Stephen Chenery | Steam, Building Community and Sporting Lunches

Some people build restaurants.

Some people host events.

Stephen Chenery has spent more than thirty years bringing people together.

From running restaurants in California, Chelsea and the City of London to building Steam Bar & Restaurant into one of the City's best-loved independent venues, Stephen has always believed hospitality is about relationships.

Alongside that, he's spent more than twenty-five years interviewing some of the biggest names in sport, creating conversations people genuinely want to be part of.

This conversation is about community.

How loyalty is earned.

Why people come back.

And how making people feel welcome has shaped an entire career.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:27

I'm Antoine Melon and I'm here with Gideon Lasque. Spend my career inside hospitality. Did you not experience it from the other side as someone who spends a lot of time in restaurants and hotels and notices the details that most people miss. The postcast is about the people behind Great Hospitality, the people who build it, run it, protect it. Each episode we talk about the moments that shape them, the lessons they've learned, and how they handle pressure when he arrives. And today we're joined by someone who spent a lifetime bringing people together. Gideon. Please introduce our guest.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

I absolutely will, Antoine, but you've arrived at the podcast studio with a wheelie. Are you off again?

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Yes, for interesting project in Portugal, Comporta for a beach club near Melides. Where in Portugal is Melides? It's near Comporta, so it's south of Portugal. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Are you opening a new beach club or is this reinventing one?

SPEAKER_02 1:27

It's uh existing place that has been closed for quite a long time and the owner wants to revamp it, so they asked me to bring some FMB expertise.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

I can think of no one better.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Exale, you will come, Dor.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Oh, I will find a way to bring you there. I will, buddy. There's roses to be drunk and tables to be danced upon. All right, let's get on to introducing our guest, who I'm delighted to have here today. Some people build restaurants, some people host events, and some spend their entire careers bringing people together. Today we are joined by the lovely Stephen Chennery. Stephen has spent more than 30 years doing exactly that. He's run restaurants in California, Chelsea, and the City of London. He opened and operated Steam Bar and Restaurant for 20 years, navigating recessions, Brexit, COVID, and changing working patterns before successfully selling the business last year. Well done. Alongside that, he's built a second career as one of the country's most respected interviewers, hosts, and event curators. For more than 25 years, indeed, he sat opposite sporting legends, business leaders, and household names. Not just interviewing them, but hosting them, creating conversations people actually want to be part of. From Sir Clive Woodward and Sir Andrew Strauss to Lawrence Delaggio, Jimmy Anderson, Tony Adams, Sir AP McCoy, David Coulthard. When you look at Stephen's career, one thing keeps appearing, and that's restaurants, events, lunches, interviews, communities, different formats, the same skill. Making people feel welcome. Stephen, welcome to No Reservation. I'm looking forward to you making me feel welcome.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Well, I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me. And that you made me sound really, really good. So thank you for that. Do you mind? Would you mind writing all my LinkedIn posts and my bios and my Bram? I'm you. Okay. Do you come at a good fee?

unknown 3:20

No.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Very exactly. Antoine, will you do it for me? Yeah. I've heard you're quite cheap. Yeah. Very cheap.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Right. Before we go anywhere else, I've been looking forward to this one all week.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

It's gonna be the fun.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yeah. And and you're going first. Yeah. Is do we have an hour or do we have two hours for this? If it takes two, if it takes three, whatever, as long as it's juicy. Chat's thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

How did you two first cross paths?

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Most certainly. So thank you again for having me. Very excited to be here. I look across at Antoine who's smiling at me, knowing that I know dirty, dirty dark secrets, which we're going to get through all of them one at a time. And I wish you well. And I wish you well in the future. But let's see what happens. When did I first come across him? So I think we met 1997. I was part of the opening team at Bluebirds, as you know, on the King's Road. And I was there. I think he might have joined maybe six months, eight months. I'm not exactly sure. But he kind of turned up suave, sophisticated, clever, intelligent. What went wrong? I know. And this isn't the answer, I know. And to be fair, none of us knew what to do. So you kind of came in and saved the company. So thank you for doing that. But no, that's when I first met you. And so I've known him for nearly the best part of 30 years. And you know, I've not seen him week in, week out for 30 years. But I have to say one thing about him: you pick up the phone, he'll answer it. You have a question, he'll help you. If you need support, he's there for you. You need a mate, he's there for you. And I remember I went to him when I was the back end of selling the business about 18 months ago, and we met for a beer, and we just talked about life and about restaurants and industry. I was unsure what I was gonna do, whether I was gonna I knew I was gonna leave, and I'm sure we'll come on to that in a moment, but I knew I was gonna be leaving the business and I didn't know what to do, and he was just open and honest with me. So I know you've got an incredible CV. I know you've been over the world ten times, but the thing I like about you, you're just a decent person. And I've got a lot of time for that. So whatever Gideon thinks of you, yeah. But no, no, I know he doesn't think of that. But I think you're you're a decent, decent egg, and it's nice to be a friend of yours. A decent egg.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

What's the French for a decent egg?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Boy or scrambled.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

A board or scramble. I will say how I met Stephen. So Bluebird, you have to remember, guys, when Bluebird opened, it was called a gastronome. It was probably the biggest hospitality project in London by Terence Conrad. It was a restaurant, a private members' club, a cafe, a food store. Not sure about that. Flower shop. And it was used to be a garage. And it used it belongs to Mark Nopel. I don't promise it well.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Mark Knofler. That's a dire straits, dire straits. And he has his car. I'm not sure he don't think he owns a building now, does he? I'm not sure. Probably not.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

But I remember having the luxury cars in a garage was that was cool. Anyway, I arrived just after the opening, maybe a little bit earlier than that, three, four months after massive opening.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

