The Harts Group Multi-Brand Playbook: What to Centralise, What to Protect

Speaker A: I love individuality, but as you scale, you have to also embrace quite a lot of standardization. And I think from the public's point of view is, you know, I think they see busy restaurants, um, and assume we're making lots and lots of money and it just really isn't the case. Our operating costs are so high. Uh, you know.

Speaker B: Welcome back to what's Cooking. I'm, um, Conor Sheridan, CEO and founder of nori. This week we're getting into something that most operators treat as binary. You either scale a brand or you protect what makes it special. Conventional wisdom says you can't do both. Here's the tension. The moment a hospitality brand starts to grow, the pressure to systemize comes in. Standardize the menu, replicate the look and feel, centralize procurement and build shared services. On paper, that makes total sense as it drives efficiency, reduces cost and makes the business legible to investors and operators alike. But what happens when your portfolio isn't built for a single concept? What happens with each brand you run has a completely different culinary identity, sourcing philosophy and guest experience. And what happens when the thing that makes each brand great is precisely its individuality? But what happens when your portfolio isn't built on a single concept? What happens when each brand you run has a completely different culinary identity, sourcing philosophy and guest experience? And what happens when the thing that makes each brand great is precisely its own individuality? The UK restaurant sector is facing its most challenging operating environment in a generation. Labour costs are rising and consumer spending is falling. The average British family has cut their restaurant visits almost in half in recent years. And against that backdrop, multi brand operators are being forced to make uncomfortable decisions about where to centralize and where to protect. Today's guest is Sam, um Hart, CEO of Hearts Group. The family run business behind El Pastora, Casa Pastor and Barrafina. Three brands, all distinct, all critically acclaimed, but all operating under the same group infrastructure. And now, for the first time, all going international. What makes this conversation different is that Hearts Group hasn't scaled by replicating. They've scaled by building the group level systems and culture that allow each brand to remain fiercely independent and fiercely itself. That's a genuinely rare achievement in hospitality. And it raises a question that every multi brand operator should be grappling with. How do you build shared infrastructure? They're flattening the individuality that drives your reputation and drives your demand. Let's get into it. Sam, welcome to what's Cooking. Awesome to have you on the show. Thanks for taking the time to be with us today.

Speaker A: Well, thank you very much for inviting this. It's great to be here.

Speaker B: We're big fans of the brands at Nori. We hosted an event at Barrafina not too long ago. Absolutely fantastic. So I was really excited to speak to you today and big fan of um, pastor as well. And so we, we've gone there at the team quite a bit to celebrate some, some good wins. So big um, fan over here and excited to hear about the history of the business and what's next as well. Um, so for those who maybe aren't so familiar with Hearts Group, which is the parent group for the uh, different brands, maybe you can give us a quick lay of the land in terms of how many sites, what brands are involved in and where you're at today. From a business point of view, of course.

Speaker A: Yes. So Hearts Group's a privately, privately owned, um, restaurant group. We've been around since 2003, um, in London. We've got 16, um, 16 venues in London, um, and now one in Dubai as our first, uh, foreign outing. Um, and m, we started off with Barrafina. Um, there's five Barrafinas. Barrafina, uh, has a sister restaurant, Parian, which is a sort of outdoor grill restaurant. So we have two of those as well. We also have a small wine and cocktail bar, um, inspired by our family home in Majorca called Bar Dascal. Um, so that completes the Spanish stable. Um, we then have um, four El Pastors, um, all in central London as well. Um, we have two Drops which are local neighborhood bars. Um, and we have an agave, um, based cocktail bar called uh, El Ciete which just launched in March. Um, and we also have Cuovares, which is a British restaurant and private members club, um, celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

Speaker B: Wow. Um, it's amazing. Um, we get many folks on the show, many founders who are at scale, but not many who take um, unique approach to building a business. And what I mean by that is oftentimes the ingredients to their success is standardization. Same concept. How do you cookie cutter? Uh, that. And you've definitely not done that as a business. Obviously there's multiple units of the same brand, but you've taken could ah, be a harder road. Right. Ultimately, like unique concepts, unique sequence of service menu skill sets required to build out these really distinctive brands. What led you to that pathway? Was it organic? Was it something you decided up front that you knew you were going to do this?

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, well, um, I think it probably comes from a sort of certain amount of creative itch, uh, where we get excited about restaurants or things we want to do, um, and get on and do them. I mean, it's, you know, we started with the Spanish restaurants with Barrafina, obviously. Um, and actually we opened the first Barrafina and we were meant to be opening a second Barrafina. And by mistakes we were sort of wandering around London. Kept walking past Quo Vardis, which was at that stage by Barco Pierre White. And he. And this place was sort of, you know, he'd fallen out in love with it and it was falling to pieces and empty and blah, blah, blah. And we just fell in love with the building and. And so did that by mistake. I suppose what we try and do at, uh, Heartscape is always do restaurants that come from lived experience. So obviously, you know, um, my parents or my mum grew up in Majorca. Um, the first language was Spanish in Myokim, so, you know, we had the Spanish collection. I lived in Barcelona. Um, obviously I've lived in the UK all my life, apart from my time abroad. So, you know, British restaurants, it makes sense for us. Um, and then El Pastor, obviously, Mexican restaurants. I started out actually with a nightclub in Mexico city in the 90s. So I spent five years in Mexico and my business partner 10 years in Mexico. So you, you know, we'd, we had Spain. Then we fell in love with the building, which ended up being cis also was already called cis, but we ended up taking it over and then, um, because we, you know, been in love with Mexican food and felt like we had a really good understanding of it. Um, and at that stage there were very, very few Mexican restaurants in the uk. It felt like, ah, a, um, a good opportunity to do Mexican as well. But I mean. I know what you mean. It's, it's, it's more work, uh, but more fun because, you know, it's not just a thing. We're gonna go, you know, we've got a choice of delicious restaurants to eat in ourselves.

