Full transcript: Peter Dore-Smith on London Real
0:47 Hey, it’s Brian Rose from London Real. I am here with Peter Dore-Smith at Caffeine, his establishment, one of two coffee bars that you own. This man was in the hospitality industry for over 30 years, originally from Melbourne, Australia. And been really impressed with how you’ve got your business back and running since June. You put in outdoor seating and you’re trying to find ways to do business in this new COVID reality.
1:13 Just wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about the challenges you face as an entrepreneur and how you’ve been able to get back to business. How hard are things right now and are you optimistic for the future? So a bunch of questions. Okay, great question. Yeah, I’m optimistic for the future because I’m an optimistic person.
1:30 And I think you have to be optimistic and you have to push forward for the positive views on life and believe that things are going to get better. I mean, I even look back into things that have happened in the past and how people have got through those things. When the lockdown happened, I was able to revert back to thinking about Australia and the bushfires in Australia. And imagine bushfires in Australia and you have a couple of hours to evacuate your whole town and you come back and your whole town is gone.
2:00 Here we are, we’ve still got our town. We’ve still got everything. We’ve still got everything here. It’s not that bad a situation that we’re in and we should be able to come back from this and return from this. So keeping those things in mind, we’re not in the worst place possible.
2:14 We can still come forward and keep going. If we push hard and if we believe in ourselves. Right. So for you, it really is a mindset for these entrepreneurs because it’s easy to quit and throw in the towel and figure there’s no way I can do business when I’ve been told 13% of office workers have returned to London. I mean, that’s hard to crack that if you’re in retail but you’re saying a lot of its mentality about being optimistic and looking for solutions.
2:39 Yeah, you have to. You have to be optimistic and look for solutions and look for ways that you can progress forward. It may not be the best way forward for that time being but and there is gonna be some losses in the meantime as well. We are operating now at 60% of our normal trade in this store, in our other store. It’s been open for three weeks but we’re operating here at 40% of our normal trade.
3:02 So with that sort of trade levels, there are people and when I say people, the people who work for you who are potentially gonna be suffering in the long run. And that’s the real sad part of it. That’s the real hard part of it. And I don’t know what to do about that. The government support that we’ve had, the furlough scheme, the grants, all those things, I can’t personally complain about that.
3:26 I think it’s been quite good. That is, as you know, it is running out and it’s running low. And yeah, it’s a fine balance of trying to find how long we keep that support for and how long you let them, you know, people start walking basically and keep going. Right. I mean, tell me if I’m wrong, but it seems like we need to get people back to London, whether it’s tourists or whether it’s workers.
3:51 But without that, none of these essential businesses can run. I think it’s like 25,000 small businesses have already disappeared, gone bankrupt, maybe they never come back. Like I said, 13% of the office workers are back in the buildings. But I don’t see the leadership like trying to get people back and trying to get cultural restarted. I just feel like we get a mixed message and sometimes I don’t, I feel like we get different messages sometimes.
4:13 The science, it doesn’t seem to be a science-based approach. And I’m wondering, is that, do you agree or disagree? And what does that feel like as an entrepreneur trying to make decisions to make revenues every day? Oh yeah, it’s very different. Do we have any leadership at all?
4:27 That’s a big question. I mean, it’s a very political question. I don’t want to get into that too much. It’s very easy to sort of sit in your own little bubble of I’ve got my shop and I’ve got my house, I’ve got my family. You know, the huge big picture of the UK or even just London, it’s a really, really big picture.
4:45 But yeah, the messages that we’re getting, all confused, all different. What do we do? How do we do this? What do we do with it? How do we interpret that?
4:53 And then even then different people’s, people’s different opinions on those messages. So wearing a mask in store, should you wear, should you not? Should we be actually policing that as staff members and saying, no, you can’t come into my shop unless you are wearing a mask. When that person could be coming in and spending just five pounds of a spend, it’s like, fantastic. I’ll take the five pounds, thank you very much.
5:17 And then the pressures that are on the frontline staff of having to deal with that, that’s really, really hard. So I’ve been really, really particular of talking to all of my key members of staff, every member of staff saying, okay, this is how we’re going to do things. Are you okay with that? Are you comfortable with that? Is there anything that you’re uncomfortable with?
