pubs all of our lives, so we kind of literally had grown up above a pub.
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Okay.
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And so we kind of really had that kind of, That sort of hospitality DNA thing.
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let me, let me understand what's going on in your minds during this.
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Is it we should buddy up, partner up brother and, and run business in hospitality?
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Is it I hate my job, I want out.
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This is what I know.
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it's a little bit of both.
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Like genuinely all of.
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E everyone in my, in our family has always like run their own business, like little businesses, like antique shops or, you know, it's in, it's in your dna.
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It's, it's, it's definitely there in the family.
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Like, you know, entrepreneurship.
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I don't like that word at all, but you know what I mean?
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So that was definitely there.
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I think, you know, we really didn't enjoy our jobs either of us, and we did enjoy the idea of like taking what we kind of thought we knew and, and doing it in London.
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And it would be fun and it would be, you know, high energy and it would be exciting.
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And, and did you think you'd just open a pub and you'd happily sit there being a pub landlord?
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Or were you already building ambitions of, you know,
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no pub empires?
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The, the ambition was to open a pub, like not to open a hundred pubs and change the way pubs are done.
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I forget the
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fact, but 50% of restaurants I think fail in the first year and 90% within, you know, two and a half minutes or whatever the number, I mean, it's the biggest, yeah, failure rate is, it's
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comical.
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which, what makes it such an interesting industry?
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Because so few people go into it to make money.
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But you didn't go into it because you had some deep passion to bring, authentic Neapolitan pizza to the population.
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So let's talk about how pizza came about.
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The pizza bit absolutely.
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Was just like, No one's doing pizza.
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This seems like a gap.
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It wasn't the, the hospitality love
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was there.
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No, no love of Italian food.
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No, no grandmother.
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Italian grandmother, or not one.
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None of that.
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The only connection to Italy, which I think, we've sort of dialed up maybe more than was really the case, but James had gone to do a cooking course.
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I love,
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I love I love that.
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Thank you.
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Yeah.
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You know, you're nothing
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but if not honest about this, like, James had gone to do a cooking course for his 21st birthday in Italy for a week.
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Right.
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Uh, okay, so, so this is, this is great cuz this is actually the truth of how so many businesses start.
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Yeah.
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Which is looking for the gap, looking for the opportunity, looking for the problem to be solved.
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Yeah.
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this is not the world's most pressing problem, but the problem is, customers are coming to street food, and and they can't get a pizza.
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Yeah.
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We're gonna solve it.
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Why was there a cap?
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because we figured out very quickly that to cook a pizza you need to carry around a one ton stone oven.
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Whereas to cook a burger you could basically carry what you need on the tube.
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You couldn't use one of those electric.
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Uh,
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no, no.
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If you wanna do proper pizza.
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And also there's something so gloriously visual about those ovens and I mean, they're gen You
00:13:18.830 --> 00:13:25.519
couldn't make our pizza and, and, and, and putting a one ton pizza oven into the back of a van and moving it to the next pitch and then putting up your tent.
00:13:25.519 --> 00:13:26.570
And that's not possible.
00:13:26.570 --> 00:13:26.840
So how
00:13:26.840 --> 00:13:27.500
did you solve that?
00:13:27.649 --> 00:13:32.990
Well, it is, it is possible, but um, it just had not called carry one ton van can.
00:13:33.125 --> 00:13:33.456
Oh, I see.
00:13:33.456 --> 00:13:33.485
Oh,
00:13:33.485 --> 00:13:34.895
see, so you'd have to have the whole va.
00:13:34.926 --> 00:13:35.285
Yes, of
00:13:35.285 --> 00:13:36.725
course you could do the whole van in the van.
00:13:36.785 --> 00:13:38.885
So it was just like that slightly higher barrier to entry.
00:13:38.885 --> 00:13:40.296
And I think we, we, you know, we,
00:13:40.326 --> 00:13:43.716
we you were riffing in the pub basically going riffing, how do we start this thing?
00:13:43.721 --> 00:13:43.936
Yeah.
00:13:43.936 --> 00:13:48.155
And tell, tell everyone that what, what, I mean lots of people know this, but what did you end up deciding would be a good
00:13:48.155 --> 00:13:48.275
idea?
00:13:48.275 --> 00:13:55.450
So we ended up deciding that we would buy one of those three wheeled vans, that you see used to see back then doing coffee called a pi ape.
00:13:55.458 --> 00:13:57.134
and because that would feel.
00:13:57.553 --> 00:13:59.744
Authentically Italian to it had a sort of
00:13:59.833 --> 00:14:05.854
authentic Italian is, it had a sort of silliness, which I think was there from the very beginning of like a sort of a slightly ludicrous vehicle.
00:14:06.003 --> 00:14:08.883
And we were buy said vehicles and we, we were like, great, that's the vehicle we want.
00:14:08.883 --> 00:14:13.485
We started looking into it and we quickly figured out that it was cheaper to buy one in Italy than it was to buy one in England.
00:14:13.485 --> 00:14:16.485
So that's where the idea of like going to Italy to get it came from.
00:14:16.485 --> 00:14:16.666
Yep.
00:14:16.750 --> 00:14:24.039
and then that was sort of the beginning and the idea is we'll put a pizza oven in this van and then we'll have a van that looks cool and a bit silly with a oven.
00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:24.129
The
00:14:24.450 --> 00:14:26.620
specs are, it can hold a one ton pizza oven.
00:14:26.620 --> 00:14:26.860
So we
00:14:26.860 --> 00:14:29.649
called PIO and said, can this take a one ton pizza oven?
00:14:29.654 --> 00:14:30.970
And they're like, absolutely not.
00:14:30.970 --> 00:14:34.570
The limit is, I think it was like 750 kilograms of the payload.
00:14:34.697 --> 00:14:36.407
So we were like, okay, we got you.
00:14:36.437 --> 00:14:39.256
We hear you, but we're gonna ignore you and just cracked on anyway.
00:14:39.256 --> 00:14:46.150
but yeah, so, so we, I guess what, at that point we then met just a whole suite of raised eyebrows from every single person.
00:14:46.447 --> 00:14:54.037
So, you know, whether that was like my employer, me telling that I'm gonna go and do this or our parents or our friends or anything like that.
00:14:54.037 --> 00:14:57.636
Everyone was just like, this doesn't seem like a particularly solid idea.
00:14:57.705 --> 00:14:58.424
So everyone's saying no
00:14:58.942 --> 00:15:05.572
and yet, and then, and then, so then the, the, the moment where it's just like, this is gonna happen and the whole thing just exploded into a bigger idea.
00:15:05.812 --> 00:15:14.701
Whereas we, I emailed my boss in the advertising agency that I worked for, and said, she, I'd found out that she was gonna go and start a bakery in Cambridge, leaving the company to do that.
00:15:14.701 --> 00:15:17.491
And I just emailed her out the blue and said like, you are gonna start a bakery.
00:15:17.491 --> 00:15:18.211
I'm gonna start pizza.
00:15:18.211 --> 00:15:18.692
Let's talk dough.
00:15:18.902 --> 00:15:19.652
We've gotta go and talk.
00:15:19.652 --> 00:15:21.721
Dough went to our house in Camden.
00:15:21.902 --> 00:15:32.731
I had not known at the time, but her husband is the legendary food critic, Tim Hayward, who is just the biggest ball of sort of positive energy that has ever existed potentially.
00:15:32.731 --> 00:15:35.611
And he was just the first person who was like, I know my stuff.
00:15:35.701 --> 00:15:36.751
This is awesome.
00:15:37.081 --> 00:15:37.261
Do
00:15:37.261 --> 00:15:37.471
it.
00:15:38.302 --> 00:15:43.739
And, and then we just sat and we drank and we talked about this trip to Italy and it just kind of grew legs right there.
00:15:43.828 --> 00:15:48.241
And he was the first person who was like, you should get someone to come and film this because this is gonna be a great trip.
00:15:48.241 --> 00:15:48.871
The bit we,
00:15:48.871 --> 00:16:01.389
we just skipped over, for those who dunno, the stories is, is the plan was also to drive while driving it back to the UK all the way, you were gonna stop off along the way and, and learn about how to make a brilliant Italian pizza because you didn't actually know We've never made a all about it.
00:16:01.458 --> 00:16:02.168
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:16:02.173 --> 00:16:04.899
And, and he suggested doing a TV show, which he did.
00:16:04.902 --> 00:16:06.941
and, I've, I've watched bits and pieces of it.
00:16:07.003 --> 00:16:07.315
that's all
00:16:07.315 --> 00:16:07.945
you need to watch.
00:16:07.975 --> 00:16:08.274
No,
00:16:08.274 --> 00:16:09.205
that's always too much.
00:16:09.205 --> 00:16:09.565
In fact.
00:16:09.684 --> 00:16:10.945
but this is, this is the truth.
00:16:10.975 --> 00:16:12.654
You didn't know anything about pizza.
00:16:12.985 --> 00:16:22.673
You were falling in love with this idea of, of of, of authenticity and, the, the authentic Neapolitan, but it's, it's a, a common theme, right?
00:16:22.753 --> 00:16:28.951
Frank Manka, home Size, you and frankly every other Independent.
00:16:28.981 --> 00:16:32.042
Now it's all about bringing the authentic Italian to, to London.
00:16:32.042 --> 00:16:37.562
So what makes you different today, other than, you know, perhaps some of these purpose things in terms of the product I'm talking
00:16:37.567 --> 00:16:39.062
about it, it's a really interesting one.
00:16:39.067 --> 00:16:43.042
I think we, we are, And I would say this obviously, but I think we are the most authentic.
00:16:43.042 --> 00:16:47.331
I mean, there are others, like Santa Maria is still absolutely legendary as a pizza place to me.
