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i wasn't experienced enough i was too young you're just branded thick nick jones the founder and ceo of soho house with an empire of private clubs around the world it's the most see and be seen type of place not everyone gets it your upbringing is particularly compelling to me because you were somewhat counted out i'm hugely dyslexic people didn't understand that you were just branded thick wow there was not much choice for me you've created a business which brings a lot of people joy that first soho house on greek street why did it work i wanted to prove that hospitality could be done differently i can't think of a time when i was thinking about making an aspirational brand i've always been obsessed about the member and that was always my number one thing they've created that if you don't make mistakes you're not pushing yourself you're not taking yourself out of your comfort zone maybe i was trying to prove to my family that i i could do this and i think that's an invaluable lesson at what point does that desire to prove something need to be contained because it might come at the expense of like life balance um a very good question and i think so without further ado i'm stephen bartlett and this is the diary of a ceo i hope nobody's listening but if you are then please keep this to yourself [Music] nick thank you for being here um i have to say i'm a big fan of the the business you've created and the i know you don't like the word but the brand you've built um for many many reasons that i'm excited to get into maybe because i'm a marketeer but maybe also just because i'm a customer someone and someone that loves the the soho house um brand but where i wanted to start with you is where i always start and your your um your sort of origin story your upbringing is particularly compelling to me because um by many accounts even your own you were somewhat counted out is that true
well my childhood was i don't think i'd say i was counted out i was you know in a nice middle class family where i had two older brothers and a sister younger sister mum and dad but my two older brothers um were you know they were the sort of stars they were they were great at school they were good at sport and i was a bit not so good at sport and not so good at school and it was a sort of different sort of um sort of childhood that i suppose that they had and um yeah i think it probably put me in good stead but at the time it was probably quite tricky when you say not so good at school what do you mean specifically we're just really bad at exams yeah i'm i'm hugely dyslexic and um so i find spelling really difficult i find pronunciation difficult i find um you know all sorts of things difficult at school i mean i've since learned that dyslexia is the greatest thing to have and but at school it isn't but i was lucky enough that my mum was all over it and it was discovered that i was dyslexic at the age of 12 which is very young for a lot of people are still discovering you know contemporaries of mine are still discovering a dyslexic right now in the age i am which is 58. so i i was i was lucky and i got support and i sort of got through school by weird things like they they'd give you extra hours on your exam but i didn't need that i i i only needed half the amount of time anyway to fill up the paper because i didn't have enough information so so to get another hour was just another hour just fiddling around with your pencil so um yeah the perception towards dyslexia today is is it's quite a common thing and people understand it a bit better but back then i'm assuming people didn't really understand what it was or there was a stick was there more of a stigma yeah i think so you're just branded thick and you know because if you couldn't
read or you couldn't um write proper i mean my handwriting is still very not i try and avoid handwriting of every possibility so it's still um really bad and i've i think yes people because people didn't understand it there but people understand it now and people talk about it and they should talk about it and it's to me it's you know if you have dyslexia you look at things very differently because you have to look at things differently you have to simplify things and by simplifying things i think that gives you a different perspective on things when i say counter that i mean more in the sense of um you didn't believe that you would be a success when you were older because of the because especially when you're at that young age you assume that those that are getting the the best grades and spell the best and do math the best are going to be rich and successful and then there's us as everyone else so at that young age you didn't see you didn't envisage you would be a quote-unquote success i it didn't i didn't think either way i was just sort of thinking of just getting through school and and and i wasn't really planning that if i was going to be a success or not a success and i i think that's a interesting um how you define success um and i don't think success is just been successful you know running a business or creating a business i think it's it touches all sorts of things was there um when i was reading about your parents dinner parties that seemed to be the first inspiration for what you would later do in hospitality and restaurants and creating experiences for others was that the first sort of spark of inspiration for you yeah um i i i was while my brothers were on the sports field i weirdly like doing the supermarket shop i with my mum you know i found supermarkets fascinating i found food fascinating i then found the whole preparation of how to give people a good
time you know fascinating and you know i loved watching how you how you could create an environment where people had a laugh and fun and was that what your parents were doing well yeah they i'm not all the time i mean occasionally they did it but um but when they did do it it was you know i'd love to be part of them trying to create a fun evening and i think that's probably where i suddenly realized that you know hospitality was the route for me um because i you know we're going back a long long time um you know this was you know i'm 58 now and i was sort of 13 at the time and and i was i used to you know go to the local sports club and work behind the bar you know as i would clean the glasses and weirdly i enjoyed that i enjoyed the interaction with people i enjoyed seeing people just have a have a nice time and and back then people were not going into hospitality i mean it was really at the bottom of a ladder of of industries that people went into so i thought that was an opportunity it's funny because i've sat here with them jimmy carr and lots of comedians and when i hear about their sort of ins and inspiration for becoming a comedian it tends to root back to them being younger and it being the thing that they would see create the most joy in their home so in the case of jimmy carr and russell and russell howard and a few of the other comedians i've sat with they tell me the story about like the thing that would make my parents the happiest was when i would tell jokes so that was this sort of psychological reinforcement that led me to be a joke teller for the rest of my life and when i was reading about those those dinner parties that your parents had i was i was and also confounded by the fact that you you know you said in your own words um you didn't feel like there was a lot of conventional opera um avenues available to you because of your dyslexia that that was the the combination of factors that caused you to