Speaker B: Yeah, really cool. Um, reminds me of that, um, Steve Jobs line. You can only connect the dots looking backwards. When you say that, it all makes sense, right? The lived experience, the different. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: By the way, there's plenty of advisors that are going, you're completely, you're completely mad to make your lives easier. Just do one thing and stick with it. But, um, I mean, to be fair, I think now we probably have well known, we did our El Ciete, which is the new agave led cocktail bar of Tony and Mark. So maybe we still haven't learned our lesson on it.

Speaker B: Yeah, nice Very cool. And it enables you to create a very unique value proposition that's hard to replicate. Right. If it's based off Olympic experience.

Speaker A: Well, it's been over 20, 20, 23 years, so this is, you know, it's not all come in a day, you know, and it does come from real lived experience as well. You know, Um, I think, um, that's absolutely core to who we are at Heart's Group. You know, so much as I love Thai food, uh, I'm never going to open a Thai restaurant because I don't know anything about it, apart from enjoying eating it, you know what I mean, or whatever it might be. So I think that's now, you know, between Mexico, Spain and the UK is the sort of the maximum amount of different, uh, cuisines that we would. We would do.

Speaker B: It's going to be one of my. The first questions was, from a positioning or even from a culinary standpoint, how do you navigate having quite a few different concepts under one roof? Is it like, operationally, what does that look like?

Speaker A: Yeah, well, the way we, we, we, we split the group into two. Um, so we've got the Spanish side, who's got his own md, um, you know, who lived for three years in Spain, four years of fashion. She's my cousin, so her, um, mom also grew up in Spain. Um, and so she, you know, leads the Spanish side. And then the Mexican, um, side is led by my business partner, Crispin, who was in Mexico for 10 years. So we've got two specialist MDs running the Spanish and the Mexican. And then we all understand a little bit about British food. So that's. And of course, actually it's it. It at Quadis, which is British. Um, you know, we've got, um, Jeremy Lee, who's chef proprietor. So he's a business partner of ours running the kitchen. You know, he's been in the business a very long time. He's got an ob, you know, so he. He doesn't need much support C. I'm m. Not any support C. We do tastings together and get involved in the menu. But, you know, he's. He's a very, very strong chef and. And business partner.

Speaker B: Nice. So the team enables the scale right on the computer.

Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. It does mean that we have, um, probably a bigger head office than we would do if we'd only had one concept, you know, because we've got.

Speaker B: For sure. Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah, two, three exec. Three, four executives. Yeah, three executive chefs, you know, and two MDs rather than one MD. And, you know, so there's this? Yeah.

Speaker B: I mean looking across the business at 16 sites, um, you'd imagine the there is some shared infrastructure to enable centrally.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: How do you think around what, how do you think around what's standardized versus what's bespoke?

Speaker A: Yeah, so. So, um, the two MDs, and obviously we've got their two exec chefs who are specializing in one side. But for example comms, human resources, finance, estates and maintenance are all um, centralized into a sort of head office that look after everything.

Speaker B: And what elements of the business do you, when you then go into the front line from an operational point of view, do you look at it as fully bespoke when it comes to things like sequence of service, lnd of uh, frontline staff? It's a lot of brand specific.

Speaker A: No, there's, I mean, you know, sorry. So you know, for example, financial reporting is standardized by Secrets of service. Is individual to the brands. Yeah, individual to every brand.

Speaker B: Okay, nice. Um, I mean you look at obviously in an industry or a time for the industry where um, finding and retaining great talent is a real moat builder and a differentiator and it's also hard to do. Are you able to move folks from one brand to the other?

Speaker A: Yeah, we do, we do quite a lot. And it's actually really nice because you'll get, you know, sometimes you get a really talented manager who's hit a bit of a glass ceiling or. Glass ceiling. A ceiling because we've already got management in place in that particular side of the business. Um, you know, and we can offer them the possibility of switching it up or, you know, maybe they've just got, you know, poor. They've been, say they've been a barrac for five years or something and they're ready for something different. It enables us to retain those people. They can go and do something that, you know, is really quite different in terms of day to day. Uh, but we can then retain the talent. So uh, it definitely helps us.

Speaker B: Nice. I mean think around building such a successful uh, business across multiple streams. Like each brand in their own right. Is hyper successful. Right. And is really, really loved in, in the uk. It must come. And both they all seem quite, uh, mission driven from the outside when it comes to sustainability, provenance, quality of what goes into the product and the experience. Did you have to build bespoke cultures and do you have to like harness bespoke cultures or can you have shared values or how do you think around that when you're building?

