Tom Kerridge REVEALS What Destroys the Hospitality Industry

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Speaker C: Let's talk about, um, employment and youth unemployment particularly right, because we are meeting and recording on the day that unemployment in the UK has gone to 5%. And what I was really struck by that is that youth unemployment has gone up by quarter of a million in that. So those under 34, actually those over 35, employment's increased only by 18,000. So not a lot. But I was just so struck by that that we now have a million people under the age of 24 that aren't in education, aren't in employment. Like it's a huge challenge. Like what do you make of what the government's been doing?

Speaker D: Well in all honesty, I mean it's not just this government, it's successive government and it's a. Hospitality is one of the major employers of young adults. It is um, one of those spaces, it's that transient crossover, um, industry where people will leave school, college, university, even have jobs whilst they're at school or college or university, um, working in hospitality because it is flexible, it does work like it's almost operational for 16 hours of the day, if not more. Um, where, uh, part time staff, the industry used to rely on the part time staff energy, um, and the people coming through. And those people coming through would see hospitality as one of those great chances for meeting, growing, becoming, you know, helping them to become complete young adults. Because if you think of 16 year olds to 24 year olds, a lot of the people that they generally spend their time with, their peer groups, they're all the same age mostly, all with the same sort of interests and the same sort of backgrounds, um, then the adults that they have conversations with and they spend time with are their parents, their parents, friends or college lecturers or perhaps some form of sporting coach and that's it. After that there isn't much in the way of um, being opened out to the rest of the world. So hospitality is one of the most inclusive, embracing, uh, culturally rich, diverse, incredible industries to be a part of. There's no difference to age, educational backgrounds, race, religion, um, financial background. None of those things make any difference. You come into hospitality and everybody's there for the sole purpose of cooking and serving and making sure that guests have a great time. Now all of that um, means that there's so many different people with so many different experiences from you know, young 16 year olds all the way up to M50 year olds that are still in the business and you still go, you know, and, and then on top of that you then get to meet guests that are completely different. All the guests are not the same age and all they're not all from the same back. They all coming because they enjoy eating out and being in spaces. Now that could be in a restaurant like this or it could just be in the local pub. People are different. Or a really busy Tencenter bar or a hotel that's seasonal where people are coming in from all over because they're going down to Cornwall for example, you know, and they could come from uh. So these are great opportunities that hospitality provides or used to provide for young adults to be able to get to that position. However, since hospitality in the last four or five years has become hugely pressurized, the ability for it to work as a business and those costs, what happens is when people are leaving the businesses and um, full time members of staff, they're not getting re employed. Um, you would have heard it many, many a time where operations are going from, even in busy seasonal spaces are going from seven day weeks to five day weeks because they cannot afford to have to staff for seven days. When you talk about the minimum wage in those periods, those quiet periods on a Monday lunchtime or Tuesday lunchtime where you'd normally open and just exist, but actually people complain about the cost of a pint of beer. Maybe in London, I don't know, £8£8.50, whatever it might be. But we're paying £13 for minimum wage. Well that's, you know, you got to, you got to drink quite a lot of pints before you even pay somebody to minimum. So actually on a quieter lunchtime, most places are going actually well we're shut those two days which then means it just Drops into full time staff operating over a four or five day period as opposed to then being topped up by transient, maybe zero hour part time stuff. Zero hours always seen as a bad thing. But in hospitality, zero hours was never enough staff. We were always busy. You would always have loads of work, it's no problem. Now it's like actually there's nobody on those contracts. Everybody is about full time members of staff and you're trying to make that work. And the people that then lose out are uh, the young individuals that you would take on. That would come in as um, a small risk to the business because it's about training and training takes time and it takes somebody out of a business when they could just be operating and making their thing. Actually if you're showing somebody and teaching them the skills, that is a cost of the business and the time that needs to be spent. So all of that kind of gets stripped back as you descale de escalate and then the knock on effect of that is that young adults are not getting employed in hospitality.

Speaker C: And what are the other cost pressures that hospitality is facing? Right, like you also had the pandemic which was, you know, tested everyone, but in particular it's hard to think of a, uh, industry that was affected more than hospitality during that period.

