“Hospitality is extremely robust and whenever we have seen crises in the past it’s normally been quite short and sharp. Last to fall, first to recover. In the context of Covid it was completely different, we’ve never seen anything like it and I know that we hear all of these catchphrases, ‘unprecedented’ etcetera, etcetera but truly for hospitality, it couldn’t have been hit harder.”
Susan Freeman
Hi, I’m Susan Freeman. Welcome back to our PropertyShe podcast series brought to you by Mishcon de Reya in association with the London Real Estate Forum, where I get to interview some of the key influencers in the world of real estate and the built environment. Today, I am absolutely delighted to welcome Ted Schama. Ted is Joint Managing Partner of Shelley Sandzer, the specialist UK leisure property agency. With over thirty years of experience, Ted is known for connecting people with the best places. He specialises in leasing for some of the biggest landlords in London, as well as internationally. His work also involves acquiring off and on-market opportunities for operators as well as providing expertise through Shelley Sandzer Corporate Finance. Ted also has his own podcast, TedThoughts, in which he speaks with the leading figures in the hospitality industry and is a former Chair of the Restaurant Property Advisory Society.
So now we’re going to hear from Ted Schama about what’s happening in the world of restaurants and hospitality. So, welcome and good morning, Ted. I’m a little bit nervous about this podcast because I know you are also a podcast host so, it’s quite possible you’re going to start asking me questions.
Ted Schama
It might work both ways because I’ve never been put on the spot either quite in this way so, let’s both dance a dance and see how we go.
Susan Freeman
Alright so, let’s start at the beginning of your career journey into the world of hospitality and leisure. I mean, did you go straight into the sector or did you do anything else that sort of led you to the sector?
Ted Schama
I purposely avoided property, only in that I don’t want to be a me too. My late grandpa, Harry Soning, left a fantastic legacy in property, my Uncle Harvey Soning has a fantastic legacy and is still going stronger than ever so, I didn’t want to be another one if you like, so I purposefully avoided it and in my school holidays I worked for a gentleman called Lloyd Dorfman, I think Sir Lloyd Dorfman, in his earlier days or middle of that journey in Travelex and I loved working young, I left school at sixteen and I just wanted to work and basically, I ended up with Lloyd and I loved every minute of it, however, once the adrenaline slowed down a bit in terms of working, I was stuck to a Reuters monitor 24/7, well not quite 24/7, it wasn’t child labour, and I realised that although I liked the technical side of it, really my highlights of the day were speaking to people, having a bit of a crack, a bit of a laugh and all of the other human interactions and when I started to break it down, I thought well hold on a minute, what do really want to do and I really simplified it and any advice to anybody that’s in their very early stages of their career, is the best advice I could give anybody in terms of really deconstructing what it is, who you are and what you enjoy rather than thinking do I want to be a car designer or do I want to go into advertising, it was the best way that I did it was just to think well what do I enjoy, I enjoy people, I want to have a desk job but also want to get out from my desk, I want to walk the streets, I want to drive round the country, I like to negotiate, I like to sell things and clearly, as you can probably hear, the compilation of all of these factors started leading me to think that property actually was in my DNA and at the time, it was 1990, it wasn’t the best economic climate to say the least and I think Uncle Harvey at the time said, “Don’t do it, I think we’ve had our run,” you know, always, well we always get so disenchanted at the end of runs and I also didn’t want to work for my uncle because I have a deep love and respect for him and I certainly would fear ever having a fallout through business, I just didn’t want to mix the two and I saw an advert for an office junior for Shelley Sandzer and I thought well I’ll give that a go and in November 1990, I went to see the late Trevor Shelley and Philip Sandzer at the time up on a third floor in New Bond, number 77 and it was a little office, you may have been up there, I don’t, no idea, and we all got on very well and literally, they called me later that day and said, “You’ve got the job, Ted, start in Jan” so that’s how it all started. I was a tea boy for Trevor, god rest his soul, and Philip.
Susan Freeman
And what was it like in sort of leisure and hospitality sector then, it must have been quite quiet?