I wasn't initially, no, I wasn't initially. So I came in, so you know you have all those different levels of management. There was more management, I think, than actually was people working there. And I think I I joined, I'd come back from California. My first job that I actually ever got in the city or back in London, and I joined as a senior head waiter. Um, I don't know what that job entailed or what I had to do, but apparently I was senior. But above me, there were assistant managers, and then there was like the manager of the GM expects, or the more the manager than the GM. And I, you know what, you've been to so many openings, you weed out the crap pretty quickly. And I could see off the bat that I'll be pretty much in charge within six months, and I was. So I went from senior head waiter to assist manager to manager, and I didn't know what I was doing. That's the best part about it. I had no restaurant, the vibe, the people, the it was fun.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Chef John Torot, Australian chef, who's obviously big TV, sort of rich in old days. The food was amazing, the vibe, everything.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

And Antoine, you talk you talk about it in the sense that kind of these grand early days, but this is a restaurant that's had longevity, right? It's it's there, it's making money. It's still love.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

It makes money, it's big, but I think it's it's not what it used to be. When we opened it, it was just like one of the best places to eat art in London.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

It was. It was just a place to go. It's brilliant. I'm with it. It was fun, and I think we were. This is a big star, not for me, but for everybody who worked there. And I know when you open a restaurant, it was, I know when you open restaurants, it's fanfare and you're getting all these wonderful reviews, but we were like top ten, I think, for the first couple years for a restaurant that was, you know, knocking out on average three, four hundred covers a night. It's a pretty impressive thing to do. But that wasn't down to me. That was the team that set it up. And the lady, I'm not sure we're gonna name her, but she was just well, Wendy Henrix, who was just an unbelievable person, still is. She was, yeah, I learned a ton from her and uh still amazed that she yeah, she was. She implored me, but she did, and yeah, she was brilliant, really good, really good.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Very good operator. I mean, amazing. I learned so much from her opening list, opening checklist, closing checklist, the attention to detail, checking the whole restaurant, everything detail before the first guests walk in.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

It was like honestly. Now if we if we if we think back to the King's Road and Chelsea, in fact, kind of 25 years ago. Where would you go out for dinner? Like I think there were small restaurants, right? It was a very different, this is a very different footprint. Was it was it a risk?

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Massive risk. It was the biggest project ever by Tennessee Connor. And actually, it lost money for the first few years because the food store downstairs was costing too much money. On the basket, people were just buying an olive oil on a baguette because it was so expensive that it was more like for a gift for a dinner party, but no one was shopping there for their good their goods, the grocery. It was it was beautiful, but it was far too expensive. So it became like uh it changed a couple of times. It became a a a clothing shop, I think.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

And then after it's not all the the best part of that place, the biggest money spinner from that place was the cafe. That just yeah, if you could just have had that cafe by itself, you'd I wouldn't want to own anything else. That place churned out people from eight in the morning until 11. And it was and that was a seriously probably the biggest asset to that. It was so good that. And Annabelle ran it, and it was unbelievable. She rocked that place. She was so good, Annabelle Lawrence, brilliant, absolutely good.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

So, Stephen, it sounds like you've known Ansbron for most of your life. 25 years, you're not a lot older than that, are you?

SPEAKER_00 10:34

I'm I'm a mere four, and I'd say four and a half years older than him. So uh yeah, I am. But he does have a few more grey hairs, but I have less hair. So mine for seeding, his is greyer. So there you go. Yeah, as for you, I'm not really sure I'd go with your hairline. Was that like an 80s style that you never kind of grew out of? It's something like that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Let's um should let's go back even further. I know it's hard to imagine a time before Antoine was in your life. I know, I agree. Before, indeed, hospitality was your profession, before events, before London. What's your earliest memory of hospitality from the perspective of being a guest?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

So I would probably say that I didn't grow up loving hospitality. It wasn't something I was destined to do. I didn't wasn't like seven, eight, nine years old, and I went to some mixed-in-style restaurant and I was wowed by the chef and by the people. It wasn't me. The first time I ever noticed food was I was on holiday with my family. We were in Sardinia, and I ordered fish and chips. So I'm expecting fish fingers, proper breaded fish fingers, and it came out of the fish with its head on it, and I burst into tears. So that's my kind of first world memory of kind of like dining out, but I don't look at it from the point of view of well that's where I've gone. I look at it from the point of view of what it brings together, how it brings people together. That's my only main aim. It's my main aim with Steam. It just brings people into a room to have a conversation about stuff. Now, sure, the food's part of it, but without that, it doesn't work. So for me, my earnest memory would probably be my family, kind of 15, 16, quite a large family of people, brothers, kind of aunts, whatever, etc. Maybe like 10 to 14 of us on a Sunday dinner table. My nan would knock out a roast beef and stuff. I mean, I actually did it for 14 people. I mean, I stress that for two people, but she knocked it out week in, week out, and it was just good. And what we would do as we got a bit older, we'd kind of start talking around the table about our weeks and her days. It just brought us together. So that's my memory. My memory is not the food, it's the people around the food. It's about the experience with the people. I'm no critic, nor that person. I like the ambience. And the other thing was a big thing for me, and it this really set me on my way to open up Steam, was I went traveling, I went to America, and I ended up in a ski resort called Sun Valley and the West Coast of America in Idaho. And I turned up, it was as a 1990, so I come out of like late 80s England, and I was kind of half mold, half blocker, half new romantic. I didn't know what I was doing, so I had stick back hair, a leather jacket, suede shoes. I was a bit of a mess, to be honest with you. I had stay press trousers, and I had a Fred Perry t-shirt. And I went into this bar. It had this town had one set of traffic lights and it had four bars. And I went in, two of us went together traveling, and we walked into this bar, it was called Grumpies. And you what it and you walk in, it's like a shack, but you walk in and the room stopped, and everyone looked at us and we're like, oh my god, we've gone back in the twilight zone here. But yet they were all doing what we were doing. We were skiing, we were having a great time, we were chasing the powder day. But what that place did, it just brought people together. Good day, bad day. You sat there, you had a laugh, you drank, you ate food. But this place, Grumpys, what they created, they created a welcome, they made you feel good. That's all I ever wanted to do with Steam, make you feel good. That's my only goal. And they did that. So I wrote in my so you remember the the kind of remember the TV programme Cheers and that whole thing, friends and names. You know, Cheers became my Grumpies and Grumpies became my Steam. And that was my ethos in 2005. So that's my memories, really, of dining out. Was was Cheers a thing in France?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Do you know what Cheers is, the TV show?