well and and i really had to i mean when i was at school i because i wasn't good at getting exams i had to rule university out i had to there was there was not much choice for me you know there was a person with very few o levels as as they were called then and i think i got an e in a level and i scraped through on economics i think and you know with that there there was there was really not a lot of choice and you know my careers master at school sort of said i think it's catering nick you know so when my when my chris master said that i've i i sort of thought and also the fact that i thought there was real opportunity in this and my my dad owned a small um insurance broking company and my brothers went into work there and i think my dad was keen for me to go and work there but i i didn't find insurance very exciting i still don't and i didn't find that world of working in the city and insurance and being an insurance broker interesting at all so i i did have that as an opportunity but i really felt i wanted to try hospitality and catering as you as you started your journey into hospitality and catering did you start to at any point figure out that you were you had some kind of area of brilliance there was something you were good at compared to others no i remember clearly the first no i did the answer to that was is definitely no um i my my my first day i i worked for trust house forte i was a management trainee and it was a five-year course and i i applied to the savoy management um training course to start with and they i i remember it to this day the interview i had um and i just froze i couldn't speak i was so nervous i i absolutely froze and because i was a pretty shy kid and you know i i was shy at 17 when i was going through these interviews and i just was it i just got stage fright i just couldn't my mouth no words came out of my mouth and i didn't get into the savoy management course but then i applied for trust house forte and luckily when i went for the interview i was able to
talk and i got onto a a five-year course and my first part of the course was a year in the kitchens and it was at st george's hotel in langham place which is just here in london off oxford street and i arrived and the chef looked me up and down and he he he he he called me a nickname which i'm not gonna say it began with a c and and um he threw a sack of potatoes at me which landed in my belly and he said peel them and so i went off to the viera where you peeled the potatoes and i hadn't really ever used a knife before and the first one the first potato i cut my my my my finger and i thought oh god how do i hide the high disk and the water i was putting the potatoes in was getting redder and redder and redder and i and i thought oh no this is my first day and the nickname stuck and i i was really sort of learning on the job which i think is a really great way to learn anything and i kept making mistakes but i ca i was determined to to sort of fit in to the kitchen because it was an environment you know because i came from this sort of cotton wool um middle class background and then going into the kitchen into the early 80s where where you know if they it was long hours and and and they they you know someone who comes in with a slightly posh accent and you know they very very very very it was it but it was a it was a good moment it was a good moment for me was it um what was it about that sounds pretty horrific sound and i've having worked in the kitchen my mum had a restaurant at a very young age i started working there at seven super high stressful people always complaining it's hot in there um that and i mean people weren't throwing things at me and calling me the c word but it wasn't it was really unpleasant so i'm wondering what in that context like despite of all of that tickled your fancy do you know what it was it was i was coming out my shyness i was learning how to get on with people and you know i was i went to a private school i was surrounded by people who
went to private school which is seven percent of the population and by going into the the the the um kitchen you you really learnt to really get on with everyone and and i think that's an invaluable lesson and i really became friendly with a lot of the chefs and would go out with them at night and i just enjoyed it and even though it was hard i just enjoyed the environment i enjoyed creating food i enjoyed the buzz i enjoyed i didn't mind the heat i didn't mind the fact that it was it was it was long hours i just enjoyed it if i had spoken to maybe your colleague or someone that was maybe above you in a line manager at that time and said what isn't it good at what would they have said to me i i'd like to think um not peeling potatoes or making porridge but you know getting on with people and being part of a team and and getting stuck in you said earlier that dyslexia was um is actually a great gift can you explain why um why you've now come to believe that that is a real sort of superpower for you well i i i wouldn't say it's a superpower but i i i talk a lot about dyslexic because i really want people to feel that if they have if they get the tests and they're dyslexic i don't want them to ever feel bad i want them to feel good and go well this is a huge opportunity because i think when you look at things differently and the reason one thing being dyslexic i have to simplify everything all the time i have to i have to i want something on one sheet of paper i don't want it on four sheets of paper i want i i want everything to be scaled down and simplified and i think we live in a world where everyone's over complicating things always and and you know and it doesn't matter what area of the business i work in now whether it's the designers or the chefs or tech people you know it's all over complicated and i spend a lot of my time just editing down and and and simplifying it and i think dyslexic being dyslexic has made me do that you know because it's the easy route because complication panics me and confuses me
so i spend a lot of time simplifying and i think when you do simplify things people understand it they get it they like it yeah so true someone once said to me that phrase i always forget which is um if someone's ability to simplify something also correlates their ability to truly understand it and typically when you meet these like salesmen that are um trying to blag you in some way they purposefully overcomplicate something and sometimes they don't actually understand what they're saying but distilling it to simplicity gets it closer to truth and it's it's also a sign that the person communicating it really truly understands the essence of the idea or the concept you by 22 you started your own restaurant chain well correct i went around lots of departments within trust house 48 from front desk to bar to to to housekeeping i was a housekeeper at the you know clean the rooms at the westbury hotel in conduit street i i was a barman at brown's hotel in albemarle street um and yeah i remember clearly um you know serving being the barman and i remember making cocktails for george bess that was that was a highlight of he was such a nice guy and and and i suppose at that time i always thought the determination was to open something to to open my own restaurant this is you know i want to learn this and then i ended up doing marketing at trust house forte and then i was marketing manager at grover the house in in part lane and it wasn't because i was brilliant at it it was you know i was cheap you know i just was i was i didn't just cost a lot of money and they could that's what they were looking for at that precise moment and but i always when i was working there i was always working on a plan to to you know not work for trust house forte which was a big big hotel company and i was thinking you know i want to get out of this at some stage i don't want to keep going on the ladder when you know you keep getting put you hopefully i would have kept being promoted into other jobs but and