00:16:47.721 --> 00:16:52.851
But I think we are the closest to trying to take what Naples are doing as a specific city.
00:16:52.856 --> 00:16:57.615
Not Italy more generally, but like Napoli and what they're about and what they stand for.
00:16:57.855 --> 00:17:01.072
I think we're we're the closest to, to sticking to those guns.
00:17:01.341 --> 00:17:04.484
I did an informal, consumer panel before I came over here.
00:17:04.575 --> 00:17:04.875
Yeah.
00:17:04.994 --> 00:17:15.191
With Jasmine and her colleague at True in Uh, uh, and when I said I was coming here to to do this podcast with you, both of them, it was, it was their favorite, their favorite pizza restaurant.
00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:18.300
But then I had my, so I, I'm, I dunno.
00:17:18.306 --> 00:17:18.540
I'm.
00:17:18.730 --> 00:17:19.480
50, whatever.
00:17:20.240 --> 00:17:20.290
Probably not.
00:17:20.296 --> 00:17:26.830
Your target market hadn't been to pizza pilgrims until one of your NEDs took me a few weeks ago, embarrassing story but true.
00:17:26.893 --> 00:17:36.916
Um, my first reaction on the menu itself was, it doesn't sound in terms of the recipes authentic, there was combinations that I, that didn't feel very Italian.
00:17:36.916 --> 00:17:46.487
So I think that that is the, the line we've always watched is that when, and this has changed during time, that when we went to Naples in the first instance, like it was very much like, this is how you make a margarita.
00:17:46.510 --> 00:17:46.721
Mm-hmm.
00:17:47.080 --> 00:17:49.090
And any deviation from that.
00:17:49.090 --> 00:17:50.770
Don't you dare is, is not a margarita.
00:17:50.921 --> 00:17:52.030
You shouldn't, you can't call it margarita.
00:17:52.030 --> 00:17:53.020
We won't even look at it.
00:17:53.020 --> 00:17:57.383
But yeah, so, so we walked this line for a long time of like, well this is how it's done in Naples and we never mess with it.
00:17:57.383 --> 00:18:01.343
And actually we still use Caputo flour from the mill in Naples.
00:18:01.343 --> 00:18:02.363
We still get that in.
00:18:02.363 --> 00:18:04.252
We know Anima Caputo really well.
00:18:04.258 --> 00:18:05.333
He's a, he's a mate.
00:18:05.603 --> 00:18:08.393
We still get our tomatoes from, from Italy and outside Italy.
00:18:08.393 --> 00:18:10.762
The same producer that we've worked with for a long, long time.
00:18:10.915 --> 00:18:16.435
We still get our few de lattes, you know, they're based in Naples and all, it's all made there, our pure latte mozzarella.
00:18:16.546 --> 00:18:18.415
So this is the real truth of Italian
00:18:18.415 --> 00:18:18.685
food.
00:18:18.746 --> 00:18:19.016
Yeah.
00:18:19.076 --> 00:18:19.736
The reason.
00:18:19.736 --> 00:18:23.816
Three ingredients on a plate works is they have the quality,
00:18:23.996 --> 00:18:24.476
the equality
00:18:24.476 --> 00:18:27.236
is there, and, and let the, the product do the, the flavor.
00:18:27.296 --> 00:18:28.135
And you don't have
00:18:28.135 --> 00:18:28.945
overcomplicated.
00:18:29.066 --> 00:18:30.145
We've always done that.
00:18:30.145 --> 00:18:36.865
But then what we've always tried to bring is a bit more of some of this other influence when you go to New York or like just bring a bit more fun.
00:18:37.016 --> 00:18:38.786
Well, and so lit silly things.
00:18:38.786 --> 00:18:40.835
Some of them, some of them cause controversy.
00:18:40.924 --> 00:18:46.192
So we've done a carbonara pizza that's got pasta on it and Italians are not a fan right now.
00:18:46.192 --> 00:18:51.998
Today, this week we launched probably one of our most controversial of all time as a, as a special called the Americana.
00:18:52.193 --> 00:18:55.223
It's got chips and oh, frankfurters on it now.
00:18:55.223 --> 00:18:56.423
You're annoying me now.
00:18:56.423 --> 00:18:58.403
So this is the really interesting thing about it though, right?
00:18:58.614 --> 00:19:03.443
It is probably the most legit Neapolitan pizza there is in terms.
00:19:03.758 --> 00:19:07.448
Every single kid growing up in Naples, that's the pizza they're brought up on.
00:19:07.718 --> 00:19:12.907
And so all of our neopolitan chefs in pizza pilgrims are in Raptures that we're serving this.
00:19:12.968 --> 00:19:13.238
Okay.
00:19:13.242 --> 00:19:13.897
Classic Neopolitan chef.
00:19:14.178 --> 00:19:14.468
And I think this
00:19:14.468 --> 00:19:15.097
is the truth, right?
00:19:15.097 --> 00:19:20.576
So, people like me, think they've learned a little bit about Italian food with, probably a snobbish attitude.
00:19:20.607 --> 00:19:27.208
forget the fact that it's still a sort of street food in, in Italy and Italians are creative food lovers, and they're gonna
00:19:27.208 --> 00:19:28.528
do all sorts of things with their pizzas.
00:19:28.587 --> 00:19:29.637
They're, they're incredibly protective.
00:19:29.637 --> 00:19:34.407
But I think that the point you're missing, that you keep missing is like this thought that Naples is not Italy.
00:19:35.968 --> 00:19:36.867
They're different.
00:19:37.167 --> 00:19:41.188
Like if you haven't been to Naples, it's nothing like the rest of Italy.
00:19:41.397 --> 00:19:43.317
It's got this insane different energy.
00:19:43.498 --> 00:19:48.327
The most perfect example of why Naples is not Italy is in 1990.
00:19:48.327 --> 00:19:49.347
Italian 90.
00:19:49.347 --> 00:19:52.198
Argentina played Italy in the semi-final.
00:19:52.198 --> 00:19:56.938
And some moron thought it would be brilliant to host that game in the Naples stadium.
00:19:57.320 --> 00:19:59.990
Madonna played for Naples was a God in Naples.
00:20:00.008 --> 00:20:07.478
Naples turned up at the stadium and supported Argentina over Italy because they are so much more about Napoli FC than they are about Italy.
00:20:07.579 --> 00:20:15.680
And I think what's just a broader thing, there's such interesting thing to me about Italy because they have created probably the greatest food country brand that exists in the world.
00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:15.950
Sure.
00:20:16.279 --> 00:20:22.460
This is a country that is not even existed for a hundred years and is formed of a billion different food cultures.
00:20:22.789 --> 00:20:29.690
You know, Pulia feels like Greece, Northern Italy feels like Austria, like, you know, the west of Italy can feel a bit like France.
00:20:29.720 --> 00:20:34.279
Somehow they have got together and created this global image of what Italian food is.
00:20:34.700 --> 00:20:36.200
And it's actually not really that true.
00:20:36.200 --> 00:20:38.750
It's hugely diverse across the whole country.
00:20:39.410 --> 00:20:44.333
I think, I think it's, this is a good segue into, into this, this thing called brand.
00:20:44.333 --> 00:20:47.102
and, you know, I, I, I started with this origin.
00:20:47.162 --> 00:20:48.392
Did we finish the origin story?
00:20:48.392 --> 00:20:48.961
Pretty much.
00:20:49.011 --> 00:20:49.551
Very quickly.
00:20:49.551 --> 00:20:51.201
You, you got pitch.
00:20:51.261 --> 00:20:57.152
There's a whole story around how you got your market store, your market store by being an annoying person for Westminster Council.
00:20:57.152 --> 00:21:03.507
but shows again, some of the characteristics of entrepreneurs, persistency, the resilience you need for the knock backs.
00:21:03.770 --> 00:21:11.545
But you did a year of, of, of events and, and a pitch in, in soho, before opening up a restaurant because you didn't want to do another winter.
00:21:11.964 --> 00:21:12.744
I'm gonna leave it at that.
00:21:13.134 --> 00:21:13.525
Perfect.
00:21:13.694 --> 00:21:14.714
But let's talk about brand.
00:21:14.797 --> 00:21:33.732
I, did, I loved my conversation with Aaron from Bloom and Wild a few months back, and he convinced me that the way anyone creates a truly wonderful, engaging and differentiated brand, which is a word I don't like, is by obsessing about the customer.
00:21:33.732 --> 00:21:36.064
And, and you know, he makes.
00:21:36.064 --> 00:21:39.634
basically, everything was about how does this improve the customer squares?
00:21:39.634 --> 00:21:43.354
How's this improve the customer squares obsessive to the nth degree.
00:21:43.683 --> 00:21:50.433
And of course, in many ways what we mean by brand is how excited and engaged are your customers about you?
00:21:50.433 --> 00:21:51.814
Do they go and tell all their friends?
00:21:51.814 --> 00:21:54.604
Do they you, are they your ambassadors, your marketing, all the rest of it.
00:21:54.963 --> 00:21:55.983
It all links to that.
00:21:55.983 --> 00:22:04.545
Now, when I said this to you on our, our, our phone call, that could have been a, a podcast, you said, our focus has been about the team, not the customer.
00:22:04.692 --> 00:22:07.212
Talk to me, what's the theory here?
00:22:07.542 --> 00:22:10.393
Why are you so obsessed by the team?
00:22:10.506 --> 00:22:21.299
I just think hospitality has a unique position in this country, in the world, in it hires so many people into their first, or one of their first jobs, and it has a, that's a huge responsibility.
00:22:21.654 --> 00:22:26.605
And I think we have seen so many people come into pizza, pilgrims.
00:22:26.800 --> 00:22:30.881
All varying different, you know, skill sets and attitudes and what have you.
00:22:31.300 --> 00:22:39.308
But I just feel so strongly that it's our responsibility to look after them, show them how to do a good job, give'em the opportunity to be themselves.