Ted Schama
Well, it was unusual and very different. At that point, Shelley Sandzer was a multi-practice, multi-client, multi-sector practice, there weren’t really specialists so much in those days but Trevor had a legacy of Howard Brooks and other Trust House Forte clients and basically, amongst other things, he also did offices etc and retail and the whole spectrum but I just happened to work out of Trevor’s dustbin and I was very happy doing that and it just occurred to the two of us actually, it might be a bit more fun because it’s something that we enjoy to focus on hospitality. At the same time, answering your question a bit more directly, what was it like? It was very much the poor relation to a greater asset and what that meant was, generally speaking, the market was dominated by mamas and papa operations and what that meant was, these standards were very, very unpredictable and it meant that if you let a restaurant in your building, you were subject to all sorts of possibilities of smell, noise and it was generally regarded as something you don’t really want, they didn’t offer covenants, you were much better off doing a retail deal and steering way clear of the dirty, poor relation of restaurants so, it was the world upside-down to how you might know it today relative to hospitality.
Susan Freeman
That’s so interesting and we’ll get onto discuss how things have changed. And in 2008, I mean obviously things were going well, you’d found your, your nice and then out of the blue in 2008, Trevor Shelley just died suddenly at the age of 53 and you were only in your thirties, how did you, you know, take on responsibility of running the business and keep the clients going and, and all that, it must have been incredibly difficult.
Ted Schama
It was incredibly difficult for sure, it was traumatic, I don’t mind saying, it led to depression but the way in which I survived was on adrenaline so, for the first twelve to eighteen months, it was adrenaline all the way and basically, I was left, I mean Trevor for me was a father figure, initially of course a boss, we became extremely close and therefore he was my kind of righthand man, more than that, I was perhaps his righthand man in many ways but, you know, if I was dating a girlfriend or, you know, my first port of call would be Trevor and likewise if I was buying an apartment at the time or something similar, we would always have a bit of a giggle, in fact I remember when I was negotiating for my very first flat, it was in the fringe of Little Venice, you might call it Paddington, at St Mary’s Terrace and I was negotiating and he said, “Tell them £67,200,” I’m pretty sure that’s the exact figure by the way, “as your kind of best offer.” I said, “Well, why, why would I do that, Trevor?” and he said, “Well, it’s such an odd number that people will think you’ve pushed your budget to the absolute limit” and therefore, you know, it’s not one of those round numbers in terms of it being arbitrary and you’re just playing a game, you’ve really ended up there so, I was already learning great skills, or I was learning, I’d like to think great skills from a master of the arts and he was a great leader of the business and a great figure and I’d like to say very, very widely respected and loved so, to fill those boots, you know, was never possible in the context of filling boots, you have to make your own boots and you have to make it your own style. Of course, it wasn’t just me, it was Nick Weir as well, the surviving partners and between us we found our strengths and our weaknesses and I knew my strengths were marketing, I’m going to say client relationships, you know the HR side of things, in fact you know looking back to my earlier years, learning what I felt were my skillsets. But it was terribly challenging, it was a massive void and one in which somehow, we navigated through.
Susan Freeman
And it was 2008, it was also the middle of the global financial crisis wasn’t it.
Ted Schama
Yes, so, it was kind of an avalanche of every challenge under the sun. In terms of financial crisis, at that time our market and our business within that market actually had a very challenging period of about six months prior to Trevor passing, it’s only the hiatus period where our market suffered the most as a transactional business and what we learned very quickly was that hospitality is often the last to fall but the first to recover when it comes to consumer spend and at that point it did exactly that and what happened also was, the high street was suffering badly trying to find its new reality relative to ecommerce etcetera so, what we did find was opportunity because as the high street was creaking, opportunities revealed themselves for restaurant businesses at that point so, it was very challenging, yes, but opportunities revealed themselves at the same time.
Susan Freeman
And did the clients stick with you because it must have been so difficult because these relationships of course are personal. Were they prepared to just stay with you and let you carry on acting?