then it would have been too difficult to leave so i want to go when i'm still relatively at the bottom and then i i went and tried working in fast food restaurants or sort of casual restaurants so i went to work to maxwell's and covent garden as a night manager i then i then went to work at pasta mania as a sort of junior manager and then during that time i was building my plan to open my first restaurant which was called over the top and that opened in 1988 and it was you know it was i was too young i wasn't experienced enough um it was it was terrible the design which is something i'm obsessed with now and i love design you know and i that was my first design outing and it really was terrible um the food was you know really bad you know my friends had to come you know and that that showed i really knew who my friends were because they would come and support me in the restaurant but it was uh it was it was it was it was a a good experience of getting something really wrong it's not cheap to open a restaurant how did you how did you fund that well i i my my dad put a bit of money in family friends put a bit of money in and i got the bank to put some money in um so i was lucky you know i was given that chance to be able to open my first restaurant um and it's something you know you know we we do a lot now i i love people doing that when anyone comes to me and wants to be an entrepreneur and start something up i really make time to steven and help them and you know i was lucky i was given an opportunity um and yeah i learned a lot that i guess would increase the pressure if you've got family betting on you yeah i i think i never they never made me feel like that um you know my dad you know um i think he was proud that i was trying to do something i was trying to do something on my own because he had his own small business um but he never made me feel like that and the other shareholders you know i
think in their head they when they first came and tried the restaurant they sort of probably knew that it wasn't gonna lead anywhere but actually you know the the company is still the same company as it is today it's a it never went it never it never went bust we we we we we hang on in there and um you know eventually open cafe om in 92 um with which was really all the experience of getting over top so wrong and let me explain what over top was it was it was it you either chose a burger a piece of chicken a bit lamb or a steak and over the top of it you could choose one of 10 sauces the sources were terrible and and and it was just it was just bad and um you know uh it it it just sort of taught me you know how to manage a business with little cash and with no cash how to pay the staff every week how to use initiatives to try and get more customers in and i think it taught me at a very early age you know marketing restaurants is not the way to solve a restaurant you just have to make the restaurant good because the customer is so clever they know what good is and they know what bad is and it taught me that very early on there was no way that you could you don't you can't fool a customer they they they they know and you could walk into over top and you could sort of feel you know you could sense that it wasn't wasn't wasn't wasn't good enough but what i learned at that time was it it's sort of it i didn't feel it was a failure i just thought it was i was on a a journey of learning and i really even now encourage all our people that making a mistake is not a problem you know if you don't make mistakes you're not pushing yourself you're not trying you're not you're not you're not taking yourself out of your comfort zone and so you know i really encourage people to think that you know
failure is not what it sounds like you know it's okay it's just part of the journey what did what did that process teach you about feedback i asked that because in my first business i was i had this was a tech business and i was very romantic about this hypothesis about the way that i thought my customers would behave and about the solution that i thought that they would care about and i spent too long not listening to their feedback and ultimately that was pretty fatal and i just wish earlier i'd been less romantic and stubborn almost about what i thought the customer would want and and listen but i'm wondering what that first failure taught you about the importance of what feedback you listen to and how you listen to it well i think feedback's key um and people being honest it's funny being been a brit people are funny about complaining aren't they they're in restaurants they they think it will offend you they they think well i'm not gonna i can't complain to nick about i had a bad meal last night because he he might be your man might upset him but to me you know you can only get better by getting really honest feedback and i'm lucky now because i have members who all have my email address and and and you know they if they're not happy they they email me so i think listening to feedback is super super important did you listen to it and over the top well i could just see it because there wasn't many people to give feedback to [Laughter] i wish there was more customers in there giving me feedback um but you you know people did give feedback and and but i didn't have the tools to be able to get it better i didn't know you know you saw i started going down a sort of yeah because we kept running out of money so you know you kept cutting cutting the you know the team down so it just wasn't you know at the end it was just me in the kitchen serving and we even set up a delivery service to try
and try and try and um uh boost our sales but that didn't work i was so um really inspired by you saying that the customer is smart and also you alluded to the fact that the best marketing is word of mouth yeah absolutely that that really is at the heart of what you even do today is is i believe in the customers yeah i i'm very lucky that we have fantastic members who are loyal and and you know they they you know i i if anyone says that we've done okay or i've done okay it's for thanks to our members and um you know our members of the people who pushed me from doing so house you know the originals our house on greek street where yeah it worked there were hairy moments you know when i thought it really wasn't going to work um and you know it would go quiet or it would go you know i remember the first year we opened in in may suddenly conquered we'd opened in january i thought oh god that i thought it would last a bit longer than this and you know member turned around to me and said well we're all down at the cam film festival you know that's where your members are so i suddenly thought well next year i'm going to go down and create a pop-up down there and this was pre-pop-ups you know this was in 96 and so we rented a boat um in the harbour and i remember in fact i remember clearly because there was there was a lady who still works for us to this day veronique and her and i had to fill up this lorry full of stuff in london to drive down to i didn't drive the lorry because i couldn't drive a lawyer but to go down to the south of france can and we opened this boat and it was like a temporary club for the ten days of the cam film festival and members you know if they weren't in london they could come to the club in in the the boat in the harbour and that we did that for lots of years and it was i think our members really enjoyed that and that sort of taught me again