Speaker A: Um, so I mean the group does have a shared value set that republish, you know, and, um, so. And culturally, uh, I would say that, you know, the management is largely the same, but they're also two very different. So there's a lot that's shared and there's a lot that's really different. Um, you know, so we try and share as much as we can, but because they are very different restaurants, they also have their own personality and their own style and their own bespoke culture as well.

Speaker B: What does that look like in practice? So if, uh, there's someone listening who's running multiple concepts, what elements do you leave to be owned and individualistic at a brand level versus when it comes to say, building the concept out in the team? You mentioned there's like HR and finance. But is that also down to the types of folks you hire, the personalities, the, the training? Is that all personalized?

Speaker A: Um, the training's personalized. Um, I think that's, you know, we interview some people that we don't. They're not right for Barina, but they are right for El Pastor. So yes, we do hire some different people. You know, we'd like to say that. To think there was a sort of hearts group way when it comes to hospitality and you know, looking after our customers and you know, commitment to perfectionism. And we'll talk about con. Just say constantly striving to make it make things better. So that's, that's across everything. Um, you know, but then the MDs are both business partners. Um, they both have their own. Manage different management styles. Um, and you know, um, so. So that then naturally has slightly different changes, you know, and then sometimes we'll do whole company meetings and then other times it's siloed off between the two parts of the group.

Speaker B: Okay, what are the, I suppose two sides of the coin then for those listening or who are from. What's the most challenging aspects of. Of running a concept, uh, with some, um, different brands and what are the major benefits that you get from it? What's the major. Why?

Speaker A: Well, I suppose so, um, the challenges are, you know, we've got, uh. Well, each barrafina menu is slightly different to each other one. I mean there's. The majority of. It's the same. But, you know, so you. But you know, we've got, uh, say seven, uh, different menus to develop. Um, which means I get involved in all the food tastings. You know, there's. There's seven tastings to do rather than one tasting to do and seven different wine lists and, you know, seven different cocktails. And so you, you know, seven websites, seven comm strategies, you know, it's more work. Um, like I say, I mean it probably developed out of passion rather than practicality. Um, but that said, um, you know, you've got, we have moments where, you know, one, one group of restaurants will perform better than another. So you know, I don't know, maybe,

Speaker B: uh,

Speaker A: don't know, I don't know. The sun's out and El Pastro's got lots of outdoor terraces. You know, so maybe the sun comes out is busier because it's got all the terraces. But then in the winter time, you know, Barrafina could do it better because maybe, I mean Barrafina does have. Because it's got the parians, but if you know what I mean. So you get, if there's days where one isn't doing so well, maybe the other one could outperform. Um, although that said, we tend to see them sort of ride the roller coaster in, in parallel. You know, a busy week in London, it tends to be that everybody's busy. Uh, yeah. And a quiet week, everybody's quiet. It's just sort of how it is somehow.

Speaker B: Nice. Yeah, there's something in that. Um, I remember back in my um, uh, investment days there was to talk about multi asset portfolios. Right. If you have, if you can put a bunch of non, uh, correlated, uh, stocks or in this instance brands together, then you can kind of protect.

Speaker A: There's a little bit of a, there's a bit of a de. Risk. But what we tend to find is our major risks tend to be um, you know, glowy globe across the. Across everything. Yeah, you know, things like minimum wage increases or changes in tax. You know, those are the really major challenges. So yes, diversification has some benefits, but most of the risks are general across severally.

Speaker B: Fair. Um, sourcing from the outside. Sourcing and provenance are central to the brands and the ethos of each concept. Why was that so important for you and for your business partners to have as a pillar stone or cornerstone of the business?

Speaker A: Yeah, um, you know, uh, we actually call Barrafina sort of, let's call it not officially, but like a restaurante de producto. Right. It's all about produce. Um, you know, in our mind it's a bit to say it's simple. Cooking is unfair. A lot more work goes into it than that. But at its absolute core is ingredients. This is a restaurant that is about ingredients. And my inspiration when I was living in Spain were these amazing restaurants that just focused on the best product they could possibly get and then relatively simple cooking. So most of our dishes tend to have not very elements, many different elements on the plate. Um, and is really trying to focus on, you know, one hero ingredient. Um, and it's, it's, it really comes from the way I like to eat, to be completely honest. That's what, that's what I want, um, to eat. And so that's what we do. And I'll, uh, my partners and my chefs. I remember, you know, like it started off as, you know, that's what I wanted very deliberately to do is to do a restaurant based around produce.

Speaker B: Nice. And that's a unique differentiator at scale. Right. I think if you look around the, look around the city and you look around um, the broader market, it's harder to make that, harder to do that the more doors you have. So I think it's definitely a unique positioning.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And um, you know, as we have grown, I incredibly proud to say that we've never ever compromised on the quality of ingredients as uh, sometimes if we can't, if the thing at the level we want it to be is too expensive to work in the London market and we take it off, but we won't compromise and buy a less good version of the same.

Speaker B: Yeah. So if you have different, um, positioning but also different menus, different approach to food, different produce, uh, for each concept. And then you've mentioned within concepts. So seven different menus for barithino. When you look at like supply chain, I imagine that could be quite complex. Is that something that you're able to centralize or is this bespoke?