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Was it the guy with the uh leather jacket and so on? We had a different name for it, that's why.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

So it was uh it was a lower basement kind of pub bar set in America in Boston. Uh no, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

France, yeah. I get that one. I was not I It's funny because a lot of uh TV shows in France, because we're not very good in English, always translated in a very different way. You're like, well. But no, it does doesn't ring about that one. Um But is I agree with Steven that the best moment in life often happen around the table. Yeah, absolutely. 100% it's it brings people together.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

It does, yeah, it does, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

All right, let's bring it to now, Stephen. And Antoine. Highlights and lowlights of your hospitality week, please. Who wants to go first? You point at me, so I have to go first, do I?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Yeah. Okay, alright. I'm a guest, yeah. I go first. Oh, all right, okay, fine.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

So we know that Antoine will just talk about the city.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yeah, it'll I know, and you'll bring someone else down with it. So let's just try and cheer up the crowd before and make everyone happy, and let's let's not piss them all off too early. So I don't so you know, I don't live in restaurants anymore. I don't I go out, I'm social, but I don't live in restaurants week to week. So my kind of highlight, my peak was about three weeks ago. I was away from my wife and my brother and my sister-in-law, and we were in Portugal, the Algarve, Carviro, you know, near Faro, etc. And we were in a restaurant, we've been going there for probably as a family, probably in the 40 years as a family. And we go to this restaurant that's called Jardin au Farrell, and it's in the kind of uh place called Rocha Brava, which is in the town of Carviro. And this place, there's no frills, there's nothing romantic about it. It is what it is. You turn up, and the people there, they still recognize us, they still look after us. You walk down, they sit you down, they've learned the language, they've adapted to the people coming over. The food's okay, it's not fantastic, but it's not that to me, it's the ambience to me. They bring over that fish which I can now eat with the head on, so I'm okay with that now. I've got past that. I no longer cry, which is good. I get emotional when I see it, because it's not normally dead, but you know, I I do enjoy it. Um so yeah, you know, to me, that's the highlight to me. I still I'm a person who would always go back to somewhere I feel comfortable and I enjoy. I don't hang out in the West End, I don't hang out in the city, just not who I am. Nothing against it. I like to go places that I enjoy and I want to feel and leave the meal and just be happy. And this guy makes me happy. Um so I'll go back there over and over. Give us the name of the restaurant again?

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Jardin O'Farrell. We will link to it in the comment. You will. Any low lights, Stephen?

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Or should we leave all the negative stuff to Well, I don't have a I mean I don't have a low light, and I'm and this is my where it might get a bit touchy with the two of you. So I'm prepared to be uh I'm prepared to be kicked off the podcast and just leave it to Antoine. So you're laughing at me like it's I'm gonna go there. You know I'm gonna go there, yeah? The guy behind me is a stressed out. Look at him, he's going, what's going on? He's taking notes. So what do so my low light, and it's not really low light, is I think there's just too much negativity about the industry. Now, I've listened to a couple of your podcasts, and you are quite good about saying four out of five, five out of six don't work. I think that is not good for the industry. I don't think we should be saying that. And I also don't necessarily agree with that. I think the industry is in a good place. It is busy. You go to the West End, you go in the city, it's acts. I think you mentioned, I've done my homework on you, which is the worst part for you. You mentioned in the podcast, I think something you went to Richmond a few weeks back, three or four weeks ago, you couldn't get in. And then you're telling me that it's, you know, you're giving me that side of it. Now I understand why you're saying it for, but there are challenges, but I don't think it's bad. So to me, it's changing the view that is hospitality is in a difficult position. It's not. If a restaurant's not working, there's a reason why it's not working. It's not the VAT, it isn't the VAT, it is not the people they're not doing something right, they're not selling it right, the product's not right, it's a ton of things they're not getting right. So I just like to change the view that I think it's a good industry. I saw a post yesterday by somebody uh saying that a recruitment person, she said she's never had so many brilliant vacancies in the industry, looking for op directors, financial directors, shifts that you know, chefs here, this, that. I'm like, wow, how cool is that? We've got to change the narrative because you want to get people in the industry. So my low light is stop being negative about the industry. That's my that's my that is my sign. I'm looking at you, son, because you are you call people out a lot.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

The the reason we we good at podcasts is to bring positivity to the uh to the industry. Unfortunately, yeah, there's a lot of closure. But I agree at the same time, the one that clause is maybe they're not doing something right.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

I think where there's a kind of red thread between what you're saying is that we should all view hospitality as a career choice. And I get it, if we're being too negative, no one's gonna do that. In France or Italy, is there similar negativity towards the government and the powers that be about their lack of support for hospitality, or is it a very different landscape out there?

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Well, luckily the VAT there for food is lower than the rest of the VAT. I mean, most countries in Europe are 18, 20, something like that. But it's lower for food, so that just helps a little bit for the flow through of the uh those restaurants.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Stephen, you mentioned that you're you're for your colleagues and there were more vacancies and never great vacances. Now, is that because less and less people in the UK are choosing to make hospitality a career choice?

SPEAKER_00 21:07

I would say they are, yes. I don't think I mean I I would totally agree that you said before about it's not a natural path for someone living in this country. I think if you come from other European countries, America, it's a career path. New Zealand, Australia. It's never been to me a career path in the UK. And I think the biggest moment we had was in Brexit, and everyone went back home and there was no employees. We couldn't find any, you know, kind of English-based employees. So it was an issue. But I see, you know, people all you know, hospitality in schools, universities. So they are trying and they are doing. If they can just change that narrative. Listen, I've made a career out of it for you know, 30 years, Antoine about 60 years by the look of him. But you know, it's it's a you know, it it it is a great. Career and I've done well out of it, you've done well out of it. It's a great place to work, it's a great part to be involved with. I am going to ask you because about this VAT thing, you keep going about the VAT. Why do you think the VAT would change the industry?