where wherever the member was going go so you know because if i hadn't you know i was i didn't understand the film business or the media business i was in catering hospitality so i i was i was sort of new to this and you know when i first first created the first ever committee at sarah house you know i was really knocking on doors and and phoning people cold calling then saying do you mind and and you had to sort of explain what you were trying to do to get them to come on the committee and that was where our first 500 members came from and and i think there i've always just listened to the member you know they they kept saying wouldn't it it's great this one why didn't you do one in the country and i go oh let's do one in the country then so off i go i phone saviles up and i say any any hotels for sale i didn't have any money but i thought well i'm going to go on that route and see how i could i could um get get get somewhere in the country and i remember stumbling across babington house and and i remember it was it was on the market for um you know a million million and a half pounds um this was back in yeah a long time ago and and um i remember driving up the drive and as soon as you have drive out the drive at babington you sort of fall in love of a place and i fell in love with a place and i thought oh my god how how how am i gonna get planning permission to turn this into a hotel and how am i going to have enough money to buy it i had just a small amount of money just to put the deposit down and luckily the people who were selling it um they they um they said well we want to stay here for the summer we you know we want to we want to exchange and then we will complete in nine months time i thought yes you know and then it gave me nine months um um to um
to find the money and get the planning permission and raise the money with our members to to pay for the completion and also to pay for the refurbishment and i i sort of just remember even before we exchanged the agent phoned me up and said you know um a higher off has gone in so i was sort of being gazumped and i thought well i don't have the money anyway so i can put another couple hundred grand on it because and so i i increased my offer i i got babington house and um you know i was able to raise the money we and we raised the money through our members you know lots of members put sort of five grand in um and that's how i was able to get the money to open babington house so it was a it was a led by our members sort of verb the members helped invest in it you know they luckily have all got their money back plus plus and um you know then that was the second thing we opened that first sega house on greek street why did it work you know i was running the restaurant downstairs cafe bowen that was my survival cafe bowen was you know it was the same company as over the top it was it was it was me doing everything totally different to what over the top was so the food was edible and nice the service was good the atmosphere you know and if i was in there last night and it was you know it made me very happy because it was packed and it was fun and when the building came up available above cafe berm which is on greek street in london i the landlord pulled me up um and they said well do you fancy taking the space above and i go well what on earth for you know there was no plan to do a private members club my plan was just to survive and make cafe bowen work after four years of attempting over the top
and i still do this today i always look at everything i when people phone me and say there's an idea i was gonna have a look and so i said okay well go and have a look so i wandered around the offices and it was a small door you know um on on greek street forty creek street and and i thought hmm and i hadn't been to a private members club you know i wasn't i wasn't part of a groucho club i wasn't i wasn't i wasn't part of that that that was only the groucho club all there were all those clubs down in palm oil i wasn't part of that maybe that's a good thing yes and i and i i looked random oh god this is like a home away from home and and and you know god this is this could work how could i you know this this this is an idea but i didn't have any money so um again and um i went to see um my landlord which is paul raymond um and i went to see him and he said well you do want to take it i said well yeah i'd love to take it but what would you invest because the family investment and from over the top they had had totally enough explain they they were out you know the banks were trying to pull out of you know trying to get their loan back it was that bit of it was you know just it was it was it was that bit of the family help was done finished and so i thought well how am i going to raise the money for this because it's going to be separate i'm going to have to do this separately to what cafe bow m is and so i went to see paul raymond he said i'm not investing i didn't invest in other people's businesses and then it was when i was leaving he said well what happens if i put the money in but just added it to your rent so you ended up with a higher rent you know a percentage of the money he put in was added to my rent and i thought well to do the fit out to do fit
um i thought okay well that sounds like it can work so i set up sewer house it was it was simple to come up with a name it was a house in soho the logo was pretty simple it was just actually it was it was so simple it was free buildings three floors um and and i and but i owned a hundred percent of it because the cafe bowman a lot you know my my family didn't want anything to do with it and and the other investors and i thought well you know when so house works i'm going to transfer everything back to the you know the same percentages as it was as when it was over the top so i merged the two companies so i didn't want um i didn't want to be a success on one hand in on on soho and and they were suffering on cafe bowm and over top so we merged it all together and and we found the members and and and you know a lot of the people who opened sewer house in 95 still are part of sower house to work um you know a guy pierre who was a server in in in um the blue dining room the the blue room in the in the restaurant now runs north america for us and um marcus anderson who it runs our membership part of our membership team who was a server in one of the dining rooms so the guy marcus barwell was a barman in the circle bar now he's managing director of south house design so it's lovely seeing you know people who are right there at the beginning still be part of a company now and it it but it was it was a journey as well it was we were moving into this new area of membership understanding membership understanding looking after people and and just listening to your members because i'm sort of going back to your original sort of feedback question so the feedback and which comes from our members has sort of
really helped us where we are today was cafe bowen successful when you embarked on the house journey upstairs yes but it was having to be on top of the disaster of sower house so it was a quite a lot of there was a lot of sort of um it was the same company and and so yes it worked cafe berm worked it gave me the confidence to do something else it it worked because um it it you know it was 30 years ago so and there weren't many places i don't think there were many places which were open to eight in the morning and closed at three in the morning and you could go in there and eat whatever you wanted or just have a coffee or just have a drink the kitchen was always open you could you know drink chunks of beer or you could have a steak freak or and we had jazz in the afternoons it was really creating it it sort of really created a real regular following within soho and it was the turning point really of the disaster of overdue i had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast for many years people have been asking for a coffee flavoured huel and quite recently he'll release the iced coffee caramel flavor of their um ready to drink heels and i've just become hooked on it over the last couple of weeks i've been on a really interesting journey with huel which i've described and talked about a little bit on this podcast i started with the berry ready to drinks then i moved over to the protein salted caramel because it's 100 calories and it gives you all of your essential vitamins and minerals but also gives you the 20 odd grams of protein you need and now i'm balanced between them both i drink mostly the banana flavor ready to drink i've got really into the iced coffee caramel um flavor of heels ready to drink and now i'm drinking that as well as the protein make sure you try the new ready to drink flavors that the caramel flavor is amazing the new banana flavor as well is amazing and obviously as i said the iced coffee caramel flavor has been a real smash here so check it out