5:37 Let me know and we’ll stop it straight away. And we’ve started off being fairly, you could say strict in the way we run the operation, how many people, and then just gradually, gradually, it used to work, we’re letting more people into the store to a safe level still, but it’s still about making everybody feel comfortable. Yeah, it is a real challenge for us. Okay, now I saw you put some outdoor seating out there, which I’m sure helped your business. Was that difficult to get approval for in the government?
6:08 Is there a way that they might be able to fast track more outdoor seating for you and other businesses? I mean, are there any quick wins that you see? A quick win straight away is for Westminster or for the government to over-shell, but really it’s the Westminster because we’re in Westminster Council, used to say, right, we’re going to invest and having tables and chairs outside forever. Fantastic, happy days, we’re done. Because straight away, I’ve got 12 seats outside and if that’s in winter and it’s freezing and people choose to sit out there, that’s their choice.
6:44 The challenge then is though, whether Westminster will then charge us money or charge any operator money for that, well, you’ve got extra tables outside so we’re going to charge you a fee for that. How much is that fee, is it fair? But the story behind that is that Westminster Council said, like, we want to get people back into this area and happy with that. Let’s go and put some tables and chairs outside, mainly in Soho and other areas. And our street, Great Tishfield Street, was not identified as part of that.
7:13 I sent emails in requesting for us to be identified for that. It was either ignored or missed or whatever, but basically we didn’t have tables and chairs outside. Up until about August the 14th, I think, when I got a bit angry and I did my own IGTV video and I walked up and down the street and said, look, car, car, car, car, restaurant, car, car, car, car, restaurant, car, here we are, what’s going on, you know? That had over 5,000 views on it, and I’ll be my 14,000 followers.
7:46 I wrote to the local Councillors, I wrote to the Westminster Movement Strategy Team, I got the other businesses in this area all involved, they wrote to them, and within 10 days, we had tables and chairs outside. So they do listen, if you threaten them. Because I also got BBC London News involved, so BBC London News, BBC is just around the corner. What they do is when they need a good shot for a background story, they’ll come down here, we’ll take some shots on the coffee shops, I messaged them and said, you come to me for background shots, I’m now coming to you for help, we need your help.
8:21 Because by having these tables and chairs outside, I’ve got one more staff member working upstairs. By having tables and chairs outside, I’ve got one more kitchen staff working, coming off of Furlough, or potentially saving their jobs, just by having that, it’s fantastic. So BBC London News, they ring out Westminster, we’ve got this story about Great Tishfield Street, what are you gonna do about it? And very quickly they said, oh, we’ll put tables and chairs in, you know, it’s a good news story.
8:50 So it’s been amazing, wherever. Yeah, it must be frustrating, it’s the government’s job to promote the economy in London, and it’s one of the biggest problems we face. Okay, there’s a health crisis, but there’s also an economic crisis that potentially is ruining more lives. So it’s just a shame you have to call in the big guns, because not everybody’s friends with the BBC, or with us. But yeah, it seems like a bit of a failure of leadership, that you have to do that.
9:16 Because if you’re having to do that, how many other small businesses aren’t getting the attention they need? On this street, there’s a writing house, there’s three cafes there, there’s six or seven businesses in this street that need these tables outside. The problem we have now is that Westminster said initially, we’re gonna do it to the end of September, and then we’re gonna review it, okay? We’ve got 14 days until the end of September, and we don’t have an answer yet on whether tables and chairs will continue outside in the street.
9:45 And that’s not just for me, that’s the whole of sober, that’s the whole of Westminster, we don’t know. I emailed the lady from Westminster this morning, and I said, what’s going on? She goes, we’ll have an answer for you next week. I’m like, but I’ve got staff, I’ve got rosters I need to do, I need to be able to, if those tables go on September 30th, there’s two people I don’t need either. And that’s just me in a small business.
10:09 Think of all the other businesses in Westminster. So you need better communication as well, and less right team. Just decision making, and just pure, simple leadership. And maybe someone from the top saying, this is a priority, which we hear all the time, we see this get London back to work, but we’re not seeing it. Action expresses priorities, is what Gandhi once said.
10:30 And it’s like, I don’t see the action from the government. Question for you, I interviewed a bunch of technology professionals on my show a few years ago, and one of them had an incredible idea, was to remove on-street parking in central London, and replace it with green space, retail space. But just what are these cars doing stationary when this could be the solution to your business? What about permanently removing all of the parking in W1? And then like you said, the government putting out the chairs, the spaces, and there’s a lot of people that will have a coffee in November and a cigarette out there, right?
