Dear readers,
I thought we’d take a look at a business story that’s been bubbling away in the Stroud Valleys for a while now, a saga partly covered by our friends on the Stroud Times, about a business that tomorrow (Friday 8 November) expands into Cirencester.
I thought it deserved a closer look not least because Raikes has history with the organisation in question. It was one of the first big features we looked at when it emerged - more as a movement than a business - back in the Covid-19 pandemic, during Raikes’ first iteration.
What fascinates me is that here is a business that really shouldn’t work at all, but is thriving by charting its own course across the unforgiving hospitality sector, that has an incredible following (the phrase ‘brand loyalty’ just sounds wrong in this case), is staff-heavy, pays the living wage and above, doesn’t even charge set prices, gives its produce away for free or below cost at times, and was faced with eviction for the second time in the last three years.
Yet tomorrow that business will celebrate the opening of its second restaurant-come-café in Cirencester.
By the power of some kind of counterintuitive alchemy it creates jobs and is inexplicably winning by investing in ‘building community around good food’. For a nation that could easilly be mistaken for being famously poor at the thought of having to sit next to strangers and eat, it just sounds like a formula destined to fail. But it isn’t failing. It’s winning, and that business is The Long Table.
If you want to read about where it all came from, here’s a link to that story way back in early 2020, about one of the good things to emerge from that dreadfully dark time (click here).
I’m afraid we’ve paywalled some of the main story below as we seek to give back to those members who support us by paying for their subscriptions to make what we do possible. A little bit like The Long Table, I guess. We’re a community interest company too. The support of those paying subscribers allows us to give some of what we do away for free so everyone can enjoy it.
All the main reads on The Raikes Journal are unique. You won’t get them anywhere else. We’re not an aggregator site, a portal for press releases or advertorials and we don’t rush to post stuff before anyone else does. We care about journalism, about giving you some quality and we care about community and about Gloucestershire. As we said, a bit like The Long Table.
I hope you enjoy the read.
Andrew Merrell.
NB: Raikes publishes probably the best-read business-related newsletter, pound for pound, in Gloucestershire.
If you have a story, an issue, a news item, a charity or an interview, you want us to write about or investigate, challenge the powers that be on, please email me: andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
Some briefing notes…
🏗️ 🍽️ Those interested in the future of former Cheltenham restaurant The Daffodil, may be interested to know its owner, Stewart Braddock, has asked the borough council for permission to turn it into a house. Braddock believes it will help with the sale of the property, famous for its striking art decor-style interior. Originally built as a cinema in the 1920s, it has also played the part of a bingo hall, furniture showroom, and what it is perhaps most recently remembered for, a 100-seater restaurant.
📈 A new board has been set up to support the tech industry in Gloucestershire and the West of England. Made up of business leaders, researchers, academics and investors, the advisory group ‘s aim will be to help boost growth and highlight the region’s key role in the UK’s innovation landscape. The South West of England Technology Sector Advisory Board was coordinated by Tech South West, and will also cover Wiltshire, Bristol, Somerset, Cornwall, Devon and the Isles of Scilly. It consists of “key players” from across the region’s tech ecosystem who will seek to guide the strategic direction of the sector.
🏘️ 💷 Tewkesbury-based housing association Bromford has announced “a strong set of financial results” for the six months to September 2024. Turnover was up nine per cent to £167 million, of which £147 million was from social housing lettings, operating surplus was £50 million (up from £48 million for the same period in 2023) and post-tax surplus was £36 million (up from £33 million for the same period in 2023). The business completed 457 new homes in the last six months, of which 220 were for social rent. It’s forcast to finish another 170 in the second half of its financial year.
👋 The chief executive of Gloucestershire County Council, Pete Bungard, has announced he will retire on 4 May 2024 after 27 years leading the local authority.
🤝 Chris Watkins is the new assistant director of assets at Newent-headquartered Two Rivers Housing. He previously held supervisory and team leader roles within the repairs team before taking on the role of head of maintenance in April 2020 and the newly created role of head of assets and building safety in 2022. The housing association manages more than 4,600 homes in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire and the surrounding areas.
📸 University of Gloucestershire and the Eastgate Shopping Centre in Gloucester are collaborating on a public exhibition showcasing the work of photography students within the local community. Exploring Place, at Eastgate Shopping Centre, will feature “a range of images capturing Gloucester’s rich history, exciting modern developments and diverse community” taken by nine first-year students from the university’s BA (Hons) photography programme. The exhibition, supported by funding from the Janet Trotter Trust, is free and due to run until 18 November.