let me know what you think on social media i see all of your tags and instagram posts and tweets about huel back to the podcast so when you look back then on that so house a lot of people i'm sure started very similar style businesses around the time i'm trying to figure out why sir house went on to become what it is today what were the the factors that in your view you talked about customer feedback shaping everything but well i would i would give that accolade to our members i would i would say it was the members who pushed me and and yeah when they when we opened in new york you know because we i think we'd open the electorate house with we're about three then and and someone said well you should open in new york i'd love this i'll have a oh yes maybe so off i go to new york and and and determined to open a sewer house in new york first of all look in the re district of soho and couldn't find something going came close it was difficult learning permitting it was it was just difficult and i remember we found the warehouse it was an old electrical warehouse and meat packing and meat packing was a very different place to what it is now um it was run down it was you know it was it was full of sort of it was full of really interesting life and and i remember we found this this this this warehouse and i thought okay i'm gonna get get the warehouse and again we had to raise money to do it so it was a question of trying to um how do you get raise money in new york because we we you know it was it was a bad time in the uk it was so i think it might have been a recession going on so the banks were you're not gonna we're not lending you money in new york so i thought okay well i gotta start raising money again from our members and from people in new york to put money into the seller house in new york
and um i i it was everything was nerve-wracking you know the week i was flying out there to try and get the permit to be able to allow to open a club in the in a warehouse was 9 11. so i arrived on i think it was a monday evening and i was nervous because i it was this big big meeting on the thursday where in in front of a local community board to see whether we'd get permission to be able to open up a club and have a license in this premises and i was having breakfast um on the tuesday morning then the 9 11. um and i was having a bold egg i remember it and as i was hitting my boiled egg i heard this big bang and i thought what is that so i ran out on the street and i looked up and i could see one of the twin towers with smoke coming out of it and i asked um there's a guy sweeping the street and i said what happened he said well a plane went into the side of it and i said well was it just a what did it look was it he said it was an airliner it was so it wasn't like a private plane and i thought oh my god so the first thing i did was phone kirsty my wife um because she was in new zealand she was a news presenter on itn and i said i think maybe you should get into work there's something going on here and and then and then i was still out on the street and i saw the second plane going you saw it coming yeah it was coming in from the river so you didn't actually see it coming in but you saw the impact of it coming in and and then you know that day was it it made me really fall in love with new york it's sort of the release resistance of
the people uh how how they cope with it how they it was it was it was amazing the people of new york that day um and that that week and and anyway weirdly the community board still happened on the thursday and i went up and did my presentation i said i i don't know why i'm doing this it seems irrelevant it seems not not something we should be doing but you know you're running a meeting there was a lot of other points on the agenda so i was just one of them and we got our permission um and that's how new york started but it was a big big sort of race to find the finance and i was calling everyone i was i was calling everyone i did more show rounds of that that that that warehouse building you know running up and down the stairs showing people around trying to be enthusiastic and then you know i was sort of getting to know people in new york and i put together this hard hat dinner um where i i don't know how it happened and i don't know um why it happened but you know the really well-known people turned up to this dinner and we had just had a six burner on the sixth floor and we cooked some chicken and we laid out the table in the building site on with a white tablecloth so it was real grit and glamour it was it was and and these people just turned up and i remember david bowie been there and i'm going and i remember i was so nervous i was i i i and i i started talking to him and he said
this is a great idea can i buy it and i said well there's nothing to buy at the moment but can you invest in it yes and and so he was one he was one of the investors of of of sewer house new york which was fantastic and and and then momentum came and we rose raised the money everyone sort of before that was saying a private members club wouldn't work in new york you know people wouldn't pay a membership fee people treat restaurants like private members clubs and the velvet rope was the big thing in new york um and i wobbled so often about should we charge for membership and every uh i was so nervous opening so i had new york and i remember the opening party um and it was raining and they hadn't finished putting the roof on and and people were staying in the hotel and there was no water so we had to borrow the showers at the local gym people had to go down to a local gym for hot water we had water but there was no hot water and it was just this roller coaster of an experience opening in new york where we didn't quite have enough money and you know the team you know my we were carrying sheep sheetrock or it's plasterboard over here and sheet rock over there up to the floors to try and finish them putting the ceilings in and and it was a it was a it was a it was a journey but then eventually we opened and it worked it so people sort of took to it why bother you know like you had a great business here in london you know things are going well why why put yourself through all that pain um a very good question and i think i could have just carried on doing things in london but i there was an ambition in me there was you know there was this