Ted Schama
I think in the main very much, yes. I was always kind of joined at the hip with Trevor anyway so, it would have been fairly unusual for people not to have known me and likewise, you know, we were autonomous in a way with our own clients, albeit we were tested somewhat by some clients and rightly so because you know they want to know that you’ve got what it takes to deliver the projects that you said you’re going to deliver.
Susan Freeman
Were there any particular challenges that stand out?
Ted Schama
I remember seeing Gerald Ronson and we were instructed on Heron Tower, which was absolutely pioneering, like I can’t express how much respect I have for Gerald and his vision because designing and building such a contemporary, forward-thinking building at that time, in that location, was just totally trailblazing and just delving slightly deeper into that, if you think up until that point sky level dining, high-rise dining, only existed within offices, office buildings, and I shan’t name them because I don’t want to name and shame but, but where they fell down or were, were slightly challenged was that they didn’t have their own dedicated restaurant entrance, so this was designed so brilliantly with highspeed lifts straight up to the restaurant and that’s, you know, what people wanted and it sounds ever so obvious today but it wasn’t being designed that way up until Heron Tower but we were called into Gerald’s office along with the various directors at the time, it was Peter Ferrari, who’s obviously now gone to other things with Ashby Capital and Jonathan Goldstein, who of course for Cain fame. I’m not sure actually if it’s changed its name subsequently but they’ve obviously had a very large merger recently. So, you know, the great and the good were putting me on the coals but I have to say I think I’ve learned to thrive in a heated situation and perhaps I’m going to enlarge on that slightly more because at the same time there was another project going on but I managed to retain Heron Tower but of course, as you will know but perhaps not a lot of other people know because a lot of people say, “Oh Ted, your, your life, I look at your Instagram and you just, you’re, you’re wining and dining at all the best places and you’re having the best time” and, you know, “Do you ever do any work, Ted?” and it’s kind of quite difficult to explain often to people, yes, and often it can be very high pressured and it’s distilling all of that knowledge and experience in such a way that you’re adding value to your clients at the most time.
Susan Freeman
And what did Gerald Ronson, what was the challenge that he gave you with Heron Tower?
Ted Schama
Well, what happened was, going back to the framework that I’ve said to you which is, it was very pioneering and we reached a point and I always call it a bit of a crunchy point but I was put under the spotlight because generally speaking, the London operators didn’t believe in the opportunity because the City at that time was not known for dining, it was known for male dominated, boozers, spit and sawdust, old school wine bar pubs. I’m going to say what chauvinistic and then you would have had the secretaries, who would have been mainly female and so it was very much a boozy environment and it was sneered upon by a lot of the London operators because it was like well, “People aren’t going to spend money on quality here, it’s just not the right place, Ted, thank you.” It was mainly these responses and Gerald called me and he said, “Look, you need to get on the next plane to New York, Ted and find the operators, the best operators in the world who understand this type of opportunity” because of course, skyscraper, rooftop dining in New York was well established and a very popular thing to do both for consumers and operators and very successful. And I was fortunate, just going back to your mentioning of how we survived with Trevor but I, I forged a really strong relationship with Ben Elliot from Quintessential, I in fact acquired his, his head office that I thought would have been a members club at the time in Portland Place from Howard de Walden and during that process, we really established a really strong bond. I’m very fond of him and he managed to connect me with who’s who of New York, I was very, very lucky to be introduced to people like Keith McNally of Balthazar and you know, it really was, I was very, very fortunate and he said, “Yeah, you need to get on, you know, the next plane” and so I immediately went about, I don’t know, I looked at the following week and I thought right, I’ll go on a Thursday and I’ll come back on a Monday and obviously I needed about a week to prepare, it just so happened that I had a meeting, other meetings which obviously I needed to reschedule, one of which was a meeting with Landsec at the time, or Land Securities as they were then known, in Leeds, in Trinity, which was another absolutely flagship instruction for me. To explain the years of building up these relationships, it’s quite hard and again, going back to this, “Ted, do you actually do any work?”, you know, building up that trust and relationship with Landsec came over so many years, I mean literally at least