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Because I think it's the quickest solution to help restaurants that prior to the last increase of business rate were profitable and they became loss uh businesses just because of that increase, without having dropped their quality or uh increase their price or change whatever, it's just they became from profitable to loss.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

So the way to help those restaurants that are struggling on cash flow, the VAT will make a huge and Antoine related to that, and sorry to put you on the spot and Stephen may numbers. No, but let's look at a restaurant, an average local restaurant. What kind of gross margin are you talking about? And how does that differ between the UK and say France or Spain or Italy?

SPEAKER_02 23:02

A friend of mine has a counting firm and does around 300 restaurants in London, so he's got a good understanding of the data. And nowadays a restaurant in London will probably do 5 to 10% EBITDA. So earning before interest, taxes and amortization, which which means as soon as you drop a little bit sales, you And how and how does that differ? It used to be well, in France you probably a little bit more, 10, 15. But in London, in the good days, we used to be most restaurant 20% profit. I mean, again, it's before tax and interest, but which means 5 to 10. First, people, should I really open a restaurant? Is it too risky just for 5-10% abipta?

SPEAKER_01 23:51

So, so so listen, I I get it. There's less buffer at the bottom. I'm just trying to understand where the costs are. I agree with Steve. It's easy, it's easy to go to VA.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

I tell you, so every pound you make, 25% will go to food and beverage costs. 30-35% will go to staff cost. Between rent on business rates, 15%, then you've got maybe 10% operating costs.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

And tell me how that differs in other countries. I'm trying to ascertain as a proportion of costs, how it looks different in France, Nick.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Actually, payroll in the UK is slightly lower because we got a chance of service charge in UK, which you don't get other countries which support the company by paying, reaching the minimum wage, or sorry, above the minimum wage to attract talent, which we don't get in France. In France, everything comes from the health space, so the usually the payroll is more around 40%. Cost of goods? Similar. Really? Yeah. Energy higher? Energy are probably higher. I mean, rent business rates on energy are probably higher than other countries, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Goodness me, a little lesson in accounting.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

There's some positivity. I've got to say, I wish there was a camera in here right now, watching it myself and Gideon talking to you because you are sweating stuff. You are, and you did okay there, but as a very politician answer, I think you got around that pretty well. Yeah, I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

I want to give my highlight. I'd love to hear it, please. Okay, so I will give two highlights, no low light this week. Highlight last week, I went to a wedding in Kew's, and it was all with my girlfriend. We then went to have a look at the Henry Moore exhibition in Q Gardens, which I recommend. Beautiful. There's like 32 sculptures of him in a stunning environment on the sculpture in the park. It's just breathtaking. Where do you go for dinner when you're last minute, you haven't got a booking? London, sometimes it could be hard if you haven't booked a good restaurant three weeks in advance, you can go anywhere. We went to the River Cafe Cafe. River Cafe, always fully booked months in advance, and a pretty expensive restaurant. But the River Cafe Cafe, which is next door, it's walk-in, it's half of the price of the river cafe. It's the same ingredients, and the staff are super lovely, and you eat by the river, and we had an amazing time, and it was all impromptu, which is nice to be able to do that in hospitality because sometimes if you don't have a booking on a Friday, Saturday night, it's very difficult. So welcome to River Cafe Cafe. Strange name, River Cafe Cafe. And then yeah, I went also to a new restaurant opening called Latin that opened this week, which does South American and French cuisine. It's quite an unusual combination, but they got amazing dish like a bœuf bourguignon tacos, who will have thought. And it was really good. Really, really good. It's in the old Muse of Mayfair, which is quite a famous restaurant. And well done to the team there, Chef Fran, Cyril, the GM, and the owners for uh creating a beautiful space. And despite the negativity that maybe sometimes I talk about, there's still people going for it on opening beautiful spots. Well done.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Well done indeed. We'll link in comments. Oranges and lemons sang the bells of St. Clement's. My highlight for the week, Nick Jones has absolutely nailed it with his new hotel. Just is it with hotel. The hotel is called St. Clement. It's named after or inspired by the church, which is just up the road. Wow. I spent one of my best afternoons ever in the restaurant there. You are with a full dining room, wonderful stuff, the most amazing food, relaxed, great music, great vibe, conversation, the right spacing between the tables, the right fragrance in the air, the right level of music. He has just bloody nailed it. I urge everyone and anyone to rush to that restaurant and have the best afternoon of your lives. So, yes, well done, Mr. Nick Jones. Low light, and the only thing I would change about the restaurant that's always the same place. It's good to give feedback. And I've seen this in other restaurants, and I want to get your guys' opinion on this. It's cocktails in a restaurant. I love a cocktail when it's done right. I hate a cocktail when it's done wrong. Beautiful menu, high-end prices, cocktails on there. You assume they are a speciality and you should be trying the cocktails. And just incredibly meh. And I get it, because unless you have the right mixologist working on a cocktail, glasses chilled to the right, all that kind of stuff, time to spend making the cocktails, they're not gonna be amazing. And yet they position there next to this amazing food at very high prices. It's weird for me, cocktails in a restaurant.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

Well, cocktail really became fashionable over the last 10 years, I would say, in the UK. Before it was like Bloody Merry on a Sunday on maybe a dintonic, which it's just a mix ring, but I don't know, the cocktail. Cocktail for me has automatically three ingredients. But in the last 10 years, London is definitely one of the top cities in the world for cocktails. Great way to start oversee a meal. Good margin, 75% GP on a cocktail, to be honest. But it takes time to make it.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

But this is gonna be my question. So why why are they doing it? A, you're telling me London expects it, B, because the margin is nice.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