this thing about being a brit and going to new york and trying to take the thing which i loved in london and see if it worked in new york and it was and it and at points it nearly took the whole thing down and but i really felt at the time that if it did bring the whole thing down at least i tried at least i gave it a go and i wasn't going to be sitting in a rocking chair thinking i didn't give it a go so i think there was a sort of inner something in me which wanted to see and maybe it was sort of going back to my childhood when my brothers were so good on the sports field or or good at school i was trying to prove a point because because i sensed that a lot even when you had this you know successful cafe for you then to take the risk of taking upstairs with an unknown idea just because someone said it's available and it's that you know some people are more like the i don't know they stay within the zone of comfort and they just harvest but you have this hunting sort of predisposition as well even when things are going well so well i there's something inside me um maybe i was trying to prove to my brothers my family that i i could do this and and yeah i and i do always look at things in a positive light i do look at things like you know if i look at a glass of water i'd say that's half full um not half empty and and and hospitality i wanted to prove that hospitality could be done differently and i think with cafe bowen where we opened it all day and it was chameleon it just kept changing to the time of day it was and putting jazz on in the afternoon and just sort of making it much more customer focused where you would go out 40 years ago and kitchens would close at 2pm and you couldn't eat in the
afternoon and i think that was something i felt i was onto something to be able to make it better for the customer and that sort of took me back to when i liked helping my mum and dad when they had people around for supper and i loved seeing rooms full of people having a good time in cafe bowen and i loved laughter i loved people connecting with each other i loved people enjoying themselves and i think i just thought why didn't i just carry on doing this at what point does that desire to prove something need to be contained because it might come at the expense of like life balance you know this question i've asked myself a lot it's like when you are successful in one thing you have more opportunities to go and do more things and then you might end up being pulled so much by your ambition and your desire to prove a point or your insecurities that you then end up compromising all of these other things like friendships and the other things that make life fulfilling yeah and i it's a it's a balance i've never quite got right and i'm super lucky i have an incredibly supportive wife kirsty and she she sort of really went on the journey with me and i know without her you know i wouldn't be you wouldn't be asking me on to this podcast and um you know so she's been a great support and my kids you know were sort of part of well you know they they had to come to work they you know when i was doing the rounds on a saturday morning or during weekends i'd have push chairs and toddlers and you know they were just part of what was going on and it had to sort of merge into one thing and what i've successfully done is try and de-merge it and have you know a when i'm at work i'm at work and when i'm a family i'm with family and that but that's taken a long time so the the the balance is is something i think all entrepreneurs
suffer you say it's a balance you've not got right what was the indicator that you didn't get it right how did you know you didn't get it right what was the symbol i was always knackered i was always sort of pretending not to be i was always sort of yeah um yeah it was i was internally coping with all the pressure where i could but i wasn't doing that very well um so i think it was sort of a combination of of of just realizing that yeah this was all consuming it was it was it was really dragging and and i was very lucky i had you know great friends who are still my friends from when i was a kid and i didn't see them enough and you sort of in our business hospitality it is weekends it's nights it's days it's it's it's all the time and when you take it to a different country then you have to think well the day's just got longer and then and and it's got five years you know go to new york got five hours longer and so yes it does take its toll what is that toll you said about coping with pressure well i i i think you know i i sit here today and i think i'm lucky because i think i got a great you know i i have great relationship with my kids i you know it's my favorite thing it's been with with the family and been being been with them all together um so um but i think at times when you're trying to prove yourself i'm trying to prove that i could work in new york and america i was trying to prove that we could open sewer houses and other parts of the world i i think it it it it it was hard but you know you suddenly then do realize that you have to sort of balance it was it was there a point in your journey that was particular so the pressure becomes so much and you almost feel within your being whether it's your
health gives out or your your mental health or you get anxious where you think this is not this is not sustainable i i i never thought it wasn't sustainable because i'm always such a positive person but i think you know kirsty was great you know she kept saying you know we don't need any more this is we don't need another house the world doesn't need another house nick you know the you know you don't need to be on a plane all the time what who are you what are you trying to prove and and there was a stage where i was buzzing around everywhere flying here flying there and and thinking it it was all making a big difference but really and i think the pandemic taught me that was the fact that there's better ways of using your time and what are those better ways of using you well you know instead of buzzing around on a plane all the time and spending 12 hours in a city and then going to another city or doing one night and one you sort of where you know the teams are clever enough to put on a bit of a show for that that period of time so you're not actually seeing really what's going on and it was just smarter ways of doing it and and and also having a lot more trust in the senior leadership team and uh letting him get on with it and thinking i didn't have to be everywhere for it to work and actually often it worked much better when i wasn't around and and i mean i i i you know because they were able to just get on with it not worry about what i was thinking all the time that sounds like great advice for a younger version of nick at the start of the house journey what else would you say um now in hindsight you wish someone had maybe they said it but you'd wish you had known about how to achieve get to where you are now or further um but in a more effective whether that relates to health or finance way what what would be that advice you'd give to that nick starting out on the server house journey well i've always been
obsessed about the customer the member and that was always my number one thing and the people who work for us so they they were my two obsessions and i the advice i think i'd give to a young young young nick would be you know let them take more don't think you have to you know your team you know put it more onto your team to get on with it and don't try and do everything yourself and also you know there's a there's a point when you have can prove yourself that you can these things can work globally and you know there's a time when you know you have to really properly delegate and let other people get on with it what are the you know because one of the things that server house is known for is this quote-unquote brand and i know you don't like that word but this very um i think i would say it was an aspirational brand people want to be a solo house person how much in intentionality i don't even know if that's a word has gone into making that brand aspirational i i i can't think of a time where we had a time where i was thinking about making an aspirational brand i think it that's and if that's people's perception great i'm really i'm i'm i'm that sounds good and i i all i concentrated on what our members wanted and they've created that they have created the the [Music] the fact that you know there's a desirability to be part of a house and yes we and we and we got a brilliant team brilliant membership teams globally we got we got people who really care people who have been on the journey for a very long time and i think with their help and with every house we have a determination to make it better than the last house you know we always start with a fresh piece of paper we don't think well you know let's just