over a decade and I would actually give credit to BCSC at that time, which is now known as Revo, as that was a networking event where you get to know these people and I forged a relationship with John Grimes, in fact we had some hilarious times together. Another fearsome character but one in which, I would say to you now that I think, I don’t know whether it’s still the case but at that time I’d done more deals with John at Landsec than anybody else, we were a really great tag team because his sense of focus was completely and utterly laser sharp and unrelenting. I’m not going to kind of use metaphors as to what he would do to get deals done but you can imagine. We had lots of fun, we went to over the years I think our first project was Livingston but he wanted me to show my mettle to Land Securities. Again, just to give you a bit of backdrop and I remember delivering the likes of Wagamama to Livingston and it was quite the coup, no disrespect to Livingston or Scotland but at that time, again, they were, they were trailing where we were in London and the UK generally and one thing led to another and we were on, we were on Bluewater etcetera and Trinity was one of those projects that at that time was redefining hospitality within, I’m going to say a shopping centre but I’d rather say an urban complex because it wasn’t just shopping, it was right in the middle of the city centre and for me that was crucial because you can’t just look at these things as “shopping centre” because you’re right in the city centre, you’re right on the offices, you’re right in the trade centre, you know it’s kind of it’s, it’s much more exciting than that and in that context we were able to start delivering deals that I think nobody had imagined and we delivered D&D London at the time for a rooftop restaurant too, we delivered Living Ventures at the time that were one of the hottest operators outside of London for an Alchemist, Botanist, which was just super-duper, duper cool and Trinity Kitchen, which was something that hopefully I believe redefined food halls.
Susan Freeman
I was in Trinity Kitchen actually, a few weeks ago for UKREiiF so I know it well. So, you had a bit of a problem then because you had Gerald Ronson asking you to go on a plane to New York and you had a very important Landsec meeting so, how on earth did you?
Ted Schama
Well, what happened was, in my happy-go-lucky, well not quite happy-go-lucky but I thought well I’ll cancel the Trinity meeting on the Thursday where I’d normally go up to Leeds and I thought well I’ll update John prior or post because I was doing all of these wonderful things and it was going you know really ever so well, Carluccio’s, Yo! Sushi etcetera which were a very exciting time. And then I’d had, booked my ticket straight away and went about my business but then I did get a message from John saying, “I see you’ve cancelled a meeting” and I said, “Yes, John, don’t worry, I can update you. Super exciting things are happening here and you know, I’ll come over to Number 5 The Strand” as it was, I’m sure you remember it, and he said, “No, no, Ted, you don’t cancel meetings for Land Securities, this is totally unacceptable. I can assure you, if you think you are going to miss this meeting, you won’t be working for Land Securities again.” I think in between that I did say, “Well, I’m actually going to New York for another project” which I think got his nose rather out of joint and I have to say, I went white as a ghost because I thought well hold on a minute, all of these decades of hard work, I’ve got the absolutely incredible Land Securities as a client and the most incredible projects and trusted clients and trusted Shelley Sandzer and then I’ve got Gerald Ronson, who is building the most incredible London skyscraper and I knew that if I’d said to Gerald I can no longer go that weekend when I’d promised him, I would lose one of these most incredible clients. I’m a great believer in the universe, I’m a great believer in whatever you want to call it, God, I’m quite a spiritual chappy and I am a great believer in things are meant to be just as they are, exactly for you and exactly right time and amongst days of not sleeping, pale as a ghost because I was just sweating and it was just the embarrassment of losing one of those clients and then seeing a competitor roll in all over me. It was a very unusual event in Iceland where a volcano kind of erupted and there was this ash cloud that seemed to have blown up all over the skies of Europe and beyond and what happened as an outcome of that was that these flights started to be cancelled or delayed because planes couldn’t seemingly fly through this ash cloud, it was dangerous. Low and behold, my flights were cancelled to America. Low and behold I got on a train to Leeds and I said, “John, I’m here, I told you I’d be here. You’re the most important thing in my world” and he said, “Good man, Ted, keep going” and of course I called Gerald and I said, “I’m very sorry Mr Ronson, I can no longer go because my flight has been cancelled, it’s going to have to be the week after” so, you could call it luck.
Susan Freeman
Well, now I know who was to blame for the ash cloud then, Ted.