Speaker A: Well, we've got, we've got two, um, procurement managers, one on each side.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Um, and they um, help do pricing, procurement, they talk to each other. So I mean it's something that we could do better. And we've been trying to do better is to sort of, um, share some of the procurement negotiations across the group. Um, but um, there's sort of two full time people that take it pretty seriously also very seriously about them, their individual procurement challenges.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: And also we've been around a long, we've been around 20, whatever, 23 or 24 years. We've got very good relationships with all of our suppliers, you know, many of whom we've worked for for decades. Um, so you know, we've got the relationships there.

Speaker B: Okay, nice. So moving further into the back end of the business. So there is some shared knowledge obviously on procurement and supply chain bespoke in terms of the SKUs, but the ways of purchasing. You mentioned the shared uh, technology infrastructure or process or NHR finance financial reporting. Mi Is that something you've uh, consciously adopted from a technology point of view to have uh, like one data layer across all different concepts so you can understand what's happening in the business? Maybe talk to us about that.

Speaker A: So we don't want a situation where you've got different platforms in different restaurants. Um, you know actually and what we find is that the tech's either good or innate. Um, and so that the businesses don't need different tech stacks, they, they need one tech. I mean it's all for us a lot of, well first of all trying to get best in class tech and second of all that it talks to the other tech that it's openly open connection. Open connectivity. Um, but also that it's the same and it's standardized across the group because it doesn't make. I can't think of this. Oh well the only one would be like Quo Varada who's got a membership so it needs a special membership system. But you know, like the tills, the accounting software, the procurement software, the wage management software, the L and D software, that's all the same.

Speaker B: Nice. So has it been a, has it been a journey for you to get standardized MI outputs out from m each brand or has it been relatively straightforward?

Speaker A: Ah, well, um, we've basically just come to an end of a two year full tech review. Um, but so um, uh, our tech stack is now pretty fit for. I mean I'm quite proud of where we've got to with the tech. Um, you know it really does all talk to each other at the moment. Um, you know we've managed to across almost all of it get to the stage where we think we're using currently best in class stuff. But the other thing is in which is sort of deliberate because there are some tech stats where it's just one company, I don't know whoever it might be, but they do everything. But what we tend to find is

Speaker B: that

Speaker A: they do everything but they're masters of none of it. So we prefer to try and get standalone best in class tech that has open API and connect to the other ones because the thing's constantly moving. So um, if in a year's time, whatever it is, our reservation system is no longer the best in the market because all the rest of the tech is open. You can swap it out and put whatever happens to be the next new best in class piece of tech in without the whole thing falling over.

Speaker B: Makes sense. Um, do you internally have, um. And how important is implementing AI into your business now? Is you a specific AI strategy for

Speaker A: how you want to use it? There is. And um, we've got, um. Actually, so, um, Barrafina are slightly sort of running a test case on this just because, uh. Well, our MD came from a digital background anyway, so she's extremely capable around technology. But also we've got a few of our senior management who just are sort of passionate and really interested about tech. And so, um, we're just trying. One of our GMs amazingly, together with his partner and one other, have built a, um, AI bot designed specifically for restaurant businesses. In fact, specifically for our restaurant business. You know, taking data, laser, everything to talk to each other and blah, blah, blah. But we're also testing, you know, things like copa. We've got an AI task force. Um, and you know, I suppose that where we, where we current, it's already beginning to save us serious amounts of time, um, and give serious visibility. You know, we're finding, you know, we're so good at analyzing data or whatever it might be, you know, bringing all the information together. So we are, uh, I'd say for the last, over the last six to nine months we've already seen amazing benefits. But we, we, we have a task force looking at how we can improve that and we, we really will be able to get a lot more out of it as the years progress. I mean this is, um, you know, we're actually talking about. We just built our own, um, AI powered phone line. Um, you know, our herring sales. Our head of sales built it himself. Or you can, you know, you can ring up, you can change reservations and link straight to the resident, you know, um, just as an example.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: And you know, so we're getting to the stage where I know we were looking at up, um, sort of estates, um, estates management system, looking after our assets, you know, like fridges and you know, all the physical estate assets. And we're not very happy with either of the people who are best in class at the moment. So we're just having a little scratch of our heads going. Actually, hang on a second. We might be able to build this ourselves and get the exact thing we want because we've got some really sharp people. And I have to say that I personally, um, uh, are not left behind because I am involved in all of this. But there's people a lot more proficient than me at building this stuff. Things like writing budgets is unbelievable because you take all the data over the last five years, um, then Say well how many covers do we normally do on a Monday? And does that change if the sun's shining and does it change if there's a football match? And can you forecast how many covers we're going to do this year? And the thing that would take you weeks takes three hours or something, you know. So it's, it's. We are really seeing some, some proper benefits.

Speaker B: Very cool. I uh, love that, that fact that the frontline folks as well as the head office folks are builders just coming to the table ways to optimize the business. When you think around um, um you think around like the opportunity there, do you see more like self built stuff or do you see like an opportunity to. It's interesting like because I suppose if I roll it back actually when we speak to folks at scale oftentimes they try to partner rather than build. But hearing that you're actually building internally is probably um. It's unique as well. Right? I think it's HFC fresh.