keep repeat repeat repeat we go new new new how can we make it better what are we going to change to make this better what are we going to change to make it more efficient what are we going to change to make it better for the member and i think our members really appreciate that and they see that and they talk about that and that's probably what's created what you have just described what is in hospitality taught you about life everything i sort of think you know um it should be the national service your people should go into a year in hospitality because i think it teaches you so much i mean i spoke earlier about me going into that kitchen and really learning how to get on with people and from different backgrounds different countries different different everything and i think it really teaches you you know to be part of a team and there's a customer there's all your you know people you work with in the kitchen or the person cleaning the dishes or a person you know cleaning the rooms it you all have to work together to make it happen and i think so it really takes the shyness out of you and it gives you an ability to get on with people which i think is a really useful tool i think it's better than a a maths degree i think getting on with people i think um you learn you know just useful practical things like making a bed or keeping a place tidy or clearing a table of plates and and and when you when you've got a family gathering or something you can suddenly clear the plates and stack them up or you can you can you can make a cocktail you know which is really nice you know you know that doesn't you don't even if you're not in hospitality anymore you can still make a cocktail you can still make a bed you can still hopefully get on with
people you can still you know clear a table you you you have to become quite organized in your mind and i think hospitality is a very rewarding industry for that hospitality is quite a quite a broad term but at the crux of it what do you think it is that you're actually selling to people what are they buying from you well i think what we want our member to do is flourish you know we want them to flourish socially and we want them to flourish you know at work and i think creating memberships and you know that word community of people who are so like-minded and and they all have a creative soul and you put them in in one house you know that is like you know they bump into each other they talk to each other i've seen businesses created i've seen relationships created friendships created ideas created and and i think when you put people together in a space and and and it that is that is pretty special and to see that happen in different countries and different cities to see members sort of really using the fact that you go into the house you can just go into the house on your own just wander down there and you know you'll bump into someone you'll start having a drink with someone or a cup of coffee with someone or you and you're sort of you you're in the house you're part part of that membership and i and i you know people do it you know a lot now and you know you can do it digitally and they use algebra ribbons and they use all sorts of things and i think you know being part of cell hats and you know those 500 members i talked to you about earlier you know they're still part of us they still pay their membership if they're still here they're still part of it they don't give it up and and so you on one hand they the original founder members of 27 28 years ago and then on the other hand you got you know huge under-27 membership going into our houses huge you know it accounts for
to 23 of our overall membership you know under 27s and it's it's seeing in a room you know the most successful script writer in one corner and on in another corner there might be a struggling scriptwriter who's still trying to write you know their first script or you know vr a really well-known artist or an artist who hasn't sold a new painter who hasn't sold their first bit of work and you know and taking that and and trying to think well how can the person who's done it help the person who wants to do it and yeah that's why i'm so passionate about our mentoring scheme you're where you know there is so much creativity in the world and there's so much creativity you know and and creativity is not owned by the middle class it's everywhere and to to be able to offer mentoring to people who are less fortunate who might not be able to afford a membership or might not know what door to knock to get that opportunity is sort of one of the favorite things that we're doing my favorite things i'm doing at the moment is seeing it happen so going back to what you were saying about creating people in a room who all help each other they all feel like they're looking out for each other they all want to help the person who who's down on their luck or who is is is is is starting out or they want to help the the the you know they want to create an idea with another bunch of members and i think that that that is special and it goes back to seeing people in a room having a great time and and if our members can flourish in in their lives if so our house can just make their lives just a little bit better then i think that's a good thing are you naturally shy person i think so because it's funny because when i i meet
entrepreneurs there's various different types of entrepreneurs um once in a while i meet an entrepreneur and a founder that's created a really great business but it's quite i think the word is unassuming as in they're not very self-promoting you know you ask them certain questions about what their brilliance is for example and they they don't necessarily point at themselves they tend to defer it to others so it just made me it's it's it's curious because it's kind of unconventional to me an entrepreneur that's so that feels so unassuming in a sense in terms of not having a huge ego i guess um because the question i was going to ask you and my head is going he's probably not going to get a he might defer this to something else's you've created such an amazing business and it's such a wonderful brand and it's it's admired by people that are customers and that aren't customers just for for the business but i can't seem to get you to tell me um why you out of everyone else that was trying to do this was successful because i got the ambition piece i've got that persistence and that that persistence that comes from that childhood sort of maybe chip on your shoulder but but but i know there's more well i'm i can only tell you what i'm i i think and i what i i do think is you know i i i love what i do i'm lucky i get up every morning i have a skip in my steps you know i'm skipping around i'm i'm looking forward to getting to work i i i have a fantastic team around and um you know i care deeply and if that all adds up to it working that's the reason why because it was never for me a money play it was more a a thing that i wanted to try and make hospitality you know and that is a i used to say catering but i've upgraded it to hospitality and and to make hospitality a sort of area of where you