Ted Schama
Well, yeah, I mean if only I was that clever and if only I had friends in the right places, I would have organised it, for sure.
Susan Freeman
Amazing. Okay, so, having got through some very challenging sort of situations and events, nothing could have been more challenging than Covid, which sort of suddenly put a bit of a damper on the sectors that you focus on, I mean, obviously restaurants, hotels, you know, were closed, then things started to reopen, what sort of creativity did you see because people had to find a way of continuing to make a living and, you know, if people couldn’t come to restaurants, did restaurants go to them, what did your clients do?
Ted Schama
Well, again, just to recall, hospitality is extremely robust and whenever we have seen crises in the past, it’s normally been quite short and sharp. Last to fall, first to recover. In the context of Covid, it was completely different, we’ve never seen anything like it and I know that we hear all of these catchphrases, “unprecedented” etcetera, etcetera but truly for hospitality, it couldn’t have been hit harder. Notwithstanding that, hospitality, if you analyse it by its nature is full of creative people and I can think of so many, I’d love to expand but we’ve probably not got enough time, but these people are artists, they’re creatives and the best combinations are ones that meet business people but their creative juices went into overdrive and you started seeing the likes of Patty & Bun making kits and posting them out, so you make them on your barbecue, it was an extraordinarily good summer as luck would have had it, the summer of 2020, and basically all of these dining opportunities were there but from home so, Pizza Pilgrims made these delicious boxes actually with fresh basil, fresh dough, fresh passata, fresh cheeses etcetera and they were extremely dynamic but it, it spread into cocktails, make at home cocktails, it spread even to businesses like Cote that you think well, what might they have done but just almost doing it into wholesale foods, just selling their products, not even make at home products so, it’s a really, really wide spectrum. Riding House Café here just round the corner converted their restaurant into a deli for their community, it wasn’t really profitable but it was speaking to the community, it was putting an embrace around the community, which is really what you need to do, is to be front of mind and make sure that you do that, if you can make money as well and a lot of those boxes from home did make money, then all the better but even if you couldn’t, people were thinking of weird and wonderful ways to make sure that they continued to be part of people’s mindset, which is extremely important in hospitality.
Susan Freeman
And I think you mentioned at the beginning that when you started hospitality was regarded as the poor relation and landlords didn’t much want to have, you know, a restaurant letting if they could get a good retail letting but that seems to have completely turned on its head and when people are creating new places and environments, they are now thinking about restaurant as the anchor, I mean is that how, how is that playing out?
Ted Schama
It’s, I’m going to say radical in the context of what it was and still radical in a way to some operators or landlords because what’s happened is, in the past you built appraisals as a landlord and looked at various components in isolation and therefore you would look at a restaurant deal in isolation and you’d think ooh is that a one year package, a two year package and what is it, and traditionally actually, the packages were very low for restaurants because actually return investment was great and they were very much in a golden age that will return I might add, I believe not too long from now but that’s another discussion perhaps for later, but put simply, what happened was and what’s happening is people are understanding whether or not it’s in isolation at all, they have to stretch the deal but if it’s in a greater estate, smart landlords and there are plenty of smart landlords, realise that actually if they have an estate of 4 million square feet of offices and they let a unit to Gordon Ramsay, then actually their voids might go down because it might be a more attractive place to work and also their rents might climb a little bit etcetera, etcetera. So suddenly it becomes a macro appraisal and suddenly actually, what was a three year deal, a four year deal, even a five year deal, even more occasionally becomes attractive because you want to talk about a sense of place, placemaking and you’ve had many great people on your podcast, Beverley Churchill, others, talk about placemaking and that can only be done in a macro mindset and a macro appraisal, so they’re highly desirable now. People want to create estates where possible where they have unique restaurants, unique destinations, dining destinations so that people come and visit their estates, so it really is now considered to be the main driver and it’s a wonderful thing.
Susan Freeman
And are there any sort of particular themes? I mean, if you’re looking at the London restaurant scene at the moment, are there any sort of new, exciting openings? Are there some particular type of restaurant that’s gaining prevalence?