00:22:39.308 --> 00:22:40.209
That's one of our values.
00:22:40.209 --> 00:22:44.169
Be yourself and, you know, and grow themselves if they want to within the company.
00:22:44.169 --> 00:22:46.449
Because, you know, I worked in advertising for seven years.
00:22:46.449 --> 00:22:48.578
I think by the end I was able to manage one person.
00:22:48.848 --> 00:22:59.949
If you come into hospitality with the right attitude and the right skills, even not the right skills, to be honest, you can be managing a team of 30 people in a, in a business making, you know, turning over two, 3 million pounds a year in a year.
00:23:00.115 --> 00:23:02.634
And the stuff that you learn in that time earning, by
00:23:02.634 --> 00:23:05.244
the way, an exceptional wage.
00:23:05.332 --> 00:23:05.422
yes.
00:23:05.451 --> 00:23:06.321
From, from that,
00:23:06.382 --> 00:23:12.051
from that transition, earning a wage that would make every parent who doubts hospitality raise an eyebrow and be like, oh, right, okay.
00:23:12.321 --> 00:23:12.531
Okay.
00:23:12.537 --> 00:23:16.342
But, so I could riff with you for the next half hour Yeah.
00:23:16.372 --> 00:23:22.632
On how poorly the hospitality industry has represented itself but is that really what's behind?
00:23:22.721 --> 00:23:31.872
You know, did you wake up a, a, a pizza restaurant, number one, and go, you know what, we need to take our responsibility serious in this regard?
00:23:32.382 --> 00:23:34.152
No, I think the responsibility has come later.
00:23:34.201 --> 00:23:38.342
So many people start a restaurant business having done 20 years in restaurant businesses.
00:23:38.342 --> 00:23:38.622
Mm-hmm.
00:23:38.701 --> 00:23:39.692
And they're like, oh, this is how it works.
00:23:39.692 --> 00:23:44.311
And it's like that thing, you know, at school when you get to the top and you kind of treat the people at the bottom like crap.
00:23:44.311 --> 00:23:46.321
Because that's how you were treated when you were at the bottom.
00:23:46.326 --> 00:23:47.461
And someone's gotta break that cycle.
00:23:47.461 --> 00:23:47.551
Right.
00:23:47.551 --> 00:23:49.172
Especially in sh in, in the kitchens.
00:23:49.172 --> 00:23:50.432
I think it's a, a big thing.
00:23:50.436 --> 00:23:51.182
But yeah.
00:23:51.182 --> 00:23:55.741
And I think we, we just came to this without any experience of hospitality and it made no sense to us.
00:23:55.741 --> 00:23:57.001
That grew, you grew up on top of a pub.
00:23:57.182 --> 00:24:00.152
Yeah, but we were sort of 11 and 12 and we'd never really engaged.
00:24:00.301 --> 00:24:01.981
I, I guess we'd never seen a version of it.
00:24:01.981 --> 00:24:03.721
You know, this was a pub where everyone was treated Right.
00:24:03.721 --> 00:24:05.682
And it was, we'd never seen a version of it.
00:24:05.682 --> 00:24:08.432
It was like, just get in the kitchen and work 80 hours and don't bother me.
00:24:08.912 --> 00:24:10.382
Like that just didn't come into You were two
00:24:10.382 --> 00:24:11.912
young heads, took young kids.
00:24:11.942 --> 00:24:12.602
You were two young and.
00:24:12.634 --> 00:24:13.743
People, how old were you?
00:24:13.936 --> 00:24:16.262
What, when you opened your first restaurant, say
00:24:16.353 --> 00:24:17.103
in Pizza Pilgrims?
00:24:17.103 --> 00:24:17.252
Yeah.
00:24:17.298 --> 00:24:20.480
I was, it was 10 years ago, so I was 29.
00:24:20.540 --> 00:24:20.931
Yeah.
00:24:21.022 --> 00:24:23.333
you are almost, almost in your thirties.
00:24:23.333 --> 00:24:28.073
So you are young, you are naive, you've never really operated in this sector before.
00:24:28.252 --> 00:24:33.067
You've learned about pizza, and you're hiring people for the first time and you are having fun.
00:24:33.163 --> 00:24:34.723
you're gonna build a culture that's
00:24:34.903 --> 00:24:35.203
Yeah.
00:24:35.263 --> 00:24:35.894
About that fun.
00:24:35.894 --> 00:24:37.903
It just didn't occur to us to, for it not to be.
00:24:37.903 --> 00:24:44.634
And I think, you know, for us to be watching people working stupid hours or you know, we are getting tips in, obviously they're going to the team.
00:24:44.634 --> 00:24:45.624
We're not gonna take any of that.
00:24:45.624 --> 00:24:45.963
Why would we.
00:24:46.523 --> 00:24:52.013
But I think someone coming from 20 years of totality would be like, well, you know, 20% of that goes to the management team or whatever.
00:24:52.374 --> 00:24:53.094
Now everybody in
00:24:53.094 --> 00:24:55.134
hospitality will, will say, yes, of course.
00:24:55.134 --> 00:25:05.619
You know, you, you, your, your team being engaged and, and I don't think they'll use the word happy, but engaged, is key to having low staff turnover and good service.
00:25:05.980 --> 00:25:06.220
Yeah.
00:25:06.250 --> 00:25:07.900
What's different about your attitude?
00:25:08.146 --> 00:25:09.310
I, and there's a lot.
00:25:09.310 --> 00:25:10.060
So, you know,
00:25:10.211 --> 00:25:19.181
I, I, I mean, I, I am not obsessed with turnover because I, I think people do choose hospitality and happy days that they do because they've got six months to fill before they go traveling.
00:25:19.376 --> 00:25:29.358
And for that person to come work with us for six months, have a great time, get through a summer, you know, maybe get their first boyfriend or whatever it is, you know, just that kind of, that whole like social element that goes through.
00:25:29.358 --> 00:25:30.348
So if you are not obsessed
00:25:30.348 --> 00:25:31.729
with turnover, what are you obsessed
00:25:31.729 --> 00:25:31.848
with?
00:25:32.298 --> 00:25:33.169
I'm obsessed with happiness.
00:25:33.919 --> 00:25:37.878
So where the, the industry then marks that person who left after six months going, you know what?
00:25:37.878 --> 00:25:41.328
I had the best summer ever and I love Peter Peel cause I recommended it to anyone but traveling.
00:25:41.328 --> 00:25:41.568
No, stop.
00:25:41.568 --> 00:25:41.929
Totally first.
00:25:41.929 --> 00:25:43.159
That's a, that's a negative.
00:25:43.219 --> 00:25:46.051
That's a, uh, oh, you lost another person after six months.
00:25:46.244 --> 00:25:50.325
I'm just like, if we lose that person for the right reason, I am all for it.
00:25:51.095 --> 00:25:52.785
Just wanna know the pizza place next, next door.
00:25:52.875 --> 00:25:53.265
Yeah.
00:25:53.505 --> 00:25:54.825
They're going to the pizza place next door.
00:25:54.825 --> 00:25:55.845
What on earth happened?
00:25:56.115 --> 00:25:56.535
this is a
00:25:56.964 --> 00:25:57.194
personal thing.
00:25:57.825 --> 00:25:58.335
Oh, it's, it's
00:25:58.335 --> 00:25:59.085
huge feelings.
00:25:59.085 --> 00:26:03.404
If someone leaves, if someone leaves, I really wanna know why they've left and what we can do.
00:26:03.555 --> 00:26:04.934
What did we do something wrong?
00:26:05.025 --> 00:26:08.815
And I think increasingly, I, you know, I I, I'm sort of maniacal about it.
00:26:08.815 --> 00:26:13.238
Like, you know, I, I literally wanna sit down with every single person and go like, but of course why you have to.
00:26:13.346 --> 00:26:16.446
but I, but I hear other founders who have that same feeling about customers.
00:26:16.626 --> 00:26:21.336
If a customer leaves and wants star review, I want to go and sit down with that customer and understand why.
00:26:21.539 --> 00:26:23.210
And I, I, weirdly, I don't.
00:26:24.194 --> 00:26:29.825
Obviously I care hugely that customers have a great time, but if a customer has a bad time, I wanna understand why they had a bad time.
00:26:29.825 --> 00:26:32.015
But I don't wanna go and convince them otherwise, necessarily.
00:26:32.221 --> 00:26:38.828
Something, Aaron said, not in my podcast, but he did a, one of our CEO circle events, which small round tables.
00:26:38.858 --> 00:26:51.041
and he said when he was thinking about, choosing direct consumer business models, he said, I knew it'd be good for me because that bit of me that's insecure, that needs, you know, needs to be told I'm doing a good job, would obsess.
00:26:51.461 --> 00:27:03.407
Over things not going well for every individual customer transaction, and therefore I'm going to be really good at driving that key measure of, of, in his case, net promoter score, which is what his main measure is.
00:27:03.718 --> 00:27:08.516
But to a certain extent and that the world's full of insecure overachievers who are entrepreneurs.
00:27:08.516 --> 00:27:10.578
are you tapping into, into some of that?
00:27:10.578 --> 00:27:11.509
Is there I definitely
00:27:11.513 --> 00:27:14.269
have that and I think I, you know, partly love me, don't leave.
00:27:14.298 --> 00:27:15.558
I just want everyone to like me.
00:27:15.558 --> 00:27:16.159
Exactly.
00:27:16.163 --> 00:27:16.459
Right.
00:27:16.459 --> 00:27:24.291
And I often to my detriment you know, I will, we definitely made a mistake early on of people going, oh, I think I should be the manager.
00:27:24.291 --> 00:27:26.422
And us going, okay, that sounds like a good idea.