Speaker D: Yeah. So when the pandemic came in, hospitality was hugely affected. Um, but the one good thing that that previous government did and um, when Rishi Sunak was Chancellor was it took a long time for them to listen and hear. But in terms of the furlough scheme doesn't just help us as an industry and as it helped everybody, that was something that, okay, that means that we can. And we topped up lots of wages, everybody's wages, and I'm sure lots of other people did exactly the same. But you were like, okay, so that's now working. There's a workforce that after the first three or four weeks of the frightening bit was like, okay, you've all, you're getting paid, you've all got jobs, it's okay. It was the reopening bit, how do you do that? And then there was the help out to eat out scheme. Then there was the reduction in vat. So it felt that there was, okay, there's, there's an opportunity here for us to be able to exist as a business. Um, there was a civil zones, there was the things that started coming through that felt like there was help. Since then all of that has disappeared. That scaffolding that has been put around those businesses has completely been taken away and you're left with, um, rising, um, utility bills through energy costs that have gone up. I, um, mean, probably in some cases, 80, 90 on average, I think it's around about 70% utility bills. Food inflation that has gone in some cases for certain items. Beef, veg, oil, two of the mainstays that go into a fryer and most people order a steak or burgers, have gone up nearly 100% in the last five years. So many different other things have dropped in through food inflation. So that, that on average is around about 40% since the last five years. National insurance, minimum wage, um, and then things like business rates. Now, all of those are the numbers that have just affect that back end to the point now where hospitality just doesn't work. It would operate even on the busiest times in the greatest spaces. Hospitality, it would be lucky at, uh, the best times to be operating at a 10% EBITDA. So you're going, okay, and that's at the best time. Then it starts getting eroded and the margins start disappearing. And 10% sounds, I mean, actually there's a lot of business that would look at us and go, what are. If you're doing it for 10% return, like, it's nothing like in hospitality, you're doing 10%, you're going, all right, we're doing okay. Yeah. The reality is, and that's now disappeared and gone, there's many operators that are operating at 2 or 3%, some, myself included, that are operating around about 100% cost, one of our businesses at about 115. So there's many spaces that are operating like that because of those costs that have come in, where you've got higher wages, where you've got the utility bills, where you've got food inflation, all of that. And that isn't a cost that you can pass on to the guest because the guest is still there. Our numbers are down probably around about 15% in terms of bums on seats, because all of those things are affecting the guest as well. Um, but our spend is probably down on average about 20%. So if your spend is down 20%, your costs have gone spiraling up. You are now left in an industry that is stagnating and going backwards.

Speaker C: You're kind of a labor man. You signed the sort of labour supporting Keir Starmer coming into government, etc. Uh, why do you think they're not

Speaker D: listening and getting it? Well, there's two things on that. I come from a single parent, working class background, um, in the middle of Gloucester. Um, I've always been a Labour supporter because I fundamentally believe, irrespective, it's a bit. Politics is like a football team. You can support a football team, but you can say that they're wrong. You can say, you can't just outright go, yeah, yeah, no, they're the best, they're the best. Well, they're not. They're getting this bit wrong. This is very, very wrong. The fundamental basics of what that football team stands for or what a Labour Party stands for, I believe in, I believe in a healthcare system. I believe in transportation, I believe in education. I believe in opportunities being presented to everybody, irrespective, uh, of backgrounds. I believe that everybody should have a fair crack of the whip. And I know the reality of life isn't like that because it just isn't. But that doesn't mean to say that if you come from a background where you are economically challenged, that you shouldn't be presented with hard work and ethics, that you should, you're set up to fail. You should be given those opportunities. And I fundamentally believe that the basics of the Labour Party, that is where it sits then, in terms of conversation with them regarding business. Now, I've been lucky to speak to previous government and this government and I've been able to speak to front bench ministers. Now, many of them know and agree that there is a problem and it's the VAT system that is sitting incorrectly within hospitality that needs saving. Now, that could come from whether it's business and Trade, Culture Secretary, whether it comes from Andy Burnham, who is, you know, has already announced six, eight weeks ago, stood there saying, hospitality needs to be looked at, the reduction of vat. And these things are really, really important. They do understand, and I imagine, you know, politics way better than me, that most people, irrespective of party politicians, want people to do well. They want their businesses to thrive, they want the healthcare system, they want people to not be on waiting lists. So the only way that those politicians can get those things done, as you're a minister of those particular spaces, is through money. And, um, the one department that holds all the postings, so that is Treasury. Now, it doesn't matter how many times people will say to somebody, I need more money and we need to be able to do this. Treasury have the purse strings. They're the ones that will make ultimately the decision of whether it's a policy that will work or not work. Now you then, from my understanding, from the conversations I had and the way that I'm, um, working towards building a campaign, launching and moving Forward that the understanding of driving hospitality VAT down to 10%. We have to present a model that isn't just given 10% off. It's actually about growth, it's about prosperity, it's about reinvestment, it's about, um, youth unemployment, it's about all of these things. It's about giving green shoots. That runs much deeper than just a pub getting 10% off its VAT. It's so much more fundamental to the basics and the infrastructure of communities and society. So those are points that need to be pushed across. And it's modeling that needs to be presented to treasury so they, people will say, why aren't they listening? Actually, they are listening. Okay, but you just don't go out in the press and say that because they can't say, yes, we understand that and we get this. And I, yeah, okay, I do understand that because it's not a policy yet and it's not a thing. And they can't get the money. So until they, you know better than me, until they can get the money, until they can get signed off and until everybody's ticked the box, you don't announce policies or changes because it just doesn't happen. And then you look even worse as a politician and do you know what I mean? And people, they don't want. So they are listening. It's whether they hear and they can react on it. And it is down to us as an industry to present modeling that shows infrastructure of growth as opposed to just save us because we do need saving as an industry. Three are closing every single day. Three hospitality businesses are shutting every single day. And it does need saving, but it does need to be talked about as actually, it's not about saving, it's about reinvestments.

