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How the British eating out scene has changed

20 years ago, maybe 25 years ago, I think what we saw was a lot of people who had occasions to go out to eat but that was the only driver behind them going out. So, for example, if it was Granny’s birthday or if it was Mum and Dad’s anniversary then, inevitably, you wanted to go out but actually your choice was very limited, so Bernie Inns at the time, Beefeaters, was really sort of, you know, orange juice for starter, steak and chips and a Black Forest gateau was really where I think the main choice lay for most people going out.

And I think what happened in the early 90s was mirroring what was going on in, across the UK generically, which was an influx of people coming in, becoming part of the EU and, I think, generally speaking there was a real uplift in terms of the diversification of the population which ultimately translated into a real diversification and a choice in the eating out sector.

So the 90s saw the birth of Wagamama, of La Tasca, of YO! Sushi - and all these sort of cuisines that we were just completely unfamiliar with but, given the way that the population demographic was changing, something we as a consumer were really willing to try.

On innovation in the Indian restaurant sector

There are, roughly speaking, about 15,000 Indian restaurants and takeaways in the UK; that number hasn’t really changed that much, certainly in the last ten years. And, whilst other cuisines and other brands have been innovating and changing, I think that the Indian takeaway, the Indian meal in the consumer’s psyche, in the population’s eating out repertoire, has not changed at all. So we kind of, you know… in many respects we’ve all seen the news footage of people going to the curry house after the pub and I think that’s, it’s struggled because it’s got itself into a real rut, if you will, and has struggled to change.

And you draw parallels with, perhaps, Asian food in terms of, you know, the way that Wagamama has presented a different edge to Asian food, you perhaps look at the likes of Gourmet Burger Kitchen, they’ve completely revolutionised burgers. Burgers were always a fast food. Now people are seeing burgers in a new and different light. And I just think that that really hasn’t manifested itself in the Indian market in the UK.

How the recession might affect people's eating out habits

I think the ready meal market may well benefit from the consumer downturn. People are more cost conscious so it’s inevitable there will be a turn towards trying to find those meals and recreate the same experience at home. I think what might be slightly different is that restaurant operators will be far more (and are far more) savvy this time round at trying to play the supermarkets at their own game. So they won’t be prepared to just lose customers, they will fight for their customers, recognising that customers actually do like to go out. So what we’ve seen is a proliferation of sort of 20% off offers, buy one get one free. They all tend to be distributed virally around email, and the operators are fighting back as much as they can. So maybe the ready meal market won’t have it all its own way.

How a restaurant might go nationwide

Whenever establishing a brand and looking to then expand into other cities around the country, perhaps what’s important is to, again, really make sure that your core business works. And what a number of other operators do is, they tend to, perhaps, focus on a certain area of the country, so they may open a number of restaurants or outlets in Manchester or in Leeds or in London and then use that core base to then sort of ripple out into other areas of the country, and use their learning and refining of their business to a market that they’re very familiar with.

And then, if you’re a Manchester-based business and you’re coming to London, it’s much better to really have an established profit stream that you can afford to take the risk of perhaps going to London and trying a unit over there when you’ve got an established business. I think if you, sort of, open one unit in London and then try to open one in Manchester and then one in Leeds, that is very risky in itself because, you know, perhaps your business model is relatively immature. I think the other challenge is purely logistical. You know, if you’ve got one in London, one in Leeds and one in Manchester, how do you actually manage that? You’ll be spending all your time on the road trying to keep a control over what’s going on.