Ted Schama
I often get asked, “Ooh, what’s the next trend, Ted?” and I always hesitate before talking about trends, which I appreciate is not the exact question again but I’m going to come and answer it correctly, I hope, because I always think to myself you know what, it’s not about trends, it’s about doing something brilliantly and actually that is a good segue because only this week we, ourself, a few days ago we completed on the deal for Sloane Stanley to a restaurant called Alley Cats and they’re a pizzeria. Now you might think, “Well hold on a minute, pizzas are done to death, you know, tell me something new, Ted. I want new, I want radical” when actually, when you analyse it, the pizza scene that we’ve benefitted from in a past decade has been dominated by Napolitan pizzas, which are brilliant, don’t get me wrong, very nice too, Franco Manca, Pizza Pilgrims etcetera, but now you’re seeing a tremendous surge of really exciting new takes on pizza, which I know might sound strange but you’ve got to go, it’s New York pizza, so it’s a much crispier, flatter pizza that doesn’t flop and truly is different, so what I would say to you is, it’s more about people doing things brilliantly and spotting different takes. In terms of where’s really hot? I’m going to say The Devonshire, again, there’s re-thought about what a pub could be and credit to Landsec and it’s the hottest place in town or pub in town, they’re selling more Guiness, reportedly, than another establishment in the whole of the UK at the moment. If you’re talking about somewhere really sexy, I think the sexiest place I’ve been to recently is The Dover in Dover Street, which is run by an old friend of mine called Martin Kuczmarski, who hopefully will be featuring on my podcast in the next few weeks or months or so, I’m not sure, because what he’s done is he again has rethought what is Mayfair? What are the offers in Mayfair? And they’re mainly dominated by gregarious, I might say flashy offers that actually are not for everybody in Mayfair, not everybody wants to pull up in a Lamborghini or see Lamborghinis, there’s nothing wrong with that, I’m not criticising it but let’s do something a bit different and so this is very much a kind of closed curtains, very quiet, beautiful inside retro, understated quality, beautiful American-Italian restaurant and bar so, it’s for me about passion, heart and soul, it’s about doing things differently. I’d love to talk more about deals that I’ve done and I could do all day long but those are the ones, you know the ones that stand out are those ones of great passion, so it’s not necessarily a movement about udon or pizza or burgers or, or this type of thing, it’s about how it’s approached.
Susan Freeman
Well, I hope you’re going to take me to The Dover for lunch, it sounds wonderful.
Ted Schama
I’d love to, I’d love to. Deal, deal.
Susan Freeman
Okay. That’s great. I mean, one of the things I think we’ve all noticed is that restaurants, hotels in the UK and everywhere seem to have just become so much more expensive and you know perhaps there’s been a bit of a polarisation. What are the reasons for that?
Ted Schama
Look, tremendous, absolutely ridiculous headwinds have been met by operators and the challenges are, you know, with the obvious inflationary pressures, I had a bit of a moment because a couple of years ago there were operators sort of saying to me, “Ted, this is an emergency. Our utility bills are higher than our rent bills.” Could you possibly imagine such a thing and I don’t know whether or not, not being in the industry or anything but this was, this was just absolutely outrageous, you know, rent and rates were always the highest outgoing relative to a property and that would run at, I’m going to say 10% but you know, there or there abouts for operators, you know and that would offer some bandwidth so just, I’m just trying to give you context that suddenly utilities that might have been a couple of percent, suddenly rocketed outrageously and to stay in business, you’ve got to find the money from somewhere and therefore the inflationary pressures have had to be met either by portion sizes, either by ticket prices from the customers and it’s been a relentless challenge, it really has been incredibly difficult so I remember sitting in Flesh & Buns that we did actually for Derwent in Berners Street in Fitzrovia, again, around about Covid, they were offering these poke bowls and when I say ‘poke bowls’, I’m talking about these incredibly large teriyaki salmon, you know, really, or these chicken wings that they were doing, I mean really substantial bowls and they were banging them out for £10 a pop at the time and this was before you know the war in Ukraine and inflation went crazy and we all looked at each other saying, “This just can’t go on” so, unfortunately we’re now at the other end of that spectrum and it couldn’t go on and unfortunately that’s the reality on the ground.