00:27:26.872 --> 00:27:28.221
And not going well, you Because they want it.
00:27:28.221 --> 00:27:29.001
Yeah, they want it.
00:27:29.001 --> 00:27:29.842
And so like, great.
00:27:29.846 --> 00:27:31.011
That's exactly what we should do for them.
00:27:31.017 --> 00:27:32.092
We should just make them the manager.
00:27:32.422 --> 00:27:36.919
And then watching that become, Not a success for anyone very, very quickly.
00:27:36.919 --> 00:27:40.729
And I think, you know, as you grow up, you're like, we would love you to be the manager.
00:27:40.788 --> 00:27:44.358
Here's the three things you need to nail and then we'll have this conversation again.
00:27:44.358 --> 00:27:44.808
And probably here's
00:27:44.814 --> 00:27:45.888
how we're gonna help you nail it.
00:27:45.979 --> 00:27:46.159
Yeah.
00:27:46.159 --> 00:27:46.489
And
00:27:46.578 --> 00:27:47.179
absolutely.
00:27:47.179 --> 00:27:49.098
Which, and building your journey.
00:27:49.169 --> 00:27:52.098
And I think that's the thing hospitality really, really, really can do.
00:27:52.098 --> 00:27:56.348
And so many businesses, because it's sort of laying out that, that trail of breadcrumbs.
00:27:56.588 --> 00:27:57.578
But if someone goes, I'm going
00:27:57.878 --> 00:28:01.028
over here, it's, and it's not a complicated trail of breadcrumbs either.
00:28:01.088 --> 00:28:04.929
I mean, managers do have to be quite, they are quite unique beast.
00:28:05.009 --> 00:28:06.568
They have to learn quite a broad set.
00:28:06.568 --> 00:28:09.419
They're a ceo, they learn, learn a broad, broad set of skills.
00:28:09.479 --> 00:28:09.868
Absolutely.
00:28:09.868 --> 00:28:10.259
That's ceo.
00:28:10.259 --> 00:28:12.811
But they have to have a force forceful person.
00:28:12.872 --> 00:28:15.182
They have to be a leader that people want to follow too.
00:28:15.182 --> 00:28:15.392
Yeah.
00:28:15.632 --> 00:28:17.221
And, and to drive, have the energy to
00:28:17.221 --> 00:28:17.912
drive that.
00:28:17.942 --> 00:28:22.842
But what's so interesting to me and like that of trusting is like we had our managers all together on Tuesday afternoon.
00:28:23.461 --> 00:28:24.301
20 of them in the room.
00:28:24.301 --> 00:28:25.892
It's just like, can't believe we have this many managers.
00:28:25.896 --> 00:28:26.521
It's insane.
00:28:26.527 --> 00:28:26.751
Mm-hmm.
00:28:26.821 --> 00:28:29.071
and I think they all, you know, go through the values again.
00:28:29.071 --> 00:28:30.061
They all really believe it.
00:28:30.061 --> 00:28:36.332
They really, you know, so many of them that have been with us for a long time now, they all have such a unique style to get to that place.
00:28:36.332 --> 00:28:39.031
So, so for us to go like, this is how you do this job.
00:28:39.061 --> 00:28:39.602
Well, you've
00:28:39.602 --> 00:28:41.821
got a culture that requires people to be themselves.
00:28:41.821 --> 00:28:42.781
So by definition they're
00:28:42.781 --> 00:28:43.561
going to be lots of you.
00:28:43.682 --> 00:28:44.041
Absolut, I love it.
00:28:44.311 --> 00:28:49.172
But I think, you know, if you looked at a bigger company or you know, the dangers, you're like, well, no, no, you can't do it that way.
00:28:49.172 --> 00:28:50.041
That's not the way you do it.
00:28:50.041 --> 00:28:51.332
You do it this way because that's the
00:28:51.332 --> 00:28:51.781
checklist.
00:28:51.832 --> 00:28:59.183
Or, or, or indeed, you know, the monoculture, of innocent back in the which is no longer, the right way or appropriate way to run a business.
00:28:59.258 --> 00:29:02.561
not the right way, because diversity of thought is really important.
00:29:02.928 --> 00:29:09.541
Not a moral way because you're basically just hiring a load of young, well do middle class graduates out of top university.
00:29:10.082 --> 00:29:13.021
I wanna come to something you've said before in, in another podcast.
00:29:13.021 --> 00:29:13.102
walk.
00:29:13.121 --> 00:29:20.828
you, you said, the way you framed your approach to, people, or at least I interpreted it as this, it, to get that.
00:29:20.828 --> 00:29:24.519
Level of longevity, engagement, happiness, et cetera.
00:29:24.818 --> 00:29:32.078
You were sort of saying, what can we do that's just gonna take the crap out of the way of their day-to-day so that they can focus on what matters?
00:29:32.229 --> 00:29:33.489
Am I mishearing?
00:29:33.608 --> 00:29:33.848
No,
00:29:33.959 --> 00:29:35.229
I, I, I think that's right.
00:29:35.229 --> 00:29:39.368
I think, you know, trying to make sure that we are not just cluttering things up for, cluttering things up.
00:29:39.368 --> 00:29:44.739
Say, I mean, a classic example of this that I just love is we have a sort of internal chat listing program.
00:29:44.769 --> 00:29:48.189
You know, so when you open up a restaurant, you can kind of make sure that you've done all of stuff.
00:29:48.476 --> 00:29:50.695
But at a, at a, at a managing get together.
00:29:50.756 --> 00:29:53.935
Six months ago someone was like, have you seen it recently?
00:29:53.935 --> 00:29:54.655
And it was like, no, I haven't.
00:29:54.655 --> 00:29:56.006
It was like, do you know what the first thing on the list is?
00:29:56.010 --> 00:29:56.846
And I was like, no, I haven't looked.
00:29:56.846 --> 00:29:58.076
It's like, turn on the lights.
00:29:58.405 --> 00:30:00.056
It's like, that's pretty patronizing.
00:30:00.226 --> 00:30:07.179
And obviously it was an example, but it was a great example of like, Don't tell people how to, like, don't tell people how to do like the most obvious stuff.
00:30:07.179 --> 00:30:08.858
You've gotta trust people a little bit.
00:30:09.249 --> 00:30:10.058
You've got to give up.
00:30:10.058 --> 00:30:14.019
And we try and do that across everything from like, the guys can pick the music in their tick
00:30:14.199 --> 00:30:15.759
doors, this, this autonomy and trust
00:30:15.763 --> 00:30:17.229
bit again, and, and back again.
00:30:17.229 --> 00:30:18.729
Like, you know, the dough in the pizzerias.
00:30:18.729 --> 00:30:20.558
We have a recipe like this is basically what it says.
00:30:20.558 --> 00:30:20.648
One
00:30:20.648 --> 00:30:23.229
of this, surely that is regimented individual
00:30:23.229 --> 00:30:23.439
pizza.
00:30:23.509 --> 00:30:29.709
Pizza don't be, they, they have to because if, if it's five degrees hotter today, you can't just follow the recipe because it will
00:30:29.709 --> 00:30:30.398
not be as good.
00:30:30.449 --> 00:30:33.838
You've got to look at the environmental situation around you and go, do you know what?
00:30:33.838 --> 00:30:35.729
Today I need to put five grams more yeast.
00:30:35.729 --> 00:30:36.179
In this though,
00:30:36.838 --> 00:30:39.659
you're asking a lot out of a, a relatively low
00:30:39.659 --> 00:30:42.239
paid, they're not relatively low paid as a head chef.
00:30:42.522 --> 00:30:43.002
Hmm.
00:30:43.272 --> 00:30:46.663
They're relatively well paid on a proper salary with, with a And
00:30:46.663 --> 00:30:50.022
you are training them to be this, is this like training someone to be a barista?
00:30:50.022 --> 00:30:53.532
Because it's the same sort of real understanding of the day-to-day
00:30:53.623 --> 00:30:54.343
recipe.
00:30:54.499 --> 00:30:59.209
But, but it's the absolute, it's the absolute like apex of not over promoting.
00:30:59.628 --> 00:30:59.898
Hmm.
00:30:59.929 --> 00:31:07.699
So like, even, and I had to say the team really like, really did amazingly on this, even at the height of, you know, the recruitment crisis.
00:31:07.742 --> 00:31:09.676
Which, you know, difficult.
00:31:10.237 --> 00:31:19.537
but yeah, even in the heat of that, the team did such an amazing job to be like, you are not, either not culturally a good fit for us, or you're not ready for this role.
00:31:19.926 --> 00:31:21.247
So like, but they
00:31:21.247 --> 00:31:21.817
held their nose.
00:31:21.817 --> 00:31:24.906
Someone had to work out what the dough needed to be that day in that
00:31:24.906 --> 00:31:25.297
restaurant.
00:31:25.326 --> 00:31:25.386
Yeah.
00:31:25.386 --> 00:31:29.946
And that, that quite often meant that like some of the people above had to do a little bit more to get, to get that over the line.
00:31:29.946 --> 00:31:30.906
It was, it was tough.
00:31:30.936 --> 00:31:32.076
It was really tough.
00:31:32.106 --> 00:31:37.386
But the bigger mistake would've been just fill all the roles of people who have, you know, are nearly there and we'll be fine.
00:31:37.807 --> 00:31:39.007
Let me put my cards on the table.
00:31:39.113 --> 00:31:47.865
as a young management consultant, I did a project for a chain of pubs that, was measuring team engagement.
00:31:48.441 --> 00:31:55.691
Customer satisfaction and profitability and doing nice graphs and whatever the statistical thing is to show the correlation, right?
00:31:55.721 --> 00:32:07.010
I then went to business school where I learned about this thing called the service profit chain, where some academics had done that on a massive scale and proven that, if you deliver and, and these words, you'll like these words.