And then you can also do non-alcoholic cocktail, which a lot of young generation don't drink alcohol, but they still want something in their hand that's interesting, different, that's just not like a ginger hell. But yeah, you need the skills, which is true. You need good training, you need a good mixologist, and it takes the time. It takes around two and a half minutes for cocktails, whereas it takes you maybe 40 seconds to pour beer. So you didn't really like the cocktail.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Do you remember what it was? I I tried most of them, mate, as I as I usually as I usually do, and they tasted better as I drank more. But but yeah, it's just one of the greatest disappointments for me in hospitality. I'm really looking forward to a great cocktail. And I know the places to go to get a great cocktail. To to a bar, Duke's, for example, to go and get a proper martini. So I I need to just learn to order probably wine in a row.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

Best bar in the world, that's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Really? All right, let's go drink that with my friend. Dre martini. All right, but yes, leaving it on a positive. Go to St. Clement, Nick Jones, amazing, well done. Okay, Stephen, coming back to you. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Come on in. Please, please, I'm like, no, you yeah, I have five minutes of sitting there doing nothing, so I don't know what I should be doing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

So what we're interested in at this point is the pivotal moments in your career, the turning points, the people you met, the people you employed, the dining rooms you worked in, the risks you took, the bets you placed.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

What made you when you say but bets you placed? That's the kind of worrying aspect. Because I mean that I've had a lot of bets that I placed then they. Do they usually come in? No. That's why I'm sitting here, be honest with you. If they come in, I wouldn't be sitting here. I really wouldn't. Tell me about the biggest risk that didn't pay off. Well, I I will answer that question, but let me just kind of go back to your original question, which was about you know moments in my life which in my career, I just sent my life in my career, which were pivotal important to me. And there's only one, which is the obvious one, which is going out alone by myself, risking everything I had to go into business. Now, going into your business is not for everybody. It really, really isn't. You've got to want to be able to go into business, you've got to be able to commit to what you're doing, trust what you're doing, believe in what you're doing, and be prepared to pretty much put yourself or your your life on hold for quite a few years. So the biggest risk I took was putting my house up against the business. Now it's not easy. I had a my children at that point would have been six and four, and we had to put up, we had to guarantee a quarter of a million. That's a tough ask, personally. I'm not asking about this is me personally. Now, I had a partner, business partner, and we he also did share the risk with me, but my house was always on the line. So the day one, you kind of stressed out, and it doesn't really go away until you kind of we actually ended up you know paying off all the loans in the first three years, but we didn't know that at the time we took that risk. So we then did it again four years later, and we opened up something else, and we just got it wrong. We got it wrong and we paid for it, and did the same thing again, and we put the money up, we put the house up, and etc. etc. And it didn't work out after a couple of years, and you sit at home, and the letter comes through from the bank and it just says, by the way, at this point you owe us a hundred grand, you've got two weeks to pay it. Not a lot of fun. So going into business is not for everybody. You've you know, it really isn't, but I uh implore anyone to do it because without it, where do we go? You need new people, you need new ideas. So I'm a massive, huge fan. You'll never have all the answers. Don't try and tick every box. It's impossible to tick every box. You go with it, you trust it. Don't be afraid to change, don't be afraid to re-evaluate the business, don't be afraid to do it over here. We changed it, I think, three times with a recession, Brexit and COVID. But your other question, which was about people who've influenced me. Um, I've worked with some very good people, including Master Antoine next to me. But people who actually have changed my life, without doubt, was my original business partner at Steam. Without him, we had no business. Him and I were just brilliant together. We were a superb team. We were 10 years in age difference, which was ideal. We weren't necessarily only social friends, but we were just good together. So biggest influence on my life or my career. And my life, my career by far was my original business partner.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

How much did your time in America influence you? And what do you think we could learn over here from them and their approach to hospitality?

SPEAKER_00 35:14

It massively influenced me. You have to understand different times, different ages, different decades. The 90s in America, the 80s in America, it's different to what it is now. It was freer. You could kind of come and go without too much stress, you'd get sponsorship, you could go, you could stay, you could stay for two years, you know. So it was, it was it was different. It was a great time to be out there, the nisty traveling. My first, I was going back to the whole kind of Grumpies thing, they just saw hospitality as a career, they saw it as a job. When I ended up in California working in San Francisco, I earned good money, I earned decent money. So you could see it as an opportunity, you could see it as a job. And I just never think over here we have a had that over here, and hopefully that has changed or is changing. So I probably think changing the view that it is a career for people to get into and go into. You don't have to go through and say a school to get to it. You can start at the bottom. You can, I work my way up. I assume we did the same thing as well. You know, I worked up, I scrubbed dishes, I peeled potatoes, I went from the scratch upwards. That's why I was able to go and do something by myself. So I've been through the ranks. So, what can we learn from them? It's an opportunity, it's a job, they do back you, they do get behind you, and they make it inviting to kind of go into business.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Are there people that have worked for you that you have mentored and have taken on that career journey, starting with the potatoes at the scratch?

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Um, I don't I've mentored nobody because I feel for them massively right now. Because if I've mentored them, I they're probably they're an official apology. Yeah, I I'm gonna come out and say, I'm sorry you came across me because it's not good for you. And and I and I take it all back. Um, I don't think I've necessarily I've not mentored anybody. I'm not qualified to be a mentor, but what I've done is anybody who's ever worked for me, actually, most of them gone and leave and they go and work elsewhere. When they leave, they're just different. They've learned something, they're a better person, they've understood the situation. I've taught them a few things along the way, but they've gone on to do great things. Not necessarily in hospitality, they could be singing, dancing, I don't know, traveling, whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

So Rudberg was a guide at work underneath you that's done very well in his career. Do we have to go there? Yes. His name is Fred Sierrieux, who's uh Oh really? Yes, he was your runner.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

He was a lot of things, but I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm not sure we should go there on that conversation because I don't think we'll be here all day. But well, he has done well. You know what? He's done he has done well, and I have no issue with that. He's done really well and he's come out there and he comes across well on television, so yeah, absolutely. Well done to him.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

As we've lifted a lid on celebrity, you wear two hats, and one of those is bringing, as we said, some of our most loved sports people into the dining room. Yep. An opportunity to have a celebrity sports person such as David Coulthard at your dining table, which will be a dream come true for me. How did that all come about?

