While the market waits for them to secure new investment, Bill’s joint managing di-rectors, Scott Macdonald and Roberto Moretti, are getting on with the task of evolving the brand that has led the all-day dining movement.
So what is the focus for Bill’s two leaders? “Teams, food, service, day in day out,” answers Roberto Moretti. Scott MacDonald concurs, waiting a beat to add: “Everything else is noise.”
And there has been a lot of noise around Bill’s since backer Richard Caring directors Andy Bassadone and Chris Benians brought Moretti and MacDonald together three years ago by to oversee the growth of the all-day dining concept. Since then the group has grown from three to 68 sites, demerging from sister brand Côte in the process and becoming one of the leaders of the charge into UK market towns.
The last few months have given the pair the chance to take stock and put in place the foundations for the next stage of the group’s development. It is building from a position of strength. At the start of 2015, the company was on track to post full-year turnover close to £90m in its current financial year and has a current run rate EBITDA of over £14m. “Trading has been strong in what is a very competitive market place at the moment,” says Moretti. “We have to be at the top of our game in terms of evolving the business and getting people to continually come back. We are working hard at that.”
The pair have also spent the past three years working at their own relationship. MacDonald says: “When we first met, me and Rob didn’t know each other. We were different to Alex (Scrimgeour) and Harald (Samuelsson) who met at Strada and worked through all of that and had a chance to get to know each other before taking on Côte. Not only did we have to grow this business at pace, we had to get to know each other at the same time. We had to understand each other and get under each other’s skin. We pressed each other’s buttons, but I think our relationship is strong because of that. If our relationship hadn’t worked, the business wouldn’t be where it is now.”
Moretti says: “We don’t always agree on everything, but we agree to disagree, and we move on and make a decision. We can talk openly and honestly about all aspects.”
The company has spent the past six months simplifying its reporting structure, which led MacDonald to finally hang up his chef’s jacket earlier this year. “Thank god I hear Roberto say. It was horrendous but fine,” admits the man himself.
He continues: “The relationship has evolved so that the ops team and the area chefs are not reporting into one of us independently, but both of us. We can talk about the whole business and that has really helped us. Bringing the whole business together was a key thing for us over the past six to 12 months. You are sharing ideas and making the business stronger.
Moretti says: “We wanted and needed continuity in relationships from us down through the ops teams and area chefs. We are a pain in the arse. We press buttons, we ask questions, we challenge and we are happy for that challenge to come back up the line. We are always in the business.”
That internal focus will also lead to slow down in the rate the group expands, unsurprising after the phenomenal growth of the past three years.
Moretti says the company is now looking at opening c15 sites a year going forward with a lean toward unlocking further sites in small market towns where the brand’s all-day dining offer is proving very popular. He says: “We have pushed hard for two years and there are a lot of sites we want to annualise and trade well. We don’t need to push as hard on this front, we know the opportunity is out there, but we don’t need to prove anything on that front.
Macdonald says: “We are pausing and not in a negative way, but so we can feed back into the roots of the company, take a breath and continue working hard on the DNA of the business. We don’t need to prove anything on the expansion front.”
Moretti: “For us now it is making sure that we learn from the sites that are open and how we trade in different places. As a brand we are lucky enough to get into all the typical towns and trade strongly, but I think recently it has been interesting to go into places like Gloucester Quays, Taunton, Colchester and Worcester. These are towns where we are trading very strongly. We may be the first in that town and it is now about finding more of those opportunities be-cause the business is at a good size.”
MacDonald says that the success of Bill’s in some of these less traditional expansion target towns means that “now everyone is forming a queue” to join them there, prompting Moretti to half joke: “Leave us alone for six months!”
MacDonald admits there is a risk in targeting smaller towns, but the group is comfortable with its product and people and believes it will do well. He says: “We are always evolving that offer. We introduced a cocktail menu last year, which has gone into orbit. We are nimble enough to do things like that. Not because we want to make a point; we do it because it feels right.”
And how do they view people following their lead into all-day dining? MacDonald: “What we haven’t had to do is change the dynamic of our business, because from conception our business was breakfast and lunch, we have just added the dinner bit, while our competitors have done it the other way around. We have added the easy bit. While all day parts are strong for us, we never sit back and think this is easy.”
Moretti says: “There is a fine balance between sticking to what you do well and continuing to create interest for the guest; telling them what you do at dinner when they are here for breakfast. There is a big opportunity for cross marketing with our own customer base
Moretti and MacDonald understand why there is speculation on how the group will be backed going forward, “especially with our association with Côte and our investors”, admits MacDonald. He continues: “We are here to create a business for the long term and that goes past any sale. So we are not getting distracted by any sale conversations, whether that is internal or external. We are in this for the long-term. Is anything imminent? The quick answer is no.”
Morreti says: “There is a lot of money out there waiting to invest in a business like ours. The founders and current investors are comfortable with a business at this stage of its development. They have such confidence in it that when a sale happens in the future it may not be a typical get-out-and-get-the-next-guys-in situation.”
And what is the potential for Bill’s? MacDonald says: “We’ve got to be conscious when it comes to expansion that it is operations-focused first. Any growth is secondary to that. Our growth is strong and we are still ambitious. We will continue to grow until people are bored of us.” Moretti says: “We have a much wider demographic and we have really broad appeal, which says to us that we still have plenty more opportunities to grow in the UK.”