Two minutes of reflection…
We’re all urged to stop and reflect on or around 11 November, but perhaps sometimes it’s best not to overthink it – and just to simply stop, pause, say ‘thank you’, and to thank our lucky stars. After all, how can you possibly conjure thoughts that really do justice to those we, as a nation, commemorate when we mark Armistice Day? Cheltenham and Gloucester are not the only places in Gloucestershire that will mark the moment, of course, but we’ve just been sent news both will do so on Sunday 10 November. Cheltenham will be supporting The Royal British Legion and encouraging businesses, shops, offices, and individuals to “pause to remember” at 11am. A service will begin at 10.50am with a lone trumpeter playing those most emotive five notes that are The Last Post. In Gloucester there will be services at the ‘old’ and ‘new’ cemeteries on Tredworth Road at 10.10am before the Service of Remembrance at the War Memorial beside Gloucester Park from 10.45am.
* Everything you read on The Raikes Journal is made possible by our incredible Founding Partners: QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College, Merrell People and Randall & Payne, our sponsors Hartpury University and Hartpury College, our Founding Members and wonderful paying subscribers.
If you upgrade to paid you’ll be part of this community interest company too. In an era when local journalism is all but gone and websites covered in pop-ups and full of advertorials, lists and unedited press releases, we are dedicated to delivering quality journalism for Gloucestershire, to championing the county, in particular its businesses, charities, education and training providers and to helping create an even stronger community. If you upgrade to paid you will be able to see past the paywalls on our second and third email editions of the week, that lock all our archive after two weeks and lock our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire, the series that follows the financial fortunes of our biggest firms by turnover. You will be able to comment on our stories too. You’ll be helping make this CIC sustainable. Please do join us.
If you sign up now you can take advantage of our 30 per cent off offer - and become a member for a year for just £84, which works out at £7 a month or £1.62 a week! Or go all in and become one of our Founding Partners or Founding Members, and overpay!
How James Bond saved a rural community restaurant
As it came out of the worst year ever for restaurant closures it was faced with eviction. Odds were The Long Table wouldn’t make it, but its now expanding thanks to Daniel Craig! Just what went right?
By Andrew Merrell.
Some business plans deserve a second glance. So counterintuitive is The Long Table’s take on what works and what to invest in that you can imagine many accountants would be left wiping their brows at the mere thought.
But tomorrow (Friday 8 November) the Stroud headquartered CIC will open its second restaurant, in Cirencester, a repurposing of the old House of Fraser building, a move that has been welcomed in the town.
If you look back at the national picture of the last 12 months (the last quarter of 2024 saw the highest ever rate of closures in the restaurant sector) and looked at The Long Table’s own predicament, expansion would probably not have been your first thought.
According to accountancy firm Price Baily, 514 restaurants across England, Scotland and Wales closed in the final quarter - up from 481 in quarter two or 2023. Over the course of the whole year 1,932 restaurants entered insolvency, which works out at roughly five a day - up from 3.6 a day the previous year.
Imagine fighting that mood music and then learning your landlord wanted you out – the second time it’s happened to you in your short life of just a handful of years, through no fault of its own.
That was what The Long Table faced.
The owner of Brimscombe Mill, where it had built its enviable reputation, was set on selling the site for redevelopment.
Incredibly, it was a note on its own chalk board, on which people write down things they needed or want – perhaps a new bicycle, perhaps somewhere to stay, all kinds of things – that cheekilly and wishfully asked for someone with deep pockets to step forward and buy the building for them that actually delivered!
What unfolded from there was a story with involving a famous radio DJ and television presenter, James Bond actor Daniel Craig, and a very happy ending indeed.
“Our landlord suddenly told us he was putting the building on the market. We could buy it, but it was going to cost £1.5 million,” said Will North, the managing director of The Long Table.
Apparently, just as it was working out whether it could raise the funds itself that the price jumped, considerably. News began to break in its community that The Long Table was on borrowed time if it could not find a new home – not that it wanted to move - and the note went onto that chalkboard.
Somehow it had to keep going, keep the team together, find a solution, and do it quickly.
Now, about that business plan.
North explained: “We sell our food, but we ask people to pay what they can afford. It’s that simple.”
It was an idea The Long Table, which felt more like a social movement when it first emerged during the pandemic, stress-tested as it linked up with other groups county-wide to feed those working in the emergency services through the Covid-19 crisis, as well as the isolated and anyone else for that matter.
A well-meaning recipe doomed to failure, you might think - but no. Instead The Long Table crew rode out the other side of the pandemic triumphant, costs covered and with big ambitions.