SPEAKER_00 38:46

It came about by accident. So I'll go back to excuse me, about 2003-04. I was approached by somebody to help organise a testimonial for a cricket player, an ex-cricket player from play from Middlesex, wasn't connected to England, but he was a well-known character. And the first event I ever did was in 2003, the summer of 2003. And the first ever guest that I wasn't I wasn't the MC, I was just the organizer of the event, so I wasn't on stage, was Clive Woodward, who went on then to win the World Cup in 2003, four months later. And that started something for me, and I could see the opportunity that wasn't really happening that I saw in the city. By now, I was working for a kind of a wine kind of bass company with uh event space and rooms in the city. And suddenly we started to see as an opportunity. So we would do three or four a year and they would work. And then I when I eventually I left and opened up Steam in 2005, I was hesitant of doing them again purely because the space wasn't ideal. But that actually worked for us because the space wasn't ideal. So I made it work for us. It wasn't a perfectly square room or a round room, it was nooks and crannies, but it worked, and that's what made it so good. And you build, you build relationships like you do in any industry, whatever you work in, you get to have contacts and people and you get to know people. But I wasn't really front and center until about probably 10, 11 years ago. I got thrust in. The guy that I was using as the MC at the time couldn't make it. I can't remember why he couldn't make it. And I was had to go on stage and talk amongst a hundred people, and I was proper rubbish. I was absolutely rubbish. I was caught in the headlights, I didn't know what I was doing. I read it like a script, there was nothing there for me, but you know what? It's okay, I got better. And I learned my trade, I crafted it over the years, and I now go on stage with anybody I just see them as a person. They're just a person to me. They're just like you and me, just better at sport, a lot better at sports. And looking at three of us, I can say they're far three. We are not three athletes in our prime here. Let's be honest with you. So I, you know, it took me time to get to that stage. I didn't get it overnight. I still went through moments where I was like, what am I doing up here? I was quite wooden, but suddenly you stop seeing them as heroes, you see them as people, and you have to do your research, you have to do your work on the people, understand what makes them tick where they want to go. And yeah, I mean, I I do a stack now, it's what I do, really. So, yeah, it's my that is my life. I talk to people, as you probably have worked out. Selling sting, your baby, right? So up for 20 years. Yeah, yeah, shoot. Yeah. How does what does that feel like next the next day? Yeah, no. So when you you go into business for one reason, only you go in a business to sell a business. Otherwise, why go into business? I mean, if you're gonna go in it for the fun, the friendship, you're not you shouldn't be in business. You go in to sell a business. So I always knew that I was gonna sell it at some stage, never in the right time to sell it. So 2020 or 2019, I was trying to put it on the market. I got some uh interest, but then obviously COVID happened and the world changed, and suddenly we had all these problems. And the next kind of two or three years, it was just painful fight and fire. We didn't get, we've all been through, it was healthy industry. And I I wrote about this, and I wrote that I literally I was a broken man 2022, 23. I was a broken man, I couldn't deal with it. Emotion got too much, and I was gonna walk away. And I went into work one morning to walk away and close down the restaurant. I couldn't do it anymore. I get emotional thinking about it now, and I remember on the way in that morning, I got up and my wife was like, I know what you're gonna do. He had that look on my face. I said, I'm done, I can't do it. And I went in, I called the staff in, and my on the way in, my wife had called my dad, my dad had called me, and he just said, I'm behind you 100%. You want to walk, walk. But just give me the weekend to talk to you about it and let's try and see what we can do. So I did, but I left all the staff coming in, and I'm like, Why are we here? And so I had to make up some crappy training about health and safety, and they're like, but is nobody kind of coming in? I thought, I know, but we mustn't leave the gas on overnight because apparently it might cause a fire. What's all that about? So, but that what that did, that changed it kind of freed the shackles. I I cared, I didn't care. And that was good for me. So when it came to after that, I knew I had I gave myself two years to sell and I I did a year. Then I started to look how I can sell. We had some landlord stuff, blah, blah, blah. You negotiate your talk, you get your way out of it, the debt becomes reduced from the rents. I didn't blame the landlord. They had a building, end of story. It's also not their fault. Sure, I liked a bit of a pat on the back and some help, but that's the way it goes. But to be fair to them, they did work with me. They allowed me to reduce the debt, so therefore, I had an opportunity to make some money on top of the sale. Someone approached me, we started talking, and then we agreed a sale, and it's about 2025. And the selling part was unbelievably traumatic. It was unbelievably traumatic. It was so emotional. And my wife was a massive part of the business. She did the accounts and the and the books. So she lived it, I lived it, the kids lived it. And the day we sold it, we went in, the two of us, to kind of hand over the paperwork and do the transfers. And we just sat there. We were thinking, we'll go and drink champagne, we'll go to some fantastic place in the afternoon. And we did the sale, we did our bits and steams a basement bar, and we kind of walked out of the basement, went upstairs on the front, and we just broke down. Just broke down. We couldn't deal with it. And we looked at each other, what have we done? Why have we done this? And we just walked so slowly to Tower Bridge and took the you know Uber ferry, wherever it's called, taxi, across to Putney, and that's where we live and went home that way. Just kind of sat in silence. But that's always giving me an emotion when you sell something and you move on from something. I look back now, it was the best thing I've done in business. Because without it, I wouldn't be sitting here annoying the two of you. I wouldn't be on stage talking to people as an actual career now. And do I miss it? Not for one moment. I don't miss the fact that I've got a landlord, I've got something broken. I don't I miss the people without fail. I miss the people. And that goes back to the first question about why you did it. You did it to sell it, of course, but you did it for the people. And our tagline, our motto, our USP was always come as a customer, leave as a friend. Oh that's what we were about. No more than that. So we didn't, I knew what we were. We didn't sell the best food, but I knew that. So don't try and make out that we did. We didn't, we were good. You come in, I shake your hand, give you a hug, pat you on the back, whatever it might be. That's who we were. We became cheers, effectively, in the city. And I sold it, and the people who bought it are still going strong. And did they change a lot? They are in the process of changing, but same name. Same name. They are yeah, no, teams change, but teams change, you know that. But not many of us can say they ran a business successfully in the city for 20 years. We were we're known, we were well known. And yeah, so I can't remember what you've even asked me. Did you ask me how I felt? I'm not sure I felt. Did I have I answered your question or not? You answered the question beautifully and both. Yeah, and on a tangent.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Oh, and on a tangent then, sorry. No, wow, what a story. I want to take you back to those operating days now, Stephen. Yeah. Antoine says you are one of the best operators he's ever worked with. And if anyone can handle the pressure, you can. So I want to take you to a night. You're working at Steam, a few things are gonna happen. I want to see how you'd react.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

