Adam Marshall: revelling in a Grand success
Adam Marshall is a driven man and on the Fast Track 100 List with Grand Union. The branded pub is back, as Phil Mellows discovers.
Ever tried counting the sesame seeds on top of a burger bun? Someone, probably a work experience person, had done that for the burger in front of me at the latest Grand Union pub, next door to the abandoned Young's Brewery in Wandsworth.
At least that's what Adam Marshall, founder and managing director of the Grand Union Group, assures me. "We also specify how much air is in the bread and the colour, as well as the salt and sugar content, and the amount of fat in the beef patty. It has to be 20% or you get a dry burger and it lacks flavour."
This is pubs run with precision and it works. At the end of last year Grand Union hit The Sunday Times's Fast Track 100 list, in at 52 after opening five of its 10 pubs during 2009
(it hit double figures after adding Wandsworth in 2010), and recording a 22% year-on-year increase in revenue. Turnover has hit £9m a year, and EBITDA is just short of £1m.
That will fund two more openings in February towards a target of 20 pubs in London by the end of 2012. Grand Union will then start appearing in other cities.
Marshall is 35 and seems, if anything, younger. He launched Grand Union in 2006 with partner Adam Saword, who takes care of recruitment and training, Marshall does everything else, pretty much. He's a driven man.
"I was rubbish at school, and I've still got a problem with the schooling thing. But Dad was a cook, and that interested me. The knives especially. I was sharpening knives and chopping food when I was 10. I liked the heavy cleavers, the delicate fruit knives, the knives for turning vegetables." Fortunately, Marshall was able to channel this predilection in a creative direction.
He finished top of his year at catering college and bagged an apprenticeship at Rules restaurant.
"It was a hard environment but I enjoyed it. I was promoted to chef de partie when I was only 18. I had the drive.
"I've always had that drive to prove myself, to prove I'm worth it. To my Dad, really. I was severely dyslexic growing up and nobody thought I could deliver very much. But tell me I can't do something and I'll have an irrational focus on doing it.
"I'm more relaxed about it now, but I still don't like being told what to do. I'm unemployable if this goes tits up, and I suppose that's what's driving me."
Back to the UK
After broadening his experience in the hotel industry and abroad, he returned to the UK and joined Brighton pubco C-Side as manager of a struggling bar.
"I took takings from £5,000 a week to £9,000 on the back of ideas to make the place comfortable, and putting attractive women behind the bar."
He was quickly elevated to area manager, but it was while checking the P&Ls that he realised what he should have known all along — that he needed to run his own business.
"When I saw the profit I was making for the company I thought I'm doing all the work here! And I wanted to move back to London anyway. I couldn't stand the seagulls."
At 26, he and a partner took an Enterprise lease on the Rose & Crown in Highgate Village, north London.
"We made the mistake of hiring an expensive chef and costs were outstripping takings. So I got out and set up Bullet Bar in Kentish Town on my own. It was the first manifestation of Grand Union."
At the Bullet Marshall made the money to fund the first Grand Union, a Scottish & Newcastle lease in Camden, north London.
"We opened on a shoestring and it was an immediate success. I knew instinctively what people wanted on a night out, the service, the lighting, the music."
Since then, Marshall has simply repeated the formula at each site. It's unfashionable these days, but Grand Union is a brand and he's not afraid to use the word.
"We know customers at one of our pubs will visit our other sites, so for me that's a brand. They know what they're going to get.
"This site did £30,000 in its first week on the back of giving people what they expect from a Grand Union. We trade on the brand name. People don't like to take a chance these days."
Leased
And neither do landlords. All the Grand Union sites are leased, and Marshall believes he's one of only a handful of operators ever to be trusted with three Young's sites. And there is a fourth under offer. "Young's like us. We do 800 barrels a year at Brixton. Annual turnover is £2.5m with £400,000 net profit. Our best week there was £94,000. We took £36,000 in a day.
"And we're a pretty simple operation. We can set up very quickly at a new site and don't go knocking down bars if we can help it.
"Just a lick of paint, the electrics, the usual roof issues and a week and a half after taking over we're trading. As soon as we open up we're singing and dancing.
"Grand Union fits the Victorian pubs — that's why we have a good relationship with Punch, S&N and the rest. We don't cause landlords too much trouble." Tied leases have enabled a fast roll-out, "but we realised early on we couldn't expect a great margin on beer".
So Grand Union's focus is on a short cocktail list of familiar mixes and a growing food trade, based on a burger menu.
So far, food comprises only 20% of take across the estate, but this year that will be increased by the addition of Grand Union Paddington, which will fill a 7,000sq ft retail shell next to the headquarters of Marks & Spencer. Marshall anticipates food there will account for 60%.
It is different, too, in that it's a 25-year private leasehold on which he's negotiated a "massive" reverse premium and an 80% rent reduction for the first two years.
"The landlord really wants Grand Union there. It's the strength of our covenant, and that gives us a lot of pride.
"It's a test for us, though. It's a big deal. Overcoming the building regulations and licensing issues has been the biggest pain in the backside. Other operators had given up on it, but that's me, again, proving I can do it."
And what is he doing, exactly, that others can't do?
"We offer something cutting-edge. As I see it we're taking the place of clubs, traditional boozers and restaurants. Grand Union is an amalgamation of all three.
"Take the Farringdon site. We'll open at the end of January and be competing with Fabric on the same licence and with a 200 capacity.
"Fabric is good and won't be threatened by us, but there are other clubs that don't cut the mustard. And you can do stuff in a Grand Union you can't do at a club.
"I don't want to sound arrogant, though. I'm constantly watching the marketplace, seeing who's winning, who's losing.
"There's a seismic shift in the sector and I want Grand Union to be at the heart of that."
My kind of pub
"I have a local — the St Margarets Tavern in Richmond. But with Grand Union I get to design the kind of pub I want, how I want it, what I want to look at, what I want to eat, what I want to listen to. I design it for me!
"It's always the latest one I like the best, and we've taken the concept further in Wandsworth, pictured right. We took more time over it — and we spent £12,000 on
the curtains!"
Key dates
• 1992 — After leaving Richmond Catering College, Adam Marshall is apprenticed at Rules in Covent Garden
• 1994 — Moves on to triple Michelin-starred La Tante Claire
• 1996 — Joins Jarvis Hotels as trainee manager and experiences a variety of roles
• 1999 — Travels in the Far East and becomes head chef at Victory restaurant in Cairns, Australia
• 2000 — Returns to the UK to run Polar West bar for Brighton pubco C-Side
• 2001 — Promoted to area manager with responsibility for five pubs
• 2002 — Takes Enterprise lease on the Rose & Crown, Highgate Village
• 2004 — Opens Bullet Bar, Kentish Town
• 2006 — First Grand Union, a Scottish & Newcastle lease in Camden
• 2009 — Opens five Grand Unions to take estate to nine|||