Speaker C: What do you make of how business makes it argument generally? Where is the argument for business and for the growth that it provides?

Speaker D: I think media has a lot, um, to answer for, for that. Because when you're asked to talk about certain things like this on media and you might go on to Sky News, or you might go on to Question Time, or you might go on to, I don't know, Newsnight or whatever else you're presented and you have a, you have a short period of time to try and explain what's going on and, um, you're insane explanation. Now, it could be about our industry, it could be about the construction industry, it could be about the health care industry. They will all say they're under pressure and it's a nightmare and it's not making Any money and there's staffing problems and there's all of these. So as you're trying to convey that message, it comes across short, sharp, quick, and it sounds like it's massively in trouble because you're not given the time. But also if you're not in that industry, if you're not in the construction industry, after three minutes of somebody saying, do you switch off, do you go, well, I'm not a builder, I'm not having anything built. It doesn't matter if you're not. You know, what we need to do is have an understanding of how we get messaging across, um, from every industry. And the way that it works is quite often there's trade bodies, uh, that then lobby and push and then there's individuals. Nothing meets in the middle. Because for example, if you are, I don't know if you, you drink in a pub, you're, you're one of the tradies, right? You wear a high vis jacket, you leave your house 4:35am, you finish at 4, you're going for a pint in a local pub. When you then switch on the news and you go home, um, for a bit of tea and there is somebody from a trade body in a suit talking to somebody else about. It just looks like another politician. It just looks like something, it's not relatable. Like you've gone to work all day, you've had your, you've had your pint, you might have had burger and chips in the pub and you've gone, gone. That's more expensive than last time in. The landlord's moaning again that he's not got any money, he's got to do 14 days straight and you go, and then you hear someone from a trade body that looks like a politician talking to another politician or a TV presenter that's all dressed up in a suit and it's just, it doesn't connect. It doesn't feel like it's one of us that's talking about it. Uh, so we have to be very careful about the way that we construct it, uh, uh, and talk about it. Because politicians and government listen to trade bodies and they listen because that messaging is driven and written out in a concise methodology and there's the funding behind it to present modeling and structure so that politicians can understand. But actually what you need is the 50 odd million people in the country to understand why that business is under pressure, why barbers or hairdressers might be under pressure, why construction companies might be under pressure, why healthcare system, private Nursing homes or the care system or why hospitality is under those pressure. For people to relate to that, you need to have people from that industry talking about it. And then the issue with that is quite often if you're just a local landlord from around the corner, you're not media trained, you won't go onto television. Or if they put you on television, you get nervous, you don't know what to say. You might get. So then, then there becomes this juxtaposition and it ends up being people like myself or like Angela Hartnett or Will Beckett from Hawksville or somebody else who has done and can talk and has an understanding of it, and it becomes just, perhaps just a little more relatable. So we've got to try and convey those messages with an understanding that everybody can. The greater public can understand. Whilst trade bodies are still pushing underneath, the suit wearers can be talking to the other suits.