Customers had responded to the idea – yes, some by underpaying, some unable to pay, but many overpaying, all understanding the idea and amazingly the books balanced.
And this is the model The Long Table set about incorporating into what became a community interest company as it settled into its new permanent home at Brimscombe Port, before moving to its current site at Brimscombe Mill.
All eyes were on it too because it was also a group which was fronted by, and still is, its founder and master baker Tom Herbert, whose family also run Hobbs House Bakery and who won television fame as one of the Fabulous Baker Boys with brother Henry.
In case you are wondering, if you’re unfamiliar with a meal at its ever so long trestle tables, its food is not ‘cheap, cheerful and forgettable’; it’s the first two - but it’s certainly not forgettable. It’s carefully sourced from local producers, professionally prepared and cooked and often served of an evening with live music too.
Recent menus have included mushroom and sage risotto and butternut squash cream or freshy baked pizza.
The organisation is evangelical about what it does. It “believes in the power of great food and the positive impact it can have on our community, our health and the health of our planet.”
So, instead of investing in bricks and mortar, in shareholders and executive team it has an all-hands to the pumps approach and invests, if that’s the right word, in community.
That community also includes other social enterprises on the site too - including Kids Stuff, pre-loved toys, clothes and accessories, The Bike Drop, described as ‘the foremost cycling destination in Stroud’ (offering servicing and e-bike sales and advice) and the Furniture Bank, that sells quality used furniture.
The eviction we mentioned threatened all the businesses, and the group estimated at the time that 53 jobs were on the line.
Oddly, it was its investment in community that paid back. It was someone from that community that averted the crisis and secured the restaurant’s future.
North explained how he came to be leading from the front for The Long Table: “I came from within the hospitality industry. I started in it when I was 14, worked behind the bar and worked my way up.
“Hospitality is wonderful, but it can also be a race to the bottom. When that happens, staff and customer lose out.
“We (The Long Table) think we have a different way of running things and I’ve been trusted by the board to take that forward. I make sure we can pay everyone at least a living wage.
“We are a community interest company, so we are about people first. We have grown in the last three years and continue to grow.
“We have just hired seven people in Cirencester and we will probably take on eight more.”
One of the keys to making it all work, said North, was the partnerships the business had forged with local suppliers and producers who understood the concept and worked with it to supply the very best for the restaurant.
When it comes to the provenance of its beef, pork or mutton, it has to be “whiter than white” said North. One of its suppliers is the National Trust.
Again, more counterintuitive thinking reigns here too.
“Our food resilience team (the staff who build the supply chain) is also taught not to negotiate on price,” he said, explaining it was about a fair price and ensuring a long-term, honest relationship based on mutual dependence and understanding.
Suppliers, it seems, appreciate the approach, can pursue what they want as long as it delivers for The Long Table, and they know if they achieve that they have a solid income.
That sense of a ‘virtuous circle’ is where the ‘resilience’ idea comes in. The idea of a resilient community serving itself.
So just what is the story of the note on the noticeboard that brought forth a saviour and kept The Long Table at Brimscombe Mill?
“We put the board up some time ago,” said North.
“People have put all sorts of things on there. Someone wrote down asking if anyone had a moose head, for some reason or other, and a few days later up popped someone with a moose head! That’s how it works.
“We put on there we needed someone to step forward and help us (save our home). And they did.”
North remains tightlipped about just who that individual was, other than to say it is someone who uses The Long Table, who likes what it does, who lives locally and obviously had the finances to do it.
But then the story leaked out about actor Daniel Craig sending them £50,000 and the Long Table had to come clean.
“If you wondered how Daniel Craig heard about our plight when a second eviction was looming over us, the answer is the wonderful Edith Bowman (pictured below outside The Long Table’s new home).
“Edith has always been a part of our journey - eating with us here at Brimscombe Mill, giving her time through projects like Black Dog Way, and using her voice and platform to share our story.
“Thanks to her, our message reached the right people and it led to nationwide coverage and life-changing support for the whole community here at the mill!”
As for the Cirencester business, that opens tomorrow, Friday 8 November at 9.30am for coffee and cake followed by pay-as-you-can lunch from 12 to 2:30pm.
The team will be doing it all again on Saturday, but with dinner service as well, from 6pm-8pm, accompanied by live music.
“Just like here in Stroud, there’s no booking required and every meal is pay-as-you-can. So, no matter what you can afford, there’s a meal for you and a seat at the table!
“We can’t wait! Amazing things can happen when we eat together.”