Speaker A: The honest answer is we don't know the answer to that yet. So the AI task force are building some things themselves and we're testing them and some are already working really well, some are still in sort of a beta stage and sometimes we use Copilot for example a lot um, on our Microsoft email software um, which is already up and going and we use Claude and so we, we, we, we absolutely do use third party platforms. Um, where best will we get to the stage where we're advanced enough to, to do the whole thing off our own platform that one of our gms, the guy who's developed his own bot, he is trying to design it so it does everything but we haven't, that's not, it's not yet proven. So we keep very, we keep exactly incredibly open minded about it and see and sometimes slightly with the rest of the tech stack you know um, you swap in so you've got something which a thing that already exists that's absolutely best in class, you don't bother building it yourself. Um, or but maybe there isn't quite the thing you want out there already in which case you build your own customized one or maybe the thing you want is too expensive so you just go actually well hang a second, we could, we could do it ourselves. So ah, it's a sort of multi um, faceted approach.

Speaker B: Just as you're speaking here and talking through how you think around brand quality, provenance, uniqueness, multiple concepts. The approach even to AI um, probably the reason it comes across as differentiated is a lot of the folks we have on are PE backed or they're institutionalized and there's obviously like a time frame or a Runway that they have to run the business. Um, do you feel like you're able to take these chances or run the business in a different way because it's more family. Ah, grown yourself versus.

Speaker A: There's absolutely no doubt that there's huge advantages of being privately owned and run. I mean, so just as a sort of example of this, the 24 years I've been doing this, we've never had to have a vote at a board meeting because we've had consensus. Right. So, you know, and, um, my shareholders tend to support the exec team here. And, and you know, if we say, look, this is what we think, sometimes they don't. They challenge us. And if they've got a better argument and a better reason than the one we're giving, then hell with it. We'll, you know, but we've, we've never, it's never got to the stage where the board can't agree on strategy. Um, so, you know, and there's nobody in the room. It also, like you say, because we don't have, um, set timelines. Um, you know, if it means that we're a bit nervous about something or we can't find the perfect site or whatever it is, we just don't do it. So it's, you know, it's, you know, for example, at the beginning of the Iran war, we were like, well, look, we'll just wait and see before we do anything within the UK or whatever it might be, or in Abu Dhabi, for example. Let's go, let's wait, see how this plays out so we don't have to follow some pre, pre agreed plan. Um, if, if, if the world changes and the situation is different. And I mean currently that happens the whole time. So it's quite useful we find.

Speaker B: Okay, very nice. Uh, you mentioned Abu Dhabi. So the business is in the early stages of international expansion. We just opened, uh, Barrafina in Difsc. Dif. Difc. Excuse me, In Dubai. And you mentioned Abu Dhabi's next. Maybe talk to us a bit about what drove that decision and what the plans are for the business, if you can, of course.

Speaker A: Um, so Barrafina. We've had approaches to do Barrafina International loads and loads of times over the years. Pre Covid. We were just warming up to try and get going. Um, so 2018, 2019, we started to spend a bit of time in the States and that was coming along. Um, and then Covid happened then trying to rebuild the team after Covid took two or three years or something like a long period of time. Um, so we was put on pause and then two things happened. Um, one is we restructured the company with this 2md thing so we had more head office resource and a stable teams in order to be able to do it. Plus the trading conditions um, in the UK got worse and considerably worse. So it really um, gave us a little bit of a sort of prod to get going on the international and start to diversify in terms of territory.

Speaker B: Nice. And how is the. Obviously Iran notwithstanding, which is a big challenge you've had to face in, in the region. But just from a general taking a, a unique culinary concept to new market. How has that experience been? Have you found localizing it to be relatively straightforward or is it quite complex?

Speaker A: Well, you know, um, so it's, it's, it's a lot in Dubai and WW they're but um, both license agreements. So we have local partners, um, and you know, who've been in the region for a very long time. They know exactly the thing. So you know, when we were trying to develop the menu, um, we gave them a great. Over the years we've done hundreds of dish. Like we've got two we built, we got loads and loads and loads of dishes. So we gave them a great big long list. And he went okay, look, and these are the ones that are the absolute classics which we feel that we need to do whatever the weather. And these are all the other ones. Which ones do you think are going to be best in this particular local market? And then um, you know, listen to their advice. Obviously had our own feelings about what but you know, but we've got a local partner who understands and they go okay, we want to do uh, milk fed land skidney. And they go no, actually people in provide dirty doffels. Okay, that's the end of that and we'll do something else. Um, so, so you know, and I mean, sorry, this is. We're in the early stages. Dubai, they fly everything in. And so you know, during the war there was, excuse me, serious interruption to produce or the worst bits of it. Um, but that withstanding you can pretty much get anything you like. I mean and actually for Dubai we did decide, um, to be no pork. Um, it felt, you know, in the Middle east you have to have a separate kitchen, separate extraction and the Marathine is just too small. And anyway, sort of for some reason I slightly felt we've got you've got so many other things we could do. Of course, pork is important part of Spanish cuisine, but it felt like an invisible country. Well, I mean, why, why would we, why would we when we've got so many other delicious things that they do eat?