Speaker C: Have you ever thought about politics?

Speaker D: Um, yes, um, I have, yeah, I have thought about it. Um, but I'm not sure when I've got the time to. The route to becoming a politician. The, the worry about local politics, the worry about what day Binday is, and the worry about, you know, the, the potholes. And, um, I actually, I have thought about, I thought whilst all of that is completely relevant, that's not my day job. I don't need to worry or want to worry about that. So then I find myself in quite a fortunate position that I can say. Why? Because also, once you become sign up to politics, you pretty much have to sign ah, up to the, to the. You have to, you have to toe the party line. You have to say the thing. Well, right now I am criticizing the labor government that with the way that they are working with this industry and I think it has more gravitas and more power from my industry because as a Labor supporter, uh, they can't, they cannot, they can't go, oh, yeah, but he votes reform. It doesn't really matter. He's always going to knock us. No, I'm not knocking. I think what, I think fundamentally what you do and some of the stuff that you have achieved, their comms are so bad, some of the stuff you've achieved already has been fantastic. But actually what's falling down here is an understanding of businesses and small businesses and I will call them out. And I think if you go into the world of politics, um, I don't think you have as much power. I think you can try and change stuff, but I don't think you can change as much by Being a mouthy bloke from the telly.

Speaker C: Yeah, maybe. But I think it's, you know, there are more business leaders going in and, you know, had James Simpson go in and so on.

Speaker D: I would much rather. What. What we lack in our industry, we lack a ministry of hospitality. There isn't a civil service for it. The hospitality is split over two different ministries and it gets. That's why it all gets confused. That's why there was the whole pork pie, sausage roll thing during COVID like the whole. Because one thing was saying another and a different ministry was saying another thing. It just always, like, it employs over 3 million people. There's another 1 1/2 million people employed in the supply chain. It's 4 1/2 million people are involved directly or indirectly in hospitality. That's a huge industry that brings so much money to the treasury, that does not have its own civil service ministry that advises irrespective of government. Now, that's a position where I could feel that people like myself, like Angela Hartnett, like Will Beckett, that we mentioned there, could work much better in terms of advising in a civil service perspective. So it's cross party, whilst I vote Labor. It is. Hospitality is in the interest of everybody and it is about getting that right. So. And a civil service works irrespective of which party is. It should be. It's advising on that space. Administry of hospitality is something that I would be. I would. I would have a conversation of advising or helping on if that was something that came in.

Speaker C: That's.

Speaker D: That is. That's not, uh. It's not a frontline politician. Because I also. Yeah, I could go into the House of Lords.

Speaker C: Lord Kerridge of Marlow.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got a certain ring to it.

Speaker C: It does, um, be interesting thoughts on, like, what's happened in the last kind of, like, couple of weeks. Just like, as an observer.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Like, you know, part of the appeal of the Labour Party, which, you know, even I got as a formatory, was majority, stability of government, etc. And it's just all kind of unraveled again.

Speaker D: Yeah, it has. And I think, um. I think there's a number of problems. I'm sure you've probably met Sakir and I've met him a number of times and he is a genuine gentle and I think his ethics and everything is all in the right place. He's a kind human and he's a good man and all of those things are wonderful traits and qualities. But we live in an age where Media is driven, noise is driven, shouty. Politics is all like. And, and he isn't into that. Diplomacy is something that he runs with. You know, the way, example the conversations and the way that um, he, he's been able to deal with President Trump in a world where he goes bullying and smashing his way through everything else. We didn't get involved in that. Zakiyyah went with a diplomacy, behind the scenes stuff just to make it all okay, which works, which works in the world of politics behind the scenes. But we are in a world now