00:32:07.010 --> 00:32:12.234
but internal service quality, what do you do for your team to make their day-to-day life easier?
00:32:12.284 --> 00:32:16.963
leads to employee satisfaction, which leads to retention and productivity.
00:32:16.963 --> 00:32:21.676
They work better and they stay longer, which leads to external.
00:32:21.991 --> 00:32:34.382
Service quality, I, they give a good service to the customer, which leads to customer satisfaction, which leads to customer loyalty, which is the number one driver of profit and revenue growth.
00:32:34.682 --> 00:32:41.608
Now it's a very nice, simple and pretty self-explanatory concept that they did.
00:32:42.058 --> 00:32:45.501
But give me some of the examples of the innovations you've, you've brought in.
00:32:45.501 --> 00:32:48.051
it's, it is little things and big things, I think, and we've done
00:32:48.057 --> 00:32:51.599
social, the kindness bombs, which I think is a way of giving someone Yeah.
00:32:51.690 --> 00:32:53.589
A tool to having a good work experience.
00:32:53.589 --> 00:32:53.789
Absolutely.
00:32:53.789 --> 00:32:54.630
But what, gimme some other things.
00:32:54.661 --> 00:32:55.141
some other things.
00:32:55.141 --> 00:33:02.232
So obviously we've built our academy in Camden, which, we put on a range of, so every manager or head cheff would start there and they would spend a week there.
00:33:02.232 --> 00:33:06.923
So they kind of get that sort of central point of truth, and they spent between a week and a month there, depending on,
00:33:06.933 --> 00:33:13.050
so the academy, idea of an actual, and, and it's a restaurant and, and a training facility.
00:33:13.050 --> 00:33:13.201
Yeah.
00:33:13.290 --> 00:33:14.141
In, in Camden.
00:33:14.141 --> 00:33:14.641
I love it.
00:33:14.701 --> 00:33:17.191
We spend ages on it, but it's a another, it's an example of this.
00:33:17.461 --> 00:33:19.641
We're gonna take your career seriously as well as Yeah.
00:33:19.641 --> 00:33:20.550
As well as give you the training.
00:33:20.550 --> 00:33:21.871
We're gonna take your career seriously.
00:33:21.871 --> 00:33:22.111
Yeah.
00:33:22.351 --> 00:33:29.340
And so there's a lovely chain there where, you know, you join on day one in the academy, you know, our best, our best managers and head chefs.
00:33:29.371 --> 00:33:32.161
That's kind of like the place you end up, which has got a whole challenge around it.
00:33:32.191 --> 00:33:35.040
But that, that's where you want the people who are obsessing about this stuff.
00:33:35.040 --> 00:33:35.250
Right.
00:33:35.250 --> 00:33:35.701
To be there.
00:33:36.103 --> 00:33:40.903
and then at the end of their training, they'll have a graduation photo under the academy sign that goes on workplace.
00:33:40.992 --> 00:33:43.782
They are our most engaged post by miles mm-hmm.
00:33:43.788 --> 00:33:46.272
Of like, so-and-so has just been, you know, signed off.
00:33:46.702 --> 00:33:48.133
Everyone likes a celebration of something.
00:33:48.623 --> 00:33:49.063
Everyone loves it.
00:33:49.123 --> 00:33:49.303
Mm-hmm.
00:33:49.363 --> 00:33:52.663
And, and so that just, that creates a lovely circle of engagement there.
00:33:52.692 --> 00:33:52.782
Mm-hmm.
00:33:52.782 --> 00:33:54.252
Like people seeing that development.
00:33:54.492 --> 00:33:58.459
We then obviously host, you know, and this week we had a mental health, first day course.
00:33:58.463 --> 00:34:01.048
So everyone in Pisa Rican come, do you have mental health days?
00:34:01.055 --> 00:34:02.615
we have mental health sick days.
00:34:02.734 --> 00:34:03.065
It can
00:34:03.065 --> 00:34:04.204
be mental or physical.
00:34:04.210 --> 00:34:04.625
Yeah, of course.
00:34:04.625 --> 00:34:05.224
Yeah, absolutely.
00:34:05.224 --> 00:34:07.615
So you can, you can take time off of obviously mental.
00:34:07.865 --> 00:34:10.565
Issues at which there are, you know, it happens for sure.
00:34:10.594 --> 00:34:14.722
And it's, it's definitely something that we, we wanna happen less, but you can only support it as much as you can.
00:34:14.722 --> 00:34:14.842
Yep.
00:34:15.143 --> 00:34:18.952
But every pizzeria, the aim is to have a, a mental health first aider in the pizzeria.
00:34:19.432 --> 00:34:19.552
Okay.
00:34:19.552 --> 00:34:21.112
So that they can spot that stuff.
00:34:21.117 --> 00:34:21.353
Great.
00:34:21.413 --> 00:34:22.583
So we do those in the academy.
00:34:22.646 --> 00:34:24.668
we have a thing called Hospitality Heroes.
00:34:24.728 --> 00:34:32.630
And so Hospitality Heroes is basically people who, really are great at their job and want to do more, but are not keen or ready to step up to like a more management role.
00:34:32.900 --> 00:34:47.300
So like, there's an opportunity to come and if you are great at service and you're doing something brilliantly, you become hospitality hero, you get a little bit more pain, and you get to come and sit in a group called Pilgrim's Progress, where we, it's, it's a non-management group to talk about like issues in pizzerias and how we could do better.
00:34:47.539 --> 00:34:49.039
So we get together once a quarter.
00:34:49.340 --> 00:34:50.449
There's no managers involved.
00:34:50.449 --> 00:34:51.260
It's just hourly
00:34:51.440 --> 00:34:51.590
paid.
00:34:51.594 --> 00:34:51.949
It's lovely.
00:34:51.949 --> 00:34:56.150
So basically I, I'm, I'm not ready for a manager, but this is my way of being on the stepping stone.
00:34:56.155 --> 00:34:56.300
Yeah.
00:34:56.300 --> 00:34:56.699
And a way of.
00:34:56.956 --> 00:34:57.407
It's, it's a
00:34:57.407 --> 00:34:57.646
break
00:34:57.646 --> 00:34:58.456
run justify giving.
00:34:58.456 --> 00:34:58.936
It's another break
00:34:58.936 --> 00:35:00.166
rise to someone.
00:35:00.181 --> 00:35:03.240
but more importantly, they are helping solve the problems and feeling
00:35:03.240 --> 00:35:03.721
engaged.
00:35:03.721 --> 00:35:04.860
And they're coming back and you're like, do you know what?
00:35:04.865 --> 00:35:05.610
This is ridiculous.
00:35:05.615 --> 00:35:06.420
Why is this happening?
00:35:06.420 --> 00:35:06.601
Yeah.
00:35:06.864 --> 00:35:09.054
And then you can go away and be like, that is ridiculous.
00:35:09.054 --> 00:35:09.864
Let's go and fix it.
00:35:09.983 --> 00:35:10.420
What else?
00:35:10.420 --> 00:35:12.465
I'm just basically getting notes that No, let's,
00:35:13.065 --> 00:35:17.980
but I mean, so I think mean it's ones like pay, no one starts on less than 10, 50 an hour pizza.
00:35:17.980 --> 00:35:22.269
Pilgrims, obviously plus plus trunk, which is a huge benefit to hospitality.
00:35:22.315 --> 00:35:23.275
It's in really important prep.
00:35:23.275 --> 00:35:24.324
We're very clear on this from day one.
00:35:24.324 --> 00:35:24.414
Yeah.
00:35:24.684 --> 00:35:25.344
Good pay.
00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:34.947
but the, the culture in each each restaurant, and I've seen it live at only one, but I'm gonna just take it on as read that each of them has a, a, a real unique team culture.
00:35:34.947 --> 00:35:36.717
And if not, you'd really consider that a problem.
00:35:37.378 --> 00:35:39.088
What else is going on to make this unique?
00:35:39.088 --> 00:35:40.797
What, how, how is it happening?
00:35:41.105 --> 00:35:43.054
it's the holy grail hospitality.
00:35:43.264 --> 00:35:44.014
Everybody knows.
00:35:44.014 --> 00:35:45.920
Happy team, happy customers.
00:35:46.137 --> 00:35:46.407
Yeah.
00:35:46.507 --> 00:35:52.347
I, I, I know and it does, that's where I sort of start to go, like, yeah, but obviously like, why are you even telling, why have you spend an hour telling us this?
00:35:52.347 --> 00:35:53.907
This is completely obvious.
00:35:54.027 --> 00:35:55.947
And, but it's not everywhere.
00:35:56.057 --> 00:35:56.878
I, I think.
00:35:56.878 --> 00:36:06.057
I think what we've managed to get to is we, you know, we now have our MD and our head of people in that structure in place and they're, they're doing a great job of like controlling this and stopping the over promotion and making sure it's great.
00:36:06.418 --> 00:36:10.467
I think I just obsessed about this, like I'm onto people on worst place the truth.
00:36:10.902 --> 00:36:14.822
Chatting to people, you know, if you go into a pizzer ring, you can tell if there's something not right.
00:36:14.822 --> 00:36:15.103
Okay.
00:36:15.103 --> 00:36:19.452
But, and you're codifying it as much as you can in terms of making it part of the values.
00:36:19.452 --> 00:36:19.512
Yeah.
00:36:19.512 --> 00:36:21.822
And making it part of the, the, the business.
00:36:21.822 --> 00:36:23.983
But as you grow, this is gonna be harder.
00:36:23.983 --> 00:36:25.782
You can't stay, you can't talk to every leader.
00:36:25.813 --> 00:36:26.233
Well, you can't
00:36:26.233 --> 00:36:28.992
get that like gut feel where you walk into pizzeria and let somebody's off here.