Speaker B: Really Exciting. Um, definitely a growing region, I think. Be excited to see where, uh, how the brand evolves over the, over the next few years. If you look at the operating environment, you touched on it, it's um, been challenging post Covid in the UK and everywhere, really. Right. As a business, we work with people in the Middle east, in the US and Europe and the UK and just different challenges in different markets. And uh, in the UK has faced quite a few inflationary challenges with regard to like energy cost of goods, labor costs and all of that compounds to a challenging environment. How has that shown up for you? Maybe day to day or quarter to quarter when you're looking at the business. Has it changed how you run the business?

Speaker A: Yeah, completely. Um, you know, so the really big one for us is wages. This is by far and away our largest single cost. Um, and um, you know, the cost of the hourly minimum wage in the UK has gone up 38% since 2022. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, when you've got 570, 80 staff, it's absolutely enormous, um, and unaffordable, quite frankly, um, you know, for us. And so of course, um, you know, we don't have 570 staff anymore. We have 470 staff. We've lost 20% of our workforce. I mean, luckily, naturally, we haven't had to go through mass redundancies. Um, but if, um, we hadn't have done, we'd be like, we'd be bust, absolutely no doubt about it. We just don't have that. We don't generate enough profit to be able to cope with that level of increased costs. And of course you're right in saying that that's not the only thing that's seen a lot of inflation because there's the energy, there's the this, on it goes. Um, but the biggest single one has been the increases in labor costs by a distance, when I suppose it's lucky because that's the one that we can. It's difficult, but it's something you can do something about if electricity prices go up or not very much as a business turning up and turn the lights off. But it's not really going to make any difference. So that we can't really control trying to really work on sharpened rotors. So the right amount of people are on the right days and we're not overrunning and the right people and they've got the right training. And that, uh, is something that we can, we, we can do something about. And we spent a lot of time focusing on how to just be as, as lean as we can without affecting customer service. And actually, you know, I have to say we're pretty proud. We're doing it with literally 100 people. You know, 560 to 460 or 570. 470, whatever it is. Um, and by all the measurements we use to judge customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction has actually improved over that period where we've done that. So we have managed to offer a better experience by all the measurements we use with less people. So I mean, unfortunately we don't make any more money. In fact, we make less money because we haven't managed to offset all of it.

Speaker B: Super M impressive to be able to do that though, right? Um, I think it says a lot around the operation.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm incredibly proud of the teams because, look, you know, I don't like the rotors. You know, that's our incredible management team who, you know, and there's, there's, whatever it is, um, 32 rotors each week. There's back of house and front of House across 60 restaurants. That's a lot of voter writing. So it's not one person or one manager is going to be able to change that around. It takes the engagement of all the teams, um, which has taken us culturally because post Covid everybody was short staffed. A lot of our managers grew up in an era where there wasn't enough people so that all their focus was trying to hire more people, hire more people, hire more people. And then suddenly we were in a situation where we had enough people but we couldn't afford them. So it'll go less people, less people, less people and turn it all around the other way again. Which, which culturally, because with a short staff for three or four weeks, two or three years, let's say that they hadn't really experienced before because we just needed more.

Speaker B: Um, yeah, it's crazy. There's a massive compression of cycles into a five year period.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's extraordinary. But anyway, like I say, I am incredibly proud of what the team's managed to achieve with that. It's amazing.

Speaker B: So if you look at, um, say your own operational experience over the last five years, six years coming out of that, what's been the most challenging aspect of you or some of the hardest uh, challenges you've had to face or decisions you've had to make.

Speaker A: Well, you know, they change. Um, you know, so post Covid it was entirely around trying to rebuild the team. You know, we suddenly had loads and loads of demand and not enough people. And then of course we had a cost of living crisis and we had loads and loads of people, sorry, loads of loads of staff but not enough customers, you know. So within, like you say, a really short period of time, it completely changed so that the challenges became literally almost opposite. Um, so I suppose it's about, I mean now it's just the one of this as um, as we were discussing, there's just this ever increasing cost, um, with a public that think restaurants are already too expensive because they've gone up, they've had to go up the prices, everybody's prices have gone up so much in the last three years that you know, the customer is at the limit of what they can afford. Um, but the restaurants are making any money because of the cost increases and, and let's face it, you know, in my view, poor government policy, um, you know, through successive uk, it's not just the, the current one but you know, they've um. I, in, in my opinion don't value what um, restaurants bring to the nation, um, in terms of employment, in terms of actually brand uk, you know, I think that London arguably has the best restaurants in the world and that's an incredible thing for the brand uh, for brand uk, which is, I don't think appreciated by the government and hasn't been for successive governments.

Speaker B: Well, ah, said, um, if you look back over that period of time, is there anything that changed in the business that was a tailwind or anything that went better than you would have expected or anything? That's indifference.

Speaker A: The pickup post Covid was, was better than we'd, we'd. We'd thought. Um, I'm trying to think. I know, I mean strangely, because you know consumer confidence is, is weak at the moment and you know demand is, is, is weak. Um, but it's Quo Vardis's hundredth birthday this year and for some reason we've really sort of hit a spot and we're absolutely flying. I mean the best year we've had in 25 years. You know, so sometimes you'd get these little bits of, of of. I mean, uh, yeah, this is, I suppose in the last five years we have other you. So. Yeah, very nice.