Speaker A: where

Speaker D: people look for showmen. I mean people look for people that can have conversation, can stand there and feel that they represent. And I think what's happened is the moment that things have started to go wrong. I do think they've had a big problem with comms, like in terms of the things that they've been able to portray and they may haven't been able to defend themselves when they've come under attack. And I don't think they've been proactive about attacking the positives, which is something in this day and age, irrespective of ah, where you think of whether it's right or wrong. It's something that has to happen, otherwise you lose votes. And you've just seen in the locals that there's been a lot of votes that have moved and they've moved to a shouty party with very little in the way of policy and that a lot of the people that have voted for them don't know what the policies are, but they voted for the guy that they think represents them because it's shouty and it's noisy and it's. And you've gone. And there's even Labor Party supporters that have moved to there because it feels like it's a working class movement and a space that have got. Well, actually they actually get us without looking at, uh, the bigger picture of what the policy are, uh, because most people don't look at manifestos like, you know, uh, people who vote don't read a manifesto. There might be some. We get our information about what people are going to do with our vote by the news. And when that comes out in the news, you go, oh yeah, that's it. So you need sound bites, you need to be able to communicate in a way that's punching comes across. And I think sadly, Sakiya and his team have not been able to do that. And then when things have gone wrong, when I think the Rachel Reeve thing was, I don't think is a strong move I think she's not been able to convey what she wants to do in, in a, in a positive manner. I think the Mandelson thing has been a real and absolute disaster for him, where his soft approach to things, which, I don't know, if you're a school teacher and if you're a parent, all of that is great, but you're not, you're the Prime Minister. And I think that's where every other party has been able to score points and put more division within the Labour Party, where they've now realized that actually you need a more, a much stronger sounding, um, representative that perhaps ticks a lot more boxes for, um, the general public. And I think that's where his issues have arisen. Fundamentally. I think. I genuinely think he's a good human and a good man. I just think in the world of politics that doesn't always go all the way.

Speaker C: And once you brought up Andy Burnham earlier, having talked about coming out and backing hospitality, what do you sort of make of him?

Speaker D: I think Andy Burnham's great. I've met Andy a number of times when we used to have a restaurant in Manchester. I think what he's done for Manchester has been fantastic. I think his ability to communicate is really good. I think in terms of, um, his support for hospitality, I mean, he's already voiced it, he's already seen it. He already sees how Manchester, which is a great. I mean, it's a culturally rich and brilliant city. You could sense a, ah, town that was culturally rich and diverse, but not just that it has a student energy, um, it's got great sporting kind of prowess, but it also has an amazing food scene and all of those things combine and that's being encouraged through growth. And that's what town should be about. When you see town planners drawing pictures of trying to rejuvenate city centers, it's always about, you know, here's a community space and his food and his bars and his culture and here's all of those things. Manchester. And what Andy Burn has been able to do there is kind of encase that and wrap that up and if you can take Manchester and make it the whole country, that's what I'd love him to be able to do. He's the sort of person that could stand at a Prime minister's question time and argue back with the same veracity and force that perhaps Kemi or Nigel Farage do and can give back equally as well, as opposed to just, um, dissecting an argument with statistics and figures and gently defending or avoiding. Can hit back. Can hit back. And I think that will come across in a much better way to many voters. Oh, yes. Finally somebody who says it like it is. He's got a northern regional accent. Regional accents are great there. You can associate with regional accents work.

Speaker C: Uh, so do you think you'd vote for him?

Speaker D: Yes, I would, yeah.

Speaker C: A Times article you gave interview recently where you talked about how he made more money from being Tom Kerridge than from restaurants and so on.