can change it you can you know when we open babington house you know it was a first country house hotel where you could get breakfast when you wanted when there was no rules it was it was it was you know your your bedroom at badminton house probably nicer than your bedroom at home so people would come down and go well nick you know um you know where do you get that tv where do you sky that's new well i'm gonna put sky in my houses or i'm gonna where'd you get those sheets and and so i'm not trying to avoid your question here but i'm just trying to again answer how i feel and why i do it i did get something more from that which is just your care yeah how much you care and your passion and your care seem to have a relationship together but and that's that's so important because a lot of people would be launching it for money and then therefore they'd care about something else whereas you really seem to care essentially about the customer experience more than anything else well i i think i always say to our team as sort of if if our people are happy and that's the members are happy then sort of everything else will look after itself because your places will be busy and if you if you're smart and you're cost controlled it it it everything else should be fine do you think you're a success i i i think i said earlier but success you can judge success in lots of ways um you know i'd much rather be judged as a father than as someone who runs a business and you know i suppose you'd have to ask my kids that professionally do you think you're a success i people tell me a lot and i i suppose i have to listen to them in in in in in in their eyes i'm i i i've i've done all right you know i'm i'm still there i'm still you know we're still growing it's you know sales go up you know it's it's it's a good business in your eyes i think so i think if i was to be honest i couldn't sit here and look at you and your eyes and say no i don't see what
i've done as something which isn't successful because because it works and when things work i presume that's a success and so what's next then for for you i mean tremendous business all around the world and it's becoming so much more than just houses what is the big next mental challenge ambition excitement well we're recently public um and you know we went public during the pandemic i'm enjoying that challenge really yes i'm enjoying it i'm enjoying dealing with you know and i view all the analysts as smart and and i think it's making us a better business and i think um you know so there's a journey on that you know it's we're only 12 months into it and people understanding that it's a subscription recurring income that you know a third of our revenues come from membership and our our hotels our bedrooms are always nicely full and we don't have to use what other hotels have to use to fill their hotels like booking engines etc um i i so i i think that is a a an interesting future on how to be properly successful on the on as a public company um and there's so many more places we can open houses you know we we haven't even touched africa we've only dipped our toe into asia we we we got we're going to latin america later this year um to open in mexico so there's a there's a there's a lot of exciting new houses opening um and being a public company and just trying to get better every day we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the previous guest uh leaves a question for the next guest and um the previous guest has left you a question they have written they don't obviously don't know who they're writing it for but here we go um if you could go back in time and change one specific moment in your life what would that be and why oh
um i would definitely have come up i definitely would still would have done over the top i i would have done that um one specific thing um i i think i would have i would have tried to get my life at my balance between life and and and family a bit better why because you know running at 100 miles an hour overtime doesn't always sort of you know achieve everything so i think i think and i've i've talked on the behalf of many entrepreneurs and many ceos and who just get a bit obsessed and and about their their world their business and i think you know you you slightly better of it if you're not so if you have a more balanced view yeah i was actually talking to one of my friends about this last night that you'll know um that runs one of the big big companies in this country that's a billion pound company and he was we were having the same conversation about just trying to remember amongst all of this ambition that the like the actual most important question is like are you happy yeah and and that's one that um i've definitely lost sight of for many many years of my life in the pursuit of building more and more and more yeah and then eventually loneliness or some other kind of consequence will show up and remind me that i've misprioritized but it's a it's a great subject now isn't it and i think people come out with pandemic and they think there is you know we want our lives to be slightly more balanced and i think i think you know that wasn't the case 25 years ago or 15 years ago or when you started your business it was it was you know it was that mission and i think balance is good well thank you nick thank you so much for your time the generosity with your
time and uh thank you for creating a business that i love and that i that i'm probably at every week at current rate um and now thank you for being a member yeah and you know i think most most of our team as well i bought memberships for them as well and um you've created a business which brings a lot of people joy but but the thing that i actually love the most about your business which is i think is a bit of a dying um human maslowa need is community and everything whether it's the industry i worked in social media or whether it's other things or even remote working now seems to be taking community away from us which seems to be so integral to like the huma being a human and so house and the brand is bringing that back and i think that's why i would personally bet on that because i think um regardless of how the world change and technology and all of that we're still going to always um love and have a desire for community so yeah i agree i agree the human connection and people getting together and laughter and ideas and not doing it digitally doing it in a physical space is is great to see thank you quick one as you might know crafted one of the sponsors of this podcast and they make really meaningful pieces of jewellery this lion piece they've made i wear all the time along with the little timepiece the sand timer that i wear often and the lion piece you might have seen conor mcgregor has a similar piece which was custom made for him for me it represents courage and if you walk through my house the house that i'm in right now if you walk six feet in that direction you'll see a huge lion portrait if you go upstairs you'll see a lion portrait if you look behind me on the shelf near the top there you'll see a line as well the reason my house and my life is surrounded by lions is because they represent courage calmness and that tenacity that i've applied to my business success to my professional life into everything in between for me the lion has always been an animal that can be almost a bit of a contradiction they are so loving and so caring of their own and can be powerful and courageous when necessary in order to achieve what they want to achieve so
if you like me are a big fan of courage bravery ambition while also being calm and composed check out this line piece and let me know if you get it [Music] [Music] [Music]