Downtown Monthly
When I was asked to write a hospitality article for Downtown In Business I set myself a challenge No mention of Covid, nor Brexit. No talk of tiers, nor supply chain disruption, nor of guidance which provides less clarity and direction than a trail of artisan sourdough breadcrumbs. This paragraph aside, will I manage it? Let’s see, as I look beyond the current maelstrom and instead return to one of the basic tenets of hospitality and its ongoing application to my home city of Manchester. Some time ago I read a book called ‘The Art of the Restaurateur’, by critic, consultant and erstwhile restaurateur (and fellow Mancunian) Nick Lander. Each chapter is a distillation of a single lesson from one of the giants of the hospitality firmament, and together they form a holy text for those wanting to run the perfect restaurant. The fundamental principle that always stuck in my mind was “Look after your regulars”. Because you cannot truly be hospitable if you don’t know what makes your customers tick. And this made me think back to the renaissance of Northern hospitality in the late 1990s, when the entire sector was redefined by Living Ventures who popularised the idea of Business Development Managers, or ‘BDMs’. These individuals were not strictly marketing, but were far from just hosts. Instead they were expected to represent their brand’s values, and to know their regulars on sight and by name, engaging with them on their own turf before bringing them under their respective restaurant’s wings. And be under no illusions, the model worked, because it was built around that long established concept of knowing your audience. And back then the main audience of high
8
value regulars was in Manchester’s burgeoning corporate sector, particularly those in property and professional services. Usually suited and booted, they careered about King St, and later Spinningfields, visibly splashing the cash for long lunches, post-work drinks, extravagant dinners, and a never-ending whirl of high-margin work events. Through the noughties other dining tribes came to the fore, not least via a boom in media and creative sectors accelerated by the opening of MediaCity and the blossoming of the Northern Quarter. But throughout this flux the pin-stripe corporate expense accounts from big shiny glass offices reigned supreme as the financial bedrock of daytime/weekday spend for many a city centre venue. As we emerge, blinking, into any ‘new normal’ will they still be here? And if not, who might replace them? Well there is one underappreciated audience which is right here under our noses, or possibly sat tapping away quietly at the end of the bar. It is immune to the current economic travails and is growing at almost 10% per year. It is made up of 63,000 high-earning, highspending individuals (average salaries can be £50k, and three figure renumeration is not unusual), and it loves hospitality in all its guises. They probably already spend thousands in your local haunts. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ‘tech’. This opportunity was crystalised by a chance discussion with Amy Newton, one of the most influential people in Manchester’s tech sector. She highlighted that after a hard and often isolated day coding developers had a huge appetite for getting out and meeting their peers, dining and drinking. It is their safety net, their support system, their social life.
Although an unassuming and often ‘invisible’ audience, they feel a loyalty to hospitality. They see the sector struggling and they want to help, as it helps them. The sociologist AnnaLee Saxenian wrote a book, Regional Advantage, which explored how the symbiotic dynamic between the burgeoning start-up community and the indie hospitality operators of 1970s Silicon Valley helped it to overtake the East Coast as a global tech centre, despite the latter’s better resources, infrastructure and cachet. California’s laid back and vibrant social scene provided a fertile environment for the cross-pollination of ideas and innovations, whilst operators got cash in their tills. Manchester, this is an opportunity. So although the UK’s hospitality sector is currently on its knees, with government policies seemingly targeted to deliver death by a thousand unjustifiable hammer blows, the truth it that it will weather this storm, and it will recover. And when it does, Nick Lander’s golden rules will remain as true as ever, for operators in each and every city. It’s ironic that in a world where so many sectors are being upended by the digital revolution, the tech scene could just be the saviour of Manchester’s restaurants, pubs and bars.
“But throughout this flux the pin-stripe corporate expense accounts from big shiny glass offices reigned supreme as the financial bedrock of daytime/wweekday spend for many a city centre venue.”