Speaker D: Yeah. Well, firstly, you got to remember that's actually terrifying because if I hadn't been on television and I don't write books and I, and I don't work with, uh, with Marks and Spencers if those things don't exist, I'm trying to operate off five businesses that don't make any money. You know, you like a lot of the decisions, particularly last two or three years, the way that things have been funded or supported comes through external work comes through it. We make decisions. I mean, we laugh about it with both my PA and managing director about gigs that I might have to be doing this weekend or where they sending me or what they're doing because it's a paid gig that comes in where an events team, um, runs an event and then there's a fee associated with it and that it would sound like a lot of money if it was you and an individual. Someone's going, here, you go, there's a, there's some money for coming and doing stuff. He goes, but it doesn't, it's not like that. It just comes in and just disappears into. I mean, the managing director describes it. It's like, you know that, um, Blackadder sketch where there's that one thing, that one episode where he was making money, Blackadder. And it come in and he's going like that and then it just disappears out the back. It's like it comes in through the front door and out the back and that back door goes straight into the business to try and support and help things grow. And that's our business. So every other hospitality business, quite similar to podcasting. Yeah, but exactly. And you go, well, uh, so I, I'm on this seven day week movement of going around the businesses I would have been in by the end of today, I would have been in all five businesses and just made sure that they're all alright, connected with everybody, made sure that everything is going on. But my world has grown from being a professional chef and winning two Michelin stars and being that person now I'm very fortunate that over that journey, I recognized when I appeared on Great British Menu and I cooked that there was another world out there that people were cooking and, uh, people were making television. That production, all of the people there, that was their job. They weren't just filming me cooking, there was a whole thing. So the realization there that there was, um, a whole new world to learn, I find quite exciting. And I was very fortunate that after that the BBC asked if I would do a show. And I think I'm probably the last BBC chef to be employed that has been able to. Because since then there hasn't really been any new, no new chefs on the telly. Nadia came along and did something which was great after she won Bake Off. Um, but after that there's been very, very little. And it's the same faces. And I'm the last of the old same faces, you know, that come in and do stuff. Um, and why is that? Uh, well, I think that style of television has also changed. TVs change. That's called a chop and chat television show where it's half an hour if you going somewhere in a kitchen, cooking show somebody how to make it, you know, three courses and then there's a book that's associated with it and everybody loves it and everyone's at home and they buy that book for them or for their friends. And you know, it's the recipe that you see on the telly. Viewing styles have changed. You know, people will watch on YouTube, they'll watch on Catch up, they'll watch on different models. You'll watch, you might watch one singular recipe in 3 minutes on your phone, on Instagram, you know, and all of that, all of that's changed. The way that people consume their cookery or cookery TV has, has changed. There is still the market space for people who joined me 10, 15 years ago and telly that have grown with us, that are still with us, still that audience that still like that kind of television. But underneath it, it is, it is definitely changing. Um, and then the association that comes with it, the books and then the appearances. And I work very, very hard to try. And um, everything that I do is 100% and you commit to everything. And any gigs or anything that we do, we will make sure it is of the level of two stars at the hand. So all of the. I am as driven and as committed to making all of that work as much as the restaurant. So when you give that much care and soul, I think long term, it's all about a long game. Long term. I think it comes back. I hope it does it. Well, it does. And sat here having opened the hand of flowers 21 years later in a very fortunate position. Um, and then I think when you find yourself with that voice, I think it's really important that you then use it for positive. Because there's hundreds of thousands of hospitality businesses out there. They're just not given the opportunity to do a podcast or do news night or do those things.

Speaker C: But how you with five high end restaurants struggling to make it work, how's an independent going to do it?

Speaker D: Well, that's it. Our costs are exactly the same as any other independent. You know they are the cost of the head chef, the manager, the food costs are the same. You know, if everyone's paying minimum wage, you know that is exactly the same across the board. The numbers are about the same. There isn't anything that comes in any different. Um, so you know, your VAT is the same, your business rates have gone up a percentage mark pretty much the same. So all of those drop in. So. But that's exactly it. Independence aren't coping. They're not, you know and we operate as independents. I have five independents and they all, they don't necessarily make money right now. They can make money. There have been times when they have made money. Um, and you just hope that it is ah, shorter term. And we go back to the pre Covid thing that there was a point there where you felt there was support systems. There isn't that anymore. And this is where this conversation with government has to happen. So a support system could come in that could support the hundreds of thousands of hospitality businesses that are out there.

Speaker C: Um, you became sober at 40 and um, he talks about it being a really big moment there. I was so impressing back to the story of like how much you used to drink on a sort of daily basis and then you just gave up.