Okay, so when you say night, I have to work at night? Because I don't do nights, I do days. Can we tell you about yeah, yeah, back in the day, sorry, yeah. And you rolled up a few nights, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

Got involved. Right. All right, so the room is full. Congratulations. The bar is 3D, the kitchen's 20 minutes behind. Nothing's gone wrong yet, but everything feels stretched. Then the front door opens. And a major VIP Mike Tyson. That would be a major VIP.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

I lot.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

I like where you're going.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

It was Tom Cruise last week, saying you've up your. I have my gang. No reservation. He's got his entourage. Oh, that's it. That's a worry. That's a concern. You know. What are you gonna do? Run. I'd probably call Antoine and say, Anthorne, yeah, what do I do? Help me out here. There's this perception of celebrity. Everyone's got this image of celebrity. Unless you're involved with celebrity, it's not always that easy to understand celebrity. I don't see celebrities as anything more than just people like you and me. I've got to be honest with you, I don't. They've been a success. Congratulations. But I don't hold them on a pedestal any more than the next person who comes up. I just don't. It's who I am. That is why I worked at Steam for so many years. I think they want to be treated as normal people. They don't come in to be put in a pedestal. They want to be treated as normal people. So I would treat them as a normal person. If I can make something happen, sure I'll sit them down. But if I can't, they can sit in the bar. They can buy their own drinks. They can afford their own drinks. I'm not buying them a drink. Get your own drink. I'm running a business. I'm not a charity. I'm not going to post about them. So no one's going to know they're in the bar or the restaurant. So my view on it all is, and maybe I'm a little bit, I have that awareness more because I deal with it so much. I just think they're normal people. Yeah, agreed. Want to be like treated in all make a fuss, that kicks off. So I'm just, yeah, sit them in a corner. If you can't see them, you can't see them. End of story. So Mike takes this well. Oh shit. He battled with it. He battled. Did he knock me out?

SPEAKER_01 49:57

Did he punch me? He was gonna, but he was like, actually, I like this normal person feeling. This is a reference not normal. Far from an order. Alright, so Mike, Mike's off in one of the nooks and crannies at the steam. The room settles. Then someone from the kitchen finds you, Stephen. Yeah. There's been a fight. The head chef has taken off their apron and walked out. No shouting, no drama. They're just gone.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

I see my toes in full of don't don't you love, don't you love a kitchen that kicks off then? Yes, you I mean, oh, I love that. I love a kitchen that kicks off. It's it's the best part of the whole day. Put me in a kitchen that kicks off. I'm loving that. Because you want to see chefs sparking at each other. I've said some stuff there. I'm sure you've said some stuff. I've seen punches thrown, I've seen some ruined knives come out. I love a good kitchen. I've said a kitchen, I've been chased by a subblet with a knife. But I love it. I can walk in and say, stop being so bloody calm. Yeah, yeah, let's kick off. I love the because the passion's there. But you know, to answer your question, so I can run a kitchen, I can run a pass. I've always been able to do that from 20-20 favourite skills. So I can go into a kitchen, whether it be bluebird, whether it be steam, whether I can read tickets, I've worked hot, I've worked cold, I've worked grill, I can run a pass, I can call tickets. So that doesn't faze me. Not an ascientist. So I've had it at Steam more than once where the chef had to leave, not because he was having a fight, but uh he had to deal with a personal problem. I go in. My other business partner, Mike, he could do the same thing. So we all taught ourselves to run every job possible. So we were all prepared. If a light broke, if the something happened, you just manage the situation. So I'm relaxed with that. In a big restaurant, they must have a hierarchy of a second chef, third chef, six chef. Somebody has got to be able to step up. So I think that's what makes people like us great because you step up to the problem, to the podium. That just shows you how good you are. Don't hide behind anybody else. I know he would do it. I'm pointing at Antoine here. I'm not sure he's a great cook, but you know, I he I know he would do it, and I'm sure you would do it as well. So you just get you, you roll your hands up and you get on. And I love that about the industry because it just challenges you. Don't shy away. Get involved. Here, yeah. All right, you mentioned Mike.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

Mike's had a bad day. He's I'd tell us, I'm not gonna had a bad day. Can we change the reference? He's had a bad day. He wasn't gonna come in, but it's come in. It doesn't like the music, doesn't like the lighting, doesn't like some of the changes to the way the restaurant's loaded out. When someone comes in and tries to interfere, how can you deal with that?