00:36:29.382 --> 00:36:37.913
And so what, what, currently the thing I'm most excited about, that I'm developing is, um, Uh, obviously it involves chat, G p T, uh, but otherwise, why would we talk about it?
00:36:38.197 --> 00:36:42.233
we've developed basically with, my mate Will, who helped us build our pizza in the post website.
00:36:42.268 --> 00:36:47.293
so we've taken chat G P t Learning Algorithm, and we've ingested all of pizza Pilgrim's Training materials.
00:36:47.878 --> 00:36:47.998
Yeah.
00:36:47.998 --> 00:36:48.898
Manuals.
00:36:49.047 --> 00:36:50.577
Yeah, like team things.
00:36:50.577 --> 00:36:52.137
It links to the pay system.
00:36:52.407 --> 00:36:53.047
So then, oh, no.
00:36:53.257 --> 00:36:55.768
So then you can use to, then we've got Workplace with a Bot.
00:36:55.797 --> 00:36:57.297
It's not live yet, but it's nearly there.
00:36:57.657 --> 00:37:00.027
You go on and you go, you can ask any question.
00:37:00.027 --> 00:37:02.007
So what is, how do I make a margarita?
00:37:02.097 --> 00:37:03.387
Here's the exact recipe for it.
00:37:03.777 --> 00:37:05.367
What is the maternity policy?
00:37:05.398 --> 00:37:06.568
Here's the maternity policy.
00:37:07.077 --> 00:37:08.577
How did we, how did pizza PN start?
00:37:08.583 --> 00:37:08.938
This is how,
00:37:09.027 --> 00:37:11.068
I don't have to remember where all these things are.
00:37:11.157 --> 00:37:13.047
So, so like, I mean, even in workplace, it's,
00:37:13.498 --> 00:37:15.507
and all the rest of it, it's creating for Exactly.
00:37:15.507 --> 00:37:17.938
So currently it's on workplace with like a horrible thing.
00:37:17.938 --> 00:37:19.797
The hierarchy alone will be a confusing thing.
00:37:19.958 --> 00:37:27.777
You've gotta find the right pdf and then you've gotta scroll through 120 pages and you're like, are you sure a 19 year old person is gonna engage with that?
00:37:27.867 --> 00:37:28.858
Because they're definitely not.
00:37:29.007 --> 00:37:31.197
So this, this cuts out all that.
00:37:31.202 --> 00:37:33.507
I'm so straight excited, straight to the point.
00:37:34.288 --> 00:37:35.097
That's not the genius.
00:37:35.097 --> 00:37:38.157
Can I use it when it's, the genius is anonymously.
00:37:38.338 --> 00:37:43.155
We know where the questions are being asked and so we, we know not by person.
00:37:43.425 --> 00:37:47.445
So we'll never, we'll never see, like if someone says, I had this thing happen to me, we don't know who it is.
00:37:47.545 --> 00:37:54.025
But what we can see is that, although I'm not sure trust that, but Dean Street have had three people talk about bullying in the last month.
00:37:54.108 --> 00:37:58.442
Or seven people have asked, had to make an app on spritz in Camden, we go and train.
00:37:58.442 --> 00:38:05.155
I I hope your team, uh, are also fun loving, uh, and like a good wind up because this is gonna be good.
00:38:05.215 --> 00:38:14.929
They're gonna exploit I really, I, I did want to, to talk about growth and, and, and, and this question of how do you think about it and why, why growth is important.
00:38:14.980 --> 00:38:18.353
I also wanted to talk about customer obsession, but we're probably not gonna have time to do that.
00:38:18.353 --> 00:38:26.679
although it is worth noting that under that service profit chain world, innovative ways of measuring all of these things are really important.
00:38:26.679 --> 00:38:26.739
Yeah.
00:38:26.768 --> 00:38:29.469
If you want to make it really effective.
00:38:29.739 --> 00:38:29.858
Yeah.
00:38:29.889 --> 00:38:35.469
In my restaurant business that I share, we have amazing data because of everybody books.
00:38:35.557 --> 00:38:36.427
there's no walk-in.
00:38:36.427 --> 00:38:40.867
We don't have you don't have that, so you can't sort of do It's not that easy to do repeats or No.
00:38:40.914 --> 00:38:45.144
frequency analysis, cohort analysis, all this kind of good How do you know if it's working?
00:38:45.221 --> 00:38:49.760
we do look at our online reviews, obviously very, very closely and track them and make sure that is a, a thing.
00:38:49.773 --> 00:38:54.762
It is speaking to customers and asking them que the, the danger of a number of views is you only look at the kind of extremes.
00:38:54.762 --> 00:39:00.101
You don't really deal with the people who had an okay time, but you do need to know that someone had an okay experience and it could have been a bit better.
00:39:00.101 --> 00:39:00.672
That person is
00:39:02.291 --> 00:39:02.472
Yeah.
00:39:03.041 --> 00:39:04.692
Because you want everybody to have an exceptional
00:39:04.692 --> 00:39:05.231
experience.
00:39:05.262 --> 00:39:05.592
Yeah.
00:39:05.742 --> 00:39:08.052
So, you know, I, it's, it's, it's a challenge.
00:39:08.052 --> 00:39:12.278
I do have a sort of slight fear that, you know, if you ask too much, everything would end up the same.
00:39:12.635 --> 00:39:15.695
This goes to my, my question then, about, about growth.
00:39:15.724 --> 00:39:17.673
and, and you're growing fast.
00:39:17.733 --> 00:39:19.202
I, I did a rough count.
00:39:19.563 --> 00:39:24.722
You're probably 75% of the store count of, say, Francom Manka in London.
00:39:24.722 --> 00:39:25.233
I don't know.
00:39:25.293 --> 00:39:25.802
Feels bad.
00:39:25.862 --> 00:39:26.643
I would say less than that.
00:39:26.672 --> 00:39:27.092
Okay.
00:39:27.092 --> 00:39:27.682
I think we're about
00:39:27.682 --> 00:39:28.503
40 in London.
00:39:28.563 --> 00:39:28.983
Really?
00:39:29.072 --> 00:39:30.483
Oh, I didn't count very 60 years.
00:39:30.483 --> 00:39:31.742
I wasn't very good at counseling.
00:39:31.742 --> 00:39:36.927
I, what I'm interested in is how do you make sure you don't become a plastic chain version of
00:39:36.927 --> 00:39:37.498
yourself?
00:39:37.552 --> 00:39:40.431
and I think the answer is in growth to me.
00:39:40.512 --> 00:39:44.900
the only reason I wanna grow is to give people opportunities to grow themselves.
00:39:44.900 --> 00:39:46.130
the only reason you want to
00:39:46.135 --> 00:39:50.329
grow, honestly, I just, you know, I look at what we've got and I'm like, well, why?
00:39:50.780 --> 00:39:51.170
Why?
00:39:51.199 --> 00:39:51.920
Why are we growing?
00:39:51.920 --> 00:39:53.269
I don't wanna grow for growing sake.
00:39:53.360 --> 00:39:54.320
That doesn't exactly.
00:39:54.679 --> 00:39:56.059
Size is not, it's
00:39:56.059 --> 00:39:58.130
an output measure rather than an input measure.
00:39:58.159 --> 00:39:58.639
I think that's
00:39:58.639 --> 00:39:58.760
it.
00:39:59.418 --> 00:40:00.378
Perfect example.
00:40:00.559 --> 00:40:02.148
We're opening in Nottingham in a month's time.
00:40:02.239 --> 00:40:02.358
Mm-hmm.
00:40:02.684 --> 00:40:07.094
Big part of the reason I think we're opening in Nottingham is one of our fantastic chef from Common Garden.
00:40:07.094 --> 00:40:08.835
He's worked with us for five years, called Andrea.
00:40:08.835 --> 00:40:11.309
It was like, I'm kind of done with London, I'm gonna move.
00:40:11.548 --> 00:40:12.088
He was like, I'm gonna move.
00:40:12.219 --> 00:40:12.619
Don't
00:40:12.619 --> 00:40:14.219
tell me you're opening up in Nottingham.
00:40:14.224 --> 00:40:16.708
Because Andrea wanted to move back to, Andrea
00:40:16.713 --> 00:40:20.518
wanted to move north, and so we were like, well, let's go and let's go and see if we can make this work.
00:40:20.579 --> 00:40:21.329
Give us six months.
00:40:21.329 --> 00:40:21.869
And he was like, cool.
00:40:21.869 --> 00:40:22.798
I'll give you six months.
00:40:23.009 --> 00:40:23.668
We went away.
00:40:23.668 --> 00:40:24.958
We found this pizzeria in Nottingham.
00:40:24.963 --> 00:40:26.159
He is now moved to Nottingham.
00:40:26.259 --> 00:40:27.148
He is opening the pizzeria.
00:40:27.418 --> 00:40:29.898
One of our old managers also had moved to Nott.
00:40:30.298 --> 00:40:30.869
And it was just like,
00:40:31.108 --> 00:40:31.958
this is a dream.
00:40:32.009 --> 00:40:35.608
Or I could, you could have been basically, we'd been talking about opening in the north for a while.
00:40:35.668 --> 00:40:37.389
How do we choose, where do we do it first?
00:40:37.389 --> 00:40:37.907
or that's great.
00:40:37.911 --> 00:40:39.016
When do we decide to move?
00:40:39.067 --> 00:40:40.177
oh, we've got a chef.
00:40:40.237 --> 00:40:41.286
That's a great reason to do it though.
00:40:41.286 --> 00:40:41.436
Yeah.
00:40:41.436 --> 00:40:42.516
It's, that's a great reason to grow.
00:40:42.586 --> 00:40:43.027
Look, and,
00:40:43.056 --> 00:40:51.804
and, I have, other businesses in my portfolio for whom, who are employee owned, for instance, and they have asked themselves the question of why are we growing?