Speaker B: Um, I appreciate that. We're going to move on to the next segment which is the quick turn. Um, so I've got a couple of rapid fire questions for you. I'm going to throw them at you and how long you can take as long as you want. It could be 20 seconds, 20 minutes. It's up to you how you want to answer it. Standardization versus individuality, which do you instinctively lean towards?

Speaker A: Um, now that is quite a difficult question because you know, um, I love individuality. But as you scale you have to also embrace quite a lot of standardization um, because you know it becomes too much. So it's, I think there's actually a balance, um, is the reality between a level and a degree of standardization and an amount you can and should standardize and the amount of creative freedom and individuality you also give. So it's a bad answer because there's a little bit of both.

Speaker B: Ah, well said, well said. What's one operational metric that you yourself track that most multi brand operators ignore?

Speaker A: That's a good question. Um, and probably one that I don't have a very satisfactory answer to. I mean one of the things we do do, uh, we use a bit of tech called Yum Pingo, which um, I don't know if you ever come across that. Yeah, yeah, um, you know what it means is that we get ratings, popularity weight, customer ratings across every single dish presentation, um, uh, you know, taste value for money, portion size. And so when we are uh, looking at menu development, we literally look through all the scores and you, and this is thousands and thousands of customer reviews. So we have a really, really good idea about what works and what doesn't. You know, they're the little tablets that is a bit clunky. We don't really like, you know, in an ideal world putting them on the table, but we just find that the granularity of the data has really helped us improve customer experience. Because there's some dishes, because these are a lot of you think are popular, you know, oh, it's a very, very popular thing. But actually when you get into the detail of what the customer thinks, they're popular but they don't actually like it when it turns up, you know, um, and so it, it's enabled us um, you know, data backed because it's particularly seven, you know, 16 restaurants, lots of different menus to be incredibly clinical about, um, menu reviews, you know, and I think it's a big, it's a big reason why, you know, despite the challenges that we've had, actually customer perception, um, and customer feedback is steadily improving across every single one of our restaurants. Every single One actually, um, because we're incredibly granular at working out what people are like. If there's something wrong, we'll try and change it. If the change doesn't work, we'll take it off. So, you know, it's really, really going into the detail of each individual dish, um, and trying to make sure that everything we have is, works very nice.

Speaker B: Um, there's a lot for operators to take from that. Right. To go dish level at that scale is, uh, incredible data, uh, points to have.

Speaker A: It's the most incredible tool that clunky. It is a bit. But just the information and what I mean, in the end, the customer 100% benefits from some of them answering the questionnaire because it enables us to listen to exactly what they're enjoying and do more of it and exactly what they aren't enjoying and do less of it.

Speaker B: Nice. Um, what's the biggest mistake you see hospitality groups make when they're launching, um, another brand or a second or a third concept on top of an existing estate?

Speaker A: You know, there's, uh, there's people who are incredibly good at that. They tend, I think probably to follow our approach of, of lived experience. You know, the sort of ones where, which I, we always think is a bit, you know, someone, they've been on holiday to Mexico once, then they think they know about Mexican cuisine and you know, and then, okay, we're going to do this, but I don't really understand what it is they're doing. Um, and, you know, for in the less good operators, you see that, and then, you know, the best of class operators, people like Super 8Ks and so on, you know, it's all lived experience. And if it's not lived experience, they bring in a partner with that lived experience so they really do understand properly the cuisine that they are doing.

Speaker B: Nice. And last one, uh, what's a commonly held belief in hospitality that you believe is fundamentally wrong?

Speaker A: You mean the public looking inside, looking to hospitality or hospitality looking at itself?

Speaker B: Maybe both. We can finish on both.

Speaker A: Okay, uh, well, let me try and think about how to answer that in the best way. Um, I think in hospitality itself, it's that constant striving to improve and being big enough to fix things that, that are good enough. Um, you know, uh, and, uh, you know, the one you also see is that, you know, it's all. You wake up in the morning, go, right, gonna open a restaurant. You know, day one, you're full of excitement. So are you month one. So, uh, are you year one, but can you still maintain that passion at year two or five or 10 or 20. And, you know, as time passes, of course, of course, it's easy to lose enthusiasm a little bit. And I think that the people who are best are the ones that manage to, over the long term, keep the passion and keep the perfectionism and keep striving to do better. Uh, and I think from the public's point of view is, you know, I think they see busy restaurants, um, and assume we're making. We're making lots and lots of money and it just really isn't the case. Our operating costs are so high. You know, um, sometimes I, I do think that, you know, um, yeah, there's a perception because they see it humming on a Friday night. It's like, oh, God, was there so busy? Uh, when were you there? Well, Friday night. Look, you're not busy on a Friday night as a restaurant you closed because you have gone bust. Because what about the Monday lunch and all the other stuff, you know, so they often. Because they. Most people come on the busy services, they then forget that there's a. You might be a Monday lunch. You do 12 people. It's just. There's no one there at all. So it's, um. That. That would be that.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well said. 100%. Okay, before we wrap, any. Anything you want to run through around what's next for. For Hearts group?