SPEAKER_00 52:31

So I'm gonna so I obviously knew some of his questions were coming, as you well know, but some well rehearsed, and you're both smart at me, so I'm gonna give you a story about that involved with me. So I'll ask you a question first about Mike. You just go up to him, you talk to him, you chat to him. Yeah, is he the owner, by the way? No, is he not the edge, just the guest? Is he now what is he now as the owner? Oh, okay. Oh yeah, you but you deal with it that might. Yeah, yeah, not that mic, but no, you deal with it, you move, you move him away, you solve the problem, it's not a challenge. But I'll give you a story, okay? It involves me, and I was the basic, I was the issue. So it goes back to like the late 90s. Have you got half an hour? Are we okay on time? Yeah, kid. Late 90s, and I was working for Chelsea Village Hotels, which was Chelsea Football Club, and I was in charge of I know say five or so restaurants, and I the chairman who kind of ran it was a chap called Ken Bates, who was this you might know. Yes, and he was an interesting character. And I joined and I it was my kind of first what I would call real opportunity to kind of work in what I call a very corporate environment. And my my boss, my director, GM, he came up to me one day and he said to me, Let's go for lunch. So I said, No problem at all, you know, whatever, half twelve, one. And he said to me, let's go. So I kind of, you know, get up and he goes, You're not ready? I said, Well, I'm not ready. He goes, Well, your desk's a mess. I said, Well, you know, I'll be back in an hour and we'll deal with it. And he said, We're not coming back. So I went out and I had a few pints. I'm not the biggest drinker, and I had four or five pints, six pints, maybe seven. And we were round the corner from the actually the fox, I think the fox and pheasant. Who's the chap who owns it now? Come on, the guy who owns it now. That singer guy, Jamie somebody, guys' name now, around the corner. It sung, You're beautiful. What's I wait about his name? That's the one. And uh, we came back about half eight, nine. I'm about three sheets to the wind, and I walk in to the main restaurant and with the my boss, and we're gonna try and get one for the road. Why not? So it's uh the road is never ending. We've all been down the one for the road, let's not deny it. You been there? No, he hasn't. But we're now we've all been down one for the road, and Ken Bates is in there with his girlfriend Susanna, and they're sitting down and they're having dinner, and he sees us, he beckons us over. My boss is like, it's not a great idea. I said, I'm gonna smash this out of the park. He wants to listen to me. I've got so many great ideas. So we go over and we sit down. But fortunately, my ideas weren't about the restaurant trade, it's about the current Chelsea football team that at the time would have been Zola, Di Matteo, Dennis Wise, Chris Tutton. So I start to tell him where he was going wrong with the football team. Apparently, that's not what he wanted me to come over for. So I was asked to remove myself from the table and take a taxi shame, which I did. So I've kind of been there, so I kind of get it. So I've been that person that so I get it, keep me out. Mike Tyson can punch me and knock me out. He was.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

Stephen, in the time we've got left, I know that Antoine likes to look to the future of hospitality. This sounds like it's a man who's probably got some opinions on that, Antoine. Oh, to you, Bunny. Well, actually, I'm going to turn a bit of the questioner around. Oh, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 56:12

You come on, Sam. Bring it. We've done a book called I just I wrote a book called A Can Full of Steam, which I wrote at the back end of 2024. And the reason I wrote it was because not it's about me. That's a surprise, it's about me. And the reason I wrote it was because of I was going through some I wanted, I couldn't work out what to do with the business, and my best way to deal with it was to write things down. So I started writing things down, and the next thing I know, a book form. So yes, the answer. I wrote the book about a year and a half ago. So what's in it? What the listeners can find out in that book? I'm expecting to see surge in sales in the next week because my Amazon deal, I get £3.24 per book sold. So if you're out there, please make me rich. And there is a box it's hospitality-based. It is, it is. It's all about leading up to owning the business. So everything's about me. The first bit's about me, a little bit about your back years, your course you do get on an airplane in 1990, why I went traveling, what made me go to America, etc. etc. Kind of come back six and a half, seven years later, moving to London, the restaurant industry in London in the late 90s. But it all really leads to why I set up the business, why I went into business, the good part, the not so good part, the failing. We discussed it earlier, where we failed in Wandsworth, all about that. So it's a really it is a hospitality. Everyone that wants to open a business in hospitality, read a cat. You can say that, but yeah, I mean, I I think it gives you it gives you the good, it gives you the it gives you the bad as well. But if you got a dream, do it. Do it, absolutely go for it. Never know. I'm gonna receive it tomorrow. It's arriving doctor. Should I sign it for you? Oh, please. It'll it'll devalue it in about three seconds, but there you go.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

We'll link to it in the comments. Stephen, before we let you go, who in hospitality do you think we should speak to next?

SPEAKER_00 58:15

Right, so good question. So this is unfortunately for you, someone like me. I'm not sure you want somebody else on here like me. No one is, but I think this guy would be good because I think he'll give you a bit of what I talk about. He has a restaurant, the guy's called Rob Pierre. He has a restaurant in Pudding Lane called Ember. M, and it's a capital M, then B-E-R. It's like a Japanese kind of you know, infusion style restaurant. He's had it for about maybe 10, 12 years. So I knew him because of the connection to where we were located. But the thing about him is that he made his career a brilliant story. He's a company called Jellyfish, and they're this colossal social marketing media company, and he sold it about a year ago. His rise to that level was unbelievable. What he did to get there, the F he did to get there. So his story about that is brilliant. Everything you kind of touched kind of turned to gold. But Ember's different. He's finding it challenging like some other are as well. So I think he would give you a story about not only what he has achieved, but he'd give you a story about doesn't mean how much money you got in the bank or what you can put into it. He's if it's not quite working, why isn't it working? So I think you'd rob Pierre. I obviously I can put you in time through. Well, we'll contact him. I've already asked him. He said he'll do it for you. Oh bah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I've asked him, Mr. I said I'm gonna come on. He goes, yeah, I'll do it.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

Thank you, Stephen. And thanks for being so open and honest with us. You're one of the first owner operators that we've had, and it gives a completely different spin to everything. So thank you. No, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:08

And I'm sorry I talked so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

It's gone very quickly. As we all know, in hospitality, a reservation guarantees you a seat, but it does not guarantee you a great night. That part is earned by people like Stephen. It's earned by the people you rarely see, the ones carrying the room when it matters. And if you have enjoyed this, please share it with someone else in hospitality who deserves to be heard. Thank you for listening. Antoine, all that leaves me to ask you before you fly off to Portugal is there room for me at your restaurant, sir? So, Julian, there is no reservation.