00:40:51.804 --> 00:40:55.313
It was there were shareholders before or a founder before who wanted growth.
00:40:55.333 --> 00:40:55.773
Mm-hmm.
00:40:55.853 --> 00:40:58.313
There was someone above who want, now it's us.
00:40:58.344 --> 00:40:59.034
Why do we grow?
00:40:59.244 --> 00:41:02.784
And the only answer is opportunity to develop and grow as people.
00:41:02.844 --> 00:41:03.034
Yeah.
00:41:03.034 --> 00:41:05.193
doesn't make it easy to decide how fast to grow.
00:41:05.193 --> 00:41:07.983
Well, how to fund that growth and whether or not, you know, you
00:41:07.989 --> 00:41:12.273
know, very quickly, you know, it's that classic, like you wanna be in the zone where you're pushing yourself, which is also one of our values.
00:41:12.278 --> 00:41:12.934
Push yourself.
00:41:12.985 --> 00:41:20.742
you wanna be in that like push yourself zone, but not break yourself zone and not like, oh my God, this is all falling over, but I can't deal with it because I've gotta grown and open this next one.
00:41:21.072 --> 00:41:22.831
And I'm, I'm of the opinion that like I would.
00:41:23.306 --> 00:41:26.186
Been the next one to make sure that this is all ready.
00:41:26.577 --> 00:41:28.827
And I think we're getting, we're getting better at doing that.
00:41:28.827 --> 00:41:31.016
I think in terms of like getting better at opening stores.
00:41:31.016 --> 00:41:34.166
So like the next one coming sooner down the track is less of a problem.
00:41:34.300 --> 00:41:42.219
But I am, I am like Eagle lied on it and to the point where the border just frustrated with me now because, you know, I, I will always, you know, if you sit there and go, we're gonna open six slices year.
00:41:42.219 --> 00:41:46.150
I'm not, I'm all well, well up for setting a target, but I don't want five to be a failure.
00:41:46.150 --> 00:41:47.860
If we open five great pizzerias, we
00:41:48.070 --> 00:41:51.280
have, you now have a professional investment company on the board.
00:41:51.280 --> 00:41:51.760
They're great.
00:41:52.179 --> 00:41:52.411
Yeah.
00:41:52.411 --> 00:41:56.853
but they have their investors, they've made their commitments on their returns.
00:41:57.244 --> 00:42:01.653
When you say you're gonna give, deliver this, they need you to deliver it.
00:42:01.773 --> 00:42:02.284
Tension
00:42:02.284 --> 00:42:03.304
arises.
00:42:03.304 --> 00:42:03.634
Tension.
00:42:03.693 --> 00:42:04.474
Bring on tension.
00:42:04.474 --> 00:42:04.833
I love it.
00:42:04.864 --> 00:42:05.143
Tension.
00:42:05.143 --> 00:42:05.704
Tension is good.
00:42:05.764 --> 00:42:08.239
But I think, I, I, that, that to me is the whole problem.
00:42:08.300 --> 00:42:11.989
Them going, we said, you said six, you're not gonna do six, therefore you failed.
00:42:11.989 --> 00:42:13.802
I'm like, we could do six.
00:42:13.802 --> 00:42:14.253
We could do it.
00:42:14.608 --> 00:42:15.838
But it would be not as good.
00:42:15.838 --> 00:42:18.717
So who's, who's, what does failure actually look like to you?
00:42:18.807 --> 00:42:19.327
Mm-hmm.
00:42:19.547 --> 00:42:22.387
And I, and my response is, well, don't say six then.
00:42:22.597 --> 00:42:22.898
Huh?
00:42:23.197 --> 00:42:24.367
Don't start with six.
00:42:24.367 --> 00:42:24.788
Yeah.
00:42:24.878 --> 00:42:32.077
But look, and this is the tension between me and rmd, who is also fantastic and totally gets our values, but he's definitely the guy's like, come on guys, we can do six.
00:42:32.228 --> 00:42:33.552
And I'm the guy's like, why don't we just
00:42:33.552 --> 00:42:33.882
do five?
00:42:33.882 --> 00:42:42.753
And, and at the heart of your personal decision making, as well as making sure that, you, you are happy that everything's working in the rest of the estate before you open that next one.
00:42:42.992 --> 00:42:44.913
It's, is this right for our people?
00:42:44.913 --> 00:42:46.083
Are they gonna grow, develop?
00:42:46.172 --> 00:42:48.246
Is this career, management working at its
00:42:48.246 --> 00:42:48.786
best?
00:42:48.786 --> 00:42:53.945
And do I, do I still get, and this is gonna sound like full like Vomity foundry stuff, but do I still get that?
00:42:53.951 --> 00:43:03.170
Like butterflies in your stomach feeling that I got in Dean Street when you walk into the site, because there's so many, sites that you could do, and you go there and you're like, why are we doing this?
00:43:03.539 --> 00:43:07.780
Um, what I really wanna do is go to the important thing, which is your three things.
00:43:07.780 --> 00:43:11.501
But I wonder if we can do this based on the conversation, the topics today.
00:43:11.501 --> 00:43:17.021
Whether there are, and you know, I'm, I'm gonna be pushing you for actionable bits of advice rather than platitudes.
00:43:17.291 --> 00:43:26.681
Whether there are three, three things that really stand out, whether it's to other hospitality businesses or to companies, businesses in general, organizations in general.
00:43:27.010 --> 00:43:30.574
Three things that you would recommend, people doing.
00:43:30.581 --> 00:43:33.865
I mean, the first one is probably blinding, but it's like, go and talk to your team.
00:43:33.985 --> 00:43:34.826
Have you talk to them already?
00:43:34.856 --> 00:43:35.516
Talk to them more.
00:43:35.846 --> 00:43:42.077
Find as many ways to deal with them, to chat to them and learn from them as possible and understand what is making their day difficult.
00:43:42.264 --> 00:43:47.934
So like everything from, you know, workplace where I can kind of, you know, chat to anyone in the company, I can just be like, Hey, it was great to see you today.
00:43:47.934 --> 00:43:49.105
That looked like it was a problem.
00:43:49.105 --> 00:43:49.704
Is it a problem?
00:43:50.199 --> 00:43:52.570
It annoys everyone in the management team.
00:43:53.079 --> 00:44:04.599
Of course, you're bypassing layers of, and I sometimes create bigger problems than I needed to, but for me, I just, I like seeing how things you say in a room over there translate over here.
00:44:04.630 --> 00:44:04.900
Sure.
00:44:05.050 --> 00:44:11.139
So like, you know, we went and did a big breakfast tour last year where we went to every single pizzeria over the course of probably eight weeks.
00:44:11.440 --> 00:44:14.409
And like just sat with the team was like, hit me what's what.
00:44:14.409 --> 00:44:15.429
And some of them were hard.
00:44:15.489 --> 00:44:18.940
Some of the pizzerias were like, do you know what, this has been really hard and this has been a bit crap.
00:44:18.940 --> 00:44:23.619
And you know, this person, we haven't had a head chef for a month because so-and-so is not whatever.
00:44:23.916 --> 00:44:25.806
But it's just good to listen and be like, okay, cool.
00:44:25.836 --> 00:44:27.487
This is all stuff we can learn and action from.
00:44:27.487 --> 00:44:29.347
One of our sort of things we say to people is, have
00:44:29.347 --> 00:44:29.827
an opinion.
00:44:29.827 --> 00:44:30.487
Have an opinion.
00:44:30.487 --> 00:44:33.217
But what about the, the potential of entitlement creep?
00:44:33.217 --> 00:44:34.297
it's a hundred percent a problem.
00:44:34.536 --> 00:44:37.476
You know, you ask people what's wrong enough and they're gonna expect you to
00:44:37.476 --> 00:44:38.376
solve their problems.
00:44:38.382 --> 00:44:38.766
Yeah, yeah.
00:44:38.856 --> 00:44:39.367
Absolutely.
00:44:39.367 --> 00:44:41.286
And I think you just need to have a great answer as to why not.
00:44:41.463 --> 00:44:42.152
There's gotta be a reason.
00:44:42.152 --> 00:44:42.532
And what would you do?
00:44:42.724 --> 00:44:45.304
Well, someone says, how are you think we should sell burgers?
00:44:45.335 --> 00:44:48.661
We've got to go back and be like, that's not gonna work for these reasons.
00:44:48.722 --> 00:44:50.251
Record pizza pilgrims, or whatever.
00:44:50.402 --> 00:44:51.362
Like, you've gotta have a good reason.
00:44:51.362 --> 00:44:53.222
The worst thing you can do is just go like, ignore it.
00:44:53.322 --> 00:44:53.532
Okay.
00:44:53.532 --> 00:44:54.282
Number one done.
00:44:54.461 --> 00:44:55.092
I'll take that.
00:44:55.181 --> 00:44:55.422
Yeah.
00:44:55.481 --> 00:44:59.291
And, and, and I don't even need to ask you how you make that actionable, that's like teaching.
00:44:59.621 --> 00:45:00.282
That's, that's fine.
00:45:00.342 --> 00:45:00.581
Yeah.
00:45:00.791 --> 00:45:02.322
We don't do it enough for all of us, I think.
00:45:02.442 --> 00:45:02.682
Do, yeah.
00:45:02.688 --> 00:45:02.952
My thing
00:45:02.952 --> 00:45:04.181
is that even if you do it, do it more.
00:45:04.181 --> 00:45:04.211
Okay.
00:45:04.302 --> 00:45:10.184
I just, DT there's two is Immediately start treating every single supplier you have as a partner.
00:45:10.425 --> 00:45:11.054
Hmm.
00:45:11.144 --> 00:45:12.735
It is not a one way conversation.
00:45:12.847 --> 00:45:13.538
You absolutely.
