Market Halls West End, London | Monday 24 February
This event included a mini-conference where speakers with proven track records in building successful businesses shared their experiences. Following this, we took to the streets of central London on a restaurant tour, where we ate and drank in some great restaurant concepts to see what makes them tick.
The agenda included...
- Keith Bird: Previously COO at Gourmet Burger Kitchen and now an advisor for a number of high profile groups including Wasabi, Flight Club Darts and Rum Kitchen, Bird has extensive experience of running and advising successful restaurant businesses. He will share his views on how the restaurant landscape is changing, what he looks for in a business, the biggest challenges for restaurant start-ups and his top tips for operators as they look to expand.
- Simon Anderson: The co-founder of disruptive eating out concept Market Halls will be joined by Tom Griffiths, Founder of Goodbirds at the newly opened Market Halls West End and Restaurant magazine editor Stefan Chomka to discuss his latest project. Key topics will include what Market Halls looks for in its partners, food trends, how restaurants operators can tweak concepts to fit into a food hall environment, and what the future holds for food halls.
- The Pepper Collective: Neil Rankin (Temper, Simplicity Burger) and Handley Amos (former Nando’s regional director) and Andrew Fishwick formed The Pepper Collective at the start of the year. They will be discussing how the collective will be working with up and coming chefs and restaurateurs, including Tom Brown, Gizzie Erskine and Rob Roy Cameron, to help them open new venues, how the landscape is changing in terms of helping people grow and take on more projects, what they look for in partners and their plans for the future.