You can tell it’s January in an election year – the media frenzy about what may or may not be in the main political party manifestos is in full, and already rather dull, flow. If a week is a long time in politics, then the excitement of the election night swing-ometer seems an age away.
In the meantime, Graham Ford is concentrating on taking Jackson & Rye (J&R) – the Richard Caring-backed owner of the eponymous, three-sites-strong, all-day, New York-style, casual-dining brand – plus sister restaurants Grillshack and Limeyard, very much back to basics. His campaign, though, will hopefully end up with, among other things, eggs that are consistently cooked to perfection and served to satisfied customers rather than ‘on face’ as experienced by John Major following his own infamous back-firing early ’90s Back to Basics morality drive.
Ford, as it happens, has had it ‘up to here’ with politics, of the company kind at least.
After starting his hospitality career by falling into a job at a Tex Mex restaurant in Paris, Ford managed the Rock Garden in London before pursuing a more traditional industry career path when he joined Pelican Group for a time, then moved to Caffè Uno and finally ended up at Tragus, just after its birth out of the old Pelican and BrightReasons divisions of Whitbread. There he was instrumental in the team that breathed fresh life into the then Bella Pasta and transformed it into Bella Italia (a brand he still regards with affection and where he proudly remembers 14% year-on-year growth).
Tragus, of course, was bought and sold a few times and, on the whole, Ford was very happy there. Until it was sold to Blackstone for £267m in 2006, that is. Shortly after, the company paid top dollar for Strada, the pizza chain where he was delighted to be made operations director. However, Ford was not enamoured with the top-heavy management style of the parent company and believes that played a major part in the brand’s troubles, which were triggered by the global financial crisis.
“Too many people were involved in taking decisions and, frankly, we lost sight of what is important and stopped focusing on the product, concentrating only on the P and L,” Ford recalls sadly.
Like many chains, Strada fell into the heavy discounting trap: “When we first discounted, it drove an additional £250,000 of sales a week – it is addictive,” Ford confesses. “We were asking restaurants to deliver similar labour costs even though discounts were driving those big volumes. The problem was that Strada became Tragus.”
The replacement of Graham Turner at the top of the company with John Derkach in 2012 didn’t reignite any of the excitement that Ford initially felt when he joined the much smaller Tragus.
Ford certainly doesn’t shirk his own share of responsibility for what happened to Strada at that time. In fact he seems to have taken it very much to heart. But with hindsight, he can see exactly where things went wrong and has gained from it as a learning experience. This is clear from his almost obsessive attention to detail at J&R, which is forming the basis of his drive to get the product absolutely spot on before taking the brands to their next phase.
After almost 10 years at Tragus, Ben Fordham’s offer to join him in running Benito’s Hat, the burgeoning Mexican burrito business, as CEO, was exactly what Ford needed.
“I knew I was done with the large business political thing,” he says. “It reinvigorated me totally – I hadn’t realised how much Tragus had taken out of me. It was so much fun [at Benito’s Hat] and I loved the speed at which you could change things and the positive environment I was working in.”
It is obvious that he still feels bad for leaving after less than a year (although he did find a successor before he departed), but the offer to work with Mark Askew on a Richard Caring-backed venture was something he could not pass up. He took up the role of operations director in April last year.
“I enjoy working with Mark very much. Our backgrounds are very different – I am the Bella boy and he is the Gordon Ramsay guy; his CV is incredible,” Ford says.
He adds that they have complete autonomy to run the business and that Caring’s financial support gives them the double benefit of expanding at a rate that suits the business and good odds on getting the sites they want. With this pressure off, the success of the company lies very much in the performance of the restaurants. For some, this spotlight on operations would be intensely stressful in itself, but for Ford, it is exactly the kind of focus he relishes.
He talks at length about the changes to the reduction used for the improved sauce for the seafood linguine, for example, and during the interview, deals with a wobbly table and a member of staff who he’s spotted wearing apparently unacceptable footwear. Ford explains that he is concentrating on getting everything just right and ensuring that it can then continue in that vein. Uniforms for J&R are being smartened up with blue shirts, ties, waistcoats and long white aprons with jeans being the brand’s take on the classic bistro uniform. Prior to Christmas, the chain introduced changes to the presentation of many of its dishes to create “a little more theatre”. Each restaurant compiles a handover report every day to keep open the dialogue about how these changes work in practice. He says there’s still a bit more work to do in maximising lunch trade, particularly at the Soho branch.
“We will get to the point where we feel comfortable and confident that each element is appropriate,” he says. “That is the great enjoyment of working for a business like this, there is a lot of autonomy to effectively get on with it and get things right.”
Not that these tweaks have held back expansion to date. Last year, the firm opened two J&R sites, in Chiswick and Richmond, and also launched the first
Limeyard, in Ealing. Ford describes the newer concept as a more casual, accessible and ‘high-streety’, American-style restaurant than J&R, which is at the higher end of the casual-dining scale. J&R’s menu features dishes such as truffle mac and cheese, lobster and fillet steak whereas Limeyard’s best-sellers tend to be burgers and salads.
Ford won’t reveal figures but says daytime sales in particular are “very, very encouraging” at Limeyard, whose blend of exciting décor and quality menu he feels sets it apart from the rest of the casual sector. The breakfast menu has recently been redesigned as a separate standalone sheet, and Ford and his team are constantly working on little tweaks to perfect the all-day operation, such as the change from jugs of cutlery on tables during the day to denim napkins and candles for dinner.
It will be a little while until they are ready to roll it out, but Ford is confident the brand has that potential. Grillshack, the firm’s fast-casual offer, currently running at one very successful site in Soho, is already a very slick operation with average spend at about £11.50. The company is deciding whether its future lies in high streets or shopping centres before opening further outlets.
The plan for J&R is to open another three or four restaurants this year, likely including the first outside London. J&R restaurants tend to have the bar as the focal point with a café section near the front and restaurant at the back, with total seating for about 120 people. Details of J&R number four should be available very soon, Ford says.
Ford comes across at first as quite a serious figure but it soon becomes apparent that he is absolutely passionate about what he does and, in the past couple of years at least, has rediscovered the fun he can have doing it. He’s not the kind to say he’d like to be doing X, Y or Z in so many years’ time, but for the foreseeable future, giving his all to this young and buzzing business definitely gets his vote.