Susan Freeman
So, that’s going to continue. And then what about the sort of lower end of the market, you know, if you own a shopping centre or centre, you want people to come, you want them to eat, you want them to stay, how do we service you know that end of the market because people aren’t going to want to pay like a huge amount if they’re just out shopping and they want something, you know, quickly to eat?
Ted Schama
Well the, where it’s been hit as so often is the case is the middle market because what we have seen is high end destination dining thrive or certainly have much better moments. What we’ve also seen is value led, what we would call QSR, which is quick service restaurants and they operate by way of no staff in terms of table dining, so think McDonald’s, think Nando’s etc and of course there’s a lot newer operators like Wingstop etc. So I suppose it’s, it’s, but notwithstanding that, I’m going to go back to Wagamama because I mentioned them earlier, there are certain brands that have held their own really well and I think it’s important to pick on both the established brands that are holding their own really well such as a Wagamama but there’s a plethora of newbies or relative newbies, I’m going to say like Wingstop for example that are trading brilliantly and are super hip, super appealing to the younger audience, you’ve got people like EL&N Café that draw a lot of people in. Instagram moments, you’ve kind of got to think if you’re a shopping centre I mean, your main demographic are going to be female and also going to be probably slightly younger, so you’ve got to try and capture your core audience for those moments.
Susan Freeman
And how do you find, you know, these new concepts? Are you having to travel and go, you know, see what’s going on in New York, see what’s going on in Paris and where appropriate, try and bring them to the UK?
Ted Schama
As much as possible. We’re off to Rome in a couple of weeks on a “study tour”, inverted commas. It’s all work, I assure you. But we’re actually off with a group of operators, it’s called The R200, the leading 200 restaurant groups in the UK so, we are forever going on study tours but I would say for me, and I almost wanted to say this a bit earlier in the podcast, I’ve come to the stage in my career and my life where if you ask me really what am I, what do I do? If it was what they call those ‘lift moments’ I think and you have to describe what you do, I always found it very difficult to describe because it was property and hospitality, you know, property for the hospitality industry and it was like, “what does that mean?” What I would I say to you is, how do I find operators? I realise I am hospitality. My blood pumping through me, yes, of course is partly property but my blood pumping through me is hospitality and alongside that is how do we ally that to property and also how do we ally that to finance but slightly a different part of our business that you may or may not want to delve into.
Susan Freeman
Well, one of the things that I was thinking about and was going to ask you is how could the property sector really take more and learn more from the hospitality sector because everybody, you know, wants experiences, they want customer service and I mean that, that’s hospitality isn’t it, I’m not sure that real estate has sort of fully embraced that.
Ted Schama
What I would say is, you see it in some extremes in a positive sense. I’ll give you an example where Jonathan Goldstein wrote me a note saying, “Look, I’m in my Six Senses Courchevel Residences” that they co-own and “you know, it’s just, it’s just a lobby, Ted, it’s just a café lobby, it’s not doing anything, can you help me?” You know, this is forward thinking and, in the end, we partnered them with Sumosan and now you see Sumosan Courchevel as a partnership and actually, just mentioning the fact that it’s a partnership is a key here to how you might be able to, in terms of property people, learn or advance themselves. If I say how can property people learn? I would say there’s still a tendency not to actually visit the places that they need to visit. Some do it brilliantly but I would say if I had to pick a hole or constructive criticism, I would say go and see more places because that way, you know, it’s just a total ‘immersation’ – is that a correct word, I’m not sure – or you’re immersing yourself as much as you can be and I would suggest that the property people that want to improve should immerse themselves more in actually visiting these places.
Susan Freeman
Yes, because I suppose it is difficult to tell. Somebody will sell you an idea and it’s not until you see it in operation and you see how people re engaging with it that you know it’s going to work. I mean, have you had over the years any concepts that you thought were going to be absolutely amazing and they just fell flat, they just for whatever reason they didn’t work?