Speaker A: Yeah, what can we expect? Um, yep, we've got lots of exciting things coming. So as I mentioned earlier, Abu Dhabi in December. Um, Hong Kong and Bangkok for Barrafina next year.

Speaker B: Uh, wow.

Speaker A: Which is exciting. Um, we're just about to start getting our heads around Barrafina in the states of, you know, early days. But we're just, you know, all these things take ATLI Tech a couple of years from when you start getting going. So we're just beginning to talk to US operators, um, you know, and. Or try and. Actually, we're a bit of. Well, talk to us operators and also try and get our heads. What we think the best structure would be should we want to do Barefoot in the states, which we 100% do. Um, Pastor, obviously, we've just launched, um, El Cieto, the new cop, this new cocktail bar, which was super proud of, but it's, um. He was hidden away downstairs in a secret thing. So we've got some, you know, um, it's in its infancy, so we've got some work to do. When people get there, they're absolutely loving it. Um, but, you know, we need to work hard on that. Just launched Liveroo on Pastor this year, which is, which is really exciting. Um, we're out, about to reopen. We, uh, have a tortillaria where we make all our tortillas and it used to have a little restaurant on the front down in Bermondsey, uh, which we closed I think maybe in Covid, the restaurant part of it. Um, but actually the area is really up and coming since Dub Ingots and Mortby street and um, so that's about to reopen later in the year. Um, what else? We're, um, trying to get Pastor going in Manchester, uh, which is super exciting. I was at university there and, um, so is my MD and business partner Crispin. So that's where we met in fact. Um, so, uh, that's really exciting. In talks with a UK supermarket about doing, um, own brand, uh, Mexican range. You know, currently it's mostly sort of old El Paso or whatever it is, you know, so we really feel there's an amazing gap in the market, uh, there. And Pharrell Pastor just beginning to get our heads around international. Um, so, yeah, so there's that. And then celebrating Kivi's, you know, hundredth hundredth year in style. Jeremy's got, um, his second book coming out in the autumn, um, and throwing a humdinger of a party for that. So.

Speaker B: Awesome.

Speaker A: Not much going on then. That's good.

Speaker B: Say, right, let's keep yourself busy. Right. That's awesome.

Speaker A: You know, we get bored otherwise we'll

Speaker B: drop all the links in the show notes, uh, for different brands and concepts. But thanks so much for your time, Sam. Really appreciate it. It's fantastic speaking.

Speaker A: Really nice to talk to you. Okay, thank you.

Speaker B: A few things really stood out from that conversation with Sam. First, the architecture of multi brand growth. Most operators who build a portfolio of brands end up with something that looks like a head office running several businesses to happen to share a name on a group balance sheet. What's interesting about Hearts Group is the deliberate design. A genuine group infrastructure that sits underneath the brands which are allowed to still be genuinely distinct. That's not easy. It requires clarity about what the group owns. Culture, uh, financial discipline, people development systems and what the brand owns. Culinary identity, sourcing relationships and the guest experience. Most operators blur that line and pay for it eventually. Second, sourcing as a brand identity. For El Pastor and Barrafina, the provenance and quality of ingredients isn't a marketing message. It's the product and it's the experience. What struck me is how Sam manages that at group level without turning it into a procurement function that destroys the thing it's supposed to protect. When you're scaling, the pressure to consolidate and compress cost is enormous. Holding that line while growing is a genuine operational discipline, not just a value statement. Third, the tech challenge. Multi brand operators almost always end up with fragmented systems because each brand was built in a different time with different needs by different people. Getting a consolidated view of group performance across brands that operate differently, measure differently and serve completely different customers is incredibly hard. Sam's experience here reflects something we see consistently. The tech stack is often the hidden drag on growth, not the thing operators talk about in interviews, but absolutely the thing that determines whether the group can make good decisions at pace or not. Fourth, international expansion. Taking brands that are deeply contextual and rooted in a specific culinary tradition, a specific London neighbourhood and uh, a specific set of supplier relationships into brand new markets is genuinely difficult. The question of what travels and what doesn't isn't just a marketing question, it's a real operational one. Can you source the ingredients? Can you find the right people? Can you recreate the conditions that made the brand what it is in a completely different environment? Tham is at the very start of that journey and the choices he makes in the next 18 months will determine whether Hart's group becomes an international operator or remains a brilliant mundane. And finally, the family business model. There's a debate in hospitality about whether PE backed or family run models are better suited to scaling. What ah comes true clearly from Sam, is that the family model gives you something that's genuinely hard to replicate. A longer time horizon, a willingness to make decisions that protect quality over short term returns and a culture that isn't reset every time a new fund manager walks in. In an environment where the consumer trust is everything, that consistency matters. If you're running a multi brand hospitality group or thinking about building one, the takeaways are clear. Be deliberate about what the group owns and what the brand owns. Protect sourcing integrity as a strategic priority, not a call center. Get your data infrastructure right before you need it, not after. And think carefully about ah, what actually travels when you go international. Don't underestimate the cultural advantage of having a long term ownership model in a sector where relationships and reputation compound over time. Thanks for listening. If you found this useful, share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've got thoughts on multi brand operations or international expansion, send them my way. See you next time.