00:45:13.543 --> 00:45:16.864
Like I didn't see this one coming and I, it's a big one for me.
00:45:16.869 --> 00:45:25.775
And I think we, we've built, you know, genuinely our, our story is built on Naples and that first journey and, but we are still dealing with those, those guys in Naples.
00:45:25.804 --> 00:45:34.324
And I can call up Aner Caputo as the CEO of probably the most famous pizza flour mill in the world and be like, Hey Anima, we're coming to tonight, Naples next year, let's go next week.
00:45:34.329 --> 00:45:35.315
Let's go and grab a beer.
00:45:35.585 --> 00:45:36.215
You know, oh, this
00:45:36.514 --> 00:45:37.085
has come up.
00:45:37.144 --> 00:45:38.105
Why is this important?
00:45:38.105 --> 00:45:41.824
Because obviously, you know, most procurement practices is about price,
00:45:41.914 --> 00:45:43.074
so hundred percent not relationship.
00:45:43.074 --> 00:45:47.885
And I think it's so narrow minded because when, for lack of a better word, the shit is the fan.
00:45:48.094 --> 00:45:49.655
The relationship is more important than anything.
00:45:49.835 --> 00:45:50.614
When there is a
00:45:50.914 --> 00:45:52.684
supply chain problem, let's say
00:45:52.684 --> 00:45:57.987
a supply chain problem, and they, you know, there are 500 bags of flour and a thousand people want them.
00:45:58.114 --> 00:45:59.405
You are gonna be the person they give it to.
00:45:59.789 --> 00:46:06.570
And like, you know, obviously we probably pay a little more, but like you get it back in so many myriad other ways of like access in Naples
00:46:06.570 --> 00:46:06.750
or Yeah.
00:46:06.929 --> 00:46:08.070
But this is more than this for you.
00:46:08.070 --> 00:46:10.590
I can see that you, a business is a human endeavor.
00:46:10.769 --> 00:46:11.880
I've said that phrase before.
00:46:11.880 --> 00:46:14.519
It, it's, it's, humanity at work.
00:46:14.579 --> 00:46:17.400
Not an a corporation and an organization.
00:46:17.400 --> 00:46:17.519
Yeah.
00:46:17.849 --> 00:46:22.619
And relationships exist and can be treated in any way you want.
00:46:22.829 --> 00:46:26.880
Why would you treat them differently in a business environment than, than a personal environment?
00:46:27.059 --> 00:46:29.289
Your values aren't different surely, but they are.
00:46:29.289 --> 00:46:29.519
They can't be.
00:46:30.309 --> 00:46:36.070
And the big one for me, the one that I definitely stumbled on my own sort of thought on this was, was, um, delivery partners.
00:46:36.235 --> 00:46:40.704
I very much started out with a, like, I'm doing this resentfully because I know that I.
00:46:41.974 --> 00:46:42.514
it was a
00:46:42.514 --> 00:46:43.025
long journey.
00:46:43.030 --> 00:46:44.985
And now, and now you are, you're good friends with Wilshire.
00:46:44.985 --> 00:46:46.233
I, I'm good friends with Wilshire.
00:46:46.233 --> 00:46:52.572
I went to him, well it was actually quite a while ago now, but and I, you know, we had a meeting last year about how'd you get more emotion into a delivery experience?
00:46:52.577 --> 00:46:54.163
Because that's, I think that's, that's the good question.
00:46:54.163 --> 00:46:57.313
That's how we are winning cuz on the High Street, because I think it's quite an
00:46:57.313 --> 00:47:03.068
emotionally and there are legitimate concerns when you are about, the, the experience your customer has, having a third party.
00:47:03.068 --> 00:47:04.688
responsible for a big part of that experience.
00:47:04.688 --> 00:47:05.498
Of course there are, but I think, but I
00:47:05.498 --> 00:47:09.309
think a better relationship, the mistake I made was like, well, we, we send it out perfect.
00:47:09.309 --> 00:47:11.918
And they, they mess it up and so like, screw them.
00:47:12.135 --> 00:47:17.266
The more, the closer we get together and we are like, okay, now how, what is the problem here and how do we solve it?
00:47:17.266 --> 00:47:18.166
And how do we get better?
00:47:18.248 --> 00:47:18.309
Yeah.
00:47:18.309 --> 00:47:19.208
The better everything is.
00:47:19.208 --> 00:47:20.139
Okay, number three.
00:47:20.202 --> 00:47:28.769
Number three is I think, I, I, I think you've got to, you've got to pick one kind of third party standard that you apply internally and like focus the whole company towards it.
00:47:28.769 --> 00:47:38.702
whether that's, you know, I wanna be a Sunday Times 100 employer, or I wanna be net zero or we are actually going down the, I wanna be a B Corp route and then like take all of those elements.
00:47:38.702 --> 00:47:42.422
So like, even if you just do it as a sort of exercise just to see where you're at with it.
00:47:42.572 --> 00:47:45.152
Like going through that B Corp survey about your company.
00:47:45.347 --> 00:47:48.648
It shows you so quickly where the pitfalls are, if that's the kind of company you wanna be.
00:47:48.708 --> 00:47:52.108
Is this, is this a recommendation to go to to go do B Corp?
00:47:52.123 --> 00:47:53.719
not, no, not necessarily B Corp pit.
00:47:53.778 --> 00:47:56.088
What, what's the thing that you wanna excel at in the next year?
00:47:56.239 --> 00:47:57.199
Find, but, but say
00:47:57.199 --> 00:47:59.119
I want to excel at B Corp is saying I want to excel
00:47:59.119 --> 00:47:59.628
at everything.
00:47:59.813 --> 00:48:03.563
Well, no, it's saying I want to put this stuff ahead of just pure profit making.
00:48:03.563 --> 00:48:04.222
Right, right.
00:48:04.222 --> 00:48:14.255
But still, you're not picking the one thing, you're not picking the one as in so far we've talked only about, mostly about team and maybe the Sunday Times is the best way of measuring, are you the best workplace?
00:48:14.260 --> 00:48:16.445
And it's really hard for restaurants to get on that.
00:48:16.451 --> 00:48:17.766
And, you know, maybe that should be,
00:48:17.885 --> 00:48:19.626
yeah, maybe that should be the one.
00:48:19.655 --> 00:48:20.826
Maybe that's the thing that you should be doing.
00:48:20.826 --> 00:48:21.456
Like a hundred percent.
00:48:21.456 --> 00:48:22.405
We wanna be the best employee.
00:48:22.405 --> 00:48:22.565
Sorry.
00:48:22.565 --> 00:48:22.806
It's all right.
00:48:22.811 --> 00:48:23.405
I don't believe it.
00:48:23.496 --> 00:48:26.766
Because the point about B Corp is, is it makes them proud to be part is, I
00:48:26.766 --> 00:48:29.795
mean, it's, for me, the B Corp thing is, it is just a sense check of everything.
00:48:29.800 --> 00:48:31.451
But, you know, I, I just think pick some
00:48:31.451 --> 00:48:34.030
kind of external framework and rally the whole business around it.
00:48:34.030 --> 00:48:36.483
Rally the whole business around Uh, are you in danger?
00:48:36.483 --> 00:48:38.385
I fear of missing, parents'.
00:48:38.722 --> 00:48:40.041
Uh, no, I won't miss parents' evening.
00:48:40.041 --> 00:48:42.081
I'm missing the beer I was going to have
00:48:42.081 --> 00:48:42.722
before parents then.
00:48:42.722 --> 00:48:43.027
I don't mind.
00:48:43.039 --> 00:48:45.018
cuz this was a fabulous conversation for me.
00:48:45.018 --> 00:48:52.990
Oh, I'm glad I really, I'm not going to, I want to know where this story ends, and I'm gonna ask you where you think it's gonna end, but I'm not today gonna ask you that.
00:48:52.990 --> 00:49:08.907
Maybe I'll ask you another time and I'm certainly gonna watch it with, interest, because, you know, in my world, food and drink business and brands, the types of bra and I mean packaged fmcg, the source of stuff that you, you, you are doing uniquely and differently in hospitality.
00:49:08.949 --> 00:49:14.048
I feel very familiar to the FMCG world and packaged goods world, but it's not that familiar in hospitality.
00:49:14.048 --> 00:49:15.759
It's a lot harder to do in hospitality.
00:49:15.777 --> 00:49:17.481
it's a very different management challenge.
00:49:17.487 --> 00:49:19.021
It's a very different culture challenge.
00:49:19.021 --> 00:49:20.889
and, and very few people.
00:49:20.971 --> 00:49:21.931
get anywhere close.
00:49:21.931 --> 00:49:23.130
And I'm not saying you're anywhere close.
00:49:23.130 --> 00:49:24.811
I'm sure you, I'm sure you've got a long way to go.
00:49:24.831 --> 00:49:25.784
There's, there's always a long way to go.
00:49:25.784 --> 00:49:34.085
but I'm so, I'm so pleased, the journey so far and your focus on careers in particular is, is so important and I think we've gotta figure that out as an industry.
00:49:34.085 --> 00:49:35.284
Thank you for your time.
00:49:35.344 --> 00:49:36.394
Sorry we've gone over.
00:49:36.400 --> 00:49:36.755
It's such a pleasure.
00:49:36.815 --> 00:49:40.715
No one will understand what that means when Joe edits this down to 45 minutes.
00:49:40.835 --> 00:49:41.014
Yeah.
00:49:41.094 --> 00:49:41.884
good luck Joe.
00:49:41.954 --> 00:49:42.875
and thank Joe.
00:49:43.105 --> 00:49:44.425
Thank you, Tom.
00:49:44.844 --> 00:49:45.594
Thanks for having
00:49:45.594 --> 00:49:45.775
me.
00:49:45.954 --> 00:49:46.284
Pleasure.