Ted Schama
Yeah, I mean there’s always sad moments where you think, I mentioned earlier about somebody full of passion, that’s Joe Grossman of Patty & Bun and every, through Covid actually, another initiative that he did was launch this delivery called Sidechick, which was roast chicken and amazing sides and it was just incredibly powerful and delivering a lot more profit so it was really exciting and thought, “Ted! I’m going to open up on James Street next to our original Patty & Bun. Do the deal!” and I was like, “Oh great” and sadly, it just didn’t translate so, as much as we all think we know the answers, and just going back to saying, it’s very easy for me to say, “Oh property people could go out,” well yes they can but that’s why thankfully, I’m still in business because I’ve, you know, you can never dedicate all your time, that’s why we’re all specialists. But then you’ve got the other, the other end of it that’s probably worth mentioning at this moment in time, where we acted for the Portman Estate on their largest development, which was the former police station on Seymour Street that, of course I was never locked in their cell, that’s for another time, after our lunch or dinner at The Dover I might, I might go on on that one but we were leasing that and it was sort of super important for it to be the most, and I think a lot of operators were, a lot of landlords say well, “Ted, we want something breakfast, lunch, dinner, you know, we want something open all day long” and I was kind of like, “Well, hold on a minute, you need something that’s really exciting that’s going to move the dial for your estate. It may be breakfast, lunch and dinner, it may not be breakfast, lunch and dinner, please be openminded and along came a Mexican chappie called Santiago Lastra, who basically, we had a meeting and he said to me you know, I fell in love with him immediately and basically, this man was just breathing passion and he sat down with Portman Estate and of course they couldn’t possibly relate to half of his stories because it’s not possible for them to live the life that I’m living and really key in as quickly and after the meeting they said, “Ted, what do you think?” and I was like, “Guys, this is gonna be unbelievable and 42.12 basement” and sure enough it’s, it’s the highest ranking restaurant in the world that’s in the UK at the moment called Kol, K.O.L., which is Mexican for cabbage and the whole idea behind that name was, we can make the most ordinary things special so, it can work both ways.
Susan Freeman
So, are you, I mean you effectively act as an interpreter between these very creative and passionate restaurant operators and the property owners.
Ted Schama
Yep, one could say that for sure, it’s speaking all of those languages and putting them together because they often can be very different languages.
Susan Freeman
And do you find, I mean obviously we all depend on the success of brand UK and brand London and we’ve been through Brexit, you know, there’s a bit of political uncertainty at the moment, does that effect the overseas operators, you know when they’re choosing between London and maybe Paris and maybe New York, I mean has that been sort of affected at all?
Ted Schama
I’m happy to tell you, no. Because London is still seen as the absolute benchmark globally, to place your flag and that works both ways. You can see the tremendous success from British brands going overseas because they are seen as the gold standard. You’ve got to get it right and believe me it’s not easy but you look at Hawksmoor and they’ve opened in New York, well who would have thought a British steakhouse in New York going to America, you know, are we selling ice to the Eskimos here guys? But they have, you know, they’re tremendously successful and are opening in Chicago etcetera so, going the other way, I would say to you that every restaurant looking to come into London, it’s seen as the number one flag, I mean I’m, I’m lucky enough to be retained for example by Giacomo Milano which is, I’m going to say the, you know, a gold standard in Milan and they have Fashion Week there and it's all very, very, very glamorous and you know, London is next stop, you know, and when we prove it in London, we’re proving it to the world.
Susan Freeman
That sounds very positive and probably a good place to stop because I know we could carry on talking and maybe we need a podcast sort of Mark 2 but that’s been, that’s a pretty amazing insight into the world of sort of restaurants and hospitality so, thank you very much.
Ted Schama
I’m super grateful and I’ve really enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to our date at The Dover.
Susan Freeman
Me too. Thanks a lot, Ted.
Ted Schama
Thanks very much.
Susan Freeman
Thank you, Ted Schama, for some amazing insights into what’s going on on the London restaurant and hospitality scene and beyond. And as Ted says, he really embodies hospitality and you heard it first here that Dover is the restaurant to go to. I’ll let you know how I get on there.
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