Speaker D: I don't know. I have come to realize that over as I'm 52, nearly 53 now, that, that I perhaps my. I am slightly wired up different to other people that if I go, uh, this is what I'm going to do and I'm going to do it and I do it to extremes and that's it. And I just stop or I just. When I drank I was world class like Olympic gold medal drinker, like 12, 16 pints of strong lager every single day after service plus half a bottle, maybe a bottle of gin like and that would be between, that would be between 10:30, 11:00pm, 2:30am um, and then I'll be up again at 6:30 and back into the restaurant. And that was every, that was without. That was every single day. And it's. I uh, look at it and I go, I mean, I mean that is, that's fucking extreme. Like I look at it and I go that was like big. But I wouldn't drink during the day. Like during the day was operation that was. We are driving this and we are pushing towards two Mission stars. We achieve two Mission Stars, we're driving it even more and we keep driving and driving. And that was my release, that was the weight of the pressure of the business and um, the drive of it and the, the level of consistency and the uh, I don't know, the, the level of skill set and driving that kitchen was everything that we was, I was working towards as well as front of house. So everything about it was 100% full on, 100% extreme. And then I did get to the age of 40 and I was, and I was like, it was my 39th year and I was approaching my 40th birthday and I thought this has to end. Like, you know, I'm over 30 stone. I drink so heavily. I'm not going to make 50. Like one of my best friends described being 40 goes, well, he's halfway to death in it. Like, can you just go, yeah, like if you live to 80. So oh my God, yeah, he's right. Like. And you start going, well, after four years I got.

Speaker A: That's it.

Speaker D: Like, uh, but I ain't going to be 50 if I continue like this. So I uh, it was about three or four months in the planning. I had a date of when it was going to be. It was going to be the middle of January. January 19th was a point where I was going to go right, that was it. And that was because there was a certain thing that was on that day that I was going to do something. I thought I'll get to that and that will be it. So I worked towards it. The run up to Christmas that year 2012 was absolute fucking chaos. I went, I went full on for it. Like it was like it was going out like some major swans. I was loving every minute of it. And then it, and then it got to that day and that was it. I stopped. I fell off the wagon four times in that year. It was my 40th birthday. I knew I was going to drink that day. That turned into a four day bender. I had um, two trips, uh, to Singapore where I was working and it all went a bit pear shaped and I Had one, one night at a, uh, music gig. And then. But then it was the November of that year that I, I got off a plane back from Singapore, that I'd slept for 16 hours on the flight back because it was. And I just, I, this is it. I am done. So that was it. So that, and that was the point. I just stopped. And then I not drank a single drop since then.

Speaker C: Um, it's almost more impressive to have the kind of relapses and come back from them each time as well. Right. That must have.

Speaker D: I was going through the process of that first year. I always knew that I, I was, I'd stopped drinking and I knew. And even when I fell off the wagon in that first year, it didn't feel like, oh my God, I'm back on it again. It felt for that period, I didn't think, because when, uh, after the weekend or the two or three days or whenever it was, then I would go, it's okay, I'm off it again. So I knew I was kind of beginning to be able to mentally control where I was. But then there was the one point and then that was it. It was just done. Never, never again.

Speaker C: And you're surrounded thereby, good times, alcohol, etc. How do you separate it out?

Speaker D: It's the easiest thing. It's so much easier when you work in it and it's your world. Because I'm, um, not going out. I don't socialize in it. Like, I'm not, I'm. I was never one that would drink behind the bar with people. It wasn't my world. Uh, I would, I would be in somewhere else to do it. My workspace was always about the best wines, the best well looked after beers, nicely crafted and distilled gins and all of those. So I now see myself like in a really. I had to view it like I'm some sort of drug pusher. Like I'm some sort of guy that's selling something. Like, not that I know any very well, but drug pushers I don't imagine are taking their own heroin. Do you know what I mean? Like if they're not, they're running a business of selling it. So I had to view it of going, actually, this is what I do and I will buy the best. And we look after it the best. We look after the sellers the best. We find the greatest wines and we find people with passion and love and soul for it. I sell it and, um, I'm not interested. I have somebody who completely understands wines and loves wines across the group that are amazing in two or three different spaces. They're so good at it. They can. They organize the wines. Everybody else knows how to deal with the beers and loves them. And, you know, the rest of it. You go. You let the bar staff become excited about things and you just can just stand back and let people. You. You run the business now as opposed to being in it from that perspective. So I find it much easier to separate the two.

Speaker C: Which cabinet minister do you think would be the best chef?

Speaker D: Uh, do you know what? The one that I have had a number of good conversations with, um, and understands the hospitality industry, I think, quite well and eats out in it and has been a part of is Peter Kyle. So Peter Kyle, I think, would probably be. He's quite. He lives and he's based down. Is it Brighton Way? Brighton Way. So there's a great food scene there. He eats out in it a lot. He's a part of that community. I imagine he's probably quite good in his kitchen.

Speaker C: Fantastic.

Speaker D: I agree with that.

Speaker C: Uh, super.