11:02 You know that. And I’m just, do you think that would be, I mean, okay, it’s not a simple solution, but would that be a solution to kickstart an industry like retail that we know is gonna be struggling for the next few months? Yeah, it’d be a solution, but I don’t think it is the solution because I don’t think it would work, unfortunately, because there are local residents, there are people who have cars, and it’s a really big challenge for the government to be able to do that and to get over it.
11:27 But I think one of the things that we can look back on is having these tables and chairs outside has actually proven, has pushed. Oh, it does work. Oh, wow. You know, whereas before, should we have table and chairs? Oh, no, it’s gonna cause problems.
11:42 It’s gonna cause this, it’s gonna cause that. Oh, now we’re forced into doing it. Oh, it does work, actually. Oh, wow, what a great idea. So potentially, you know, the same thing.
11:51 Yeah, we need to try new things to find solutions. You can’t, you know, you can’t sit and hypothesize about what might happen and what might not happen. You’ve got to test these things. And again, you said it really importantly there, I think every time anyone gets more comfortable with something different, they get more comfortable. So if it’s a staff, you know, they can come in and say, okay, I came in today and I was helping.
12:11 A customer can walk into a coffee shop and walk out and say, I was okay, I didn’t die. And the next day they’re willing to adapt a bit more and pretty soon, business is back to a little bit more of a flow. But you have to kind of educate the consumers, the staff, everyone, that there is a new reality that is okay, you know, within these limits to do business. So that’s a big part of the process. Yeah, it is, yeah, very much so, yeah.
12:34 Yeah, and getting people back that they eat out to help out, campaign not being helped a lot. Okay. And getting people out and being confident and going out to places. I mean, that’s been really good. It was helpful to us as a business as well.
12:48 But yeah, I think getting those people back and into the shops and into Central London, you know, I hear stories about places on the outskirts of London, like Hackney’s, Papham, Fantasy, all these sort of sort of busy, right? People are out, people are out going out and dining and drinking and carrying on, but they’re not coming into Central London necessarily. And it’d be great if we could have a real push for people to do that. Yeah, so let’s talk about that because I’ve been thinking about that too.
13:14 I worked in the city for about nine years and all my friends have told me that these big global banks and law firms and media companies have told their staff, don’t come back till March or June of next year. And yet the mayor seems to just accept that, but all of these businesses have vested interests in London. And with, like I said, 13% of office workers coming in here, that’s never gonna solve your problem. It was 13% of the people. So do you think we need a campaign to do the same thing you do with retail customers?
13:41 Show people that you can come back to London, it’s safe, speak to these companies and say, how can you actually get people to come back to work? Yeah, that’d be great if we could do that. Yeah, I don’t personally understand how a company can say, come back in March next year to predict that far ahead. I don’t, these people are much smarter than me. You know, they must be know something, but I don’t quite understand that.
14:05 I think it’s much better to have people coming back sooner. I can’t see how companies can be paying for an office space with nobody in it. That seems a bit strange. Yeah, if you’re gonna, somewhere, somewhere it’s gonna lose out. You’re gonna have an empty office block in the landlord.
14:24 So, but yeah, I think the progress we’re seeing here, when we opened in June, our revenue has doubled since our first week. So there are people coming back and there’s more people in the streets and more people are more comfortable than coming back as well. Even my other location, there’s people coming back two or three days a week to the office rather than the full five. So it’s slow progress. And all we have to do is hold on and hope that we can make it through to that.
14:56 The winter is gonna be, it’s gonna be a hard winter. It’s gonna be a game of thrones. It could be. Tell me about like the regulations and the COVID and all the things you’re being told you need to do from distancing to masks, et cetera. I mean, do you find that it’s hard to either understand exactly what to do or how to understand the science behind it?
15:14 Is it a, because I find myself frustrating because I don’t see science-based decision-making. It feels like policy gets thrown out here. Another one gets thrown out here. It seems to be like damage control or politics. I don’t know what’s going on.
15:28 What’s it like from someone like you who has to follow those regulations? Challenging as well. I mean, because there’s so much you have to think about and so many more decisions you have to make. So many more battles that you have to fight to get over that line. Even just filling out risk, doing risk assessments.
15:47 And I hate to think what a large company or a large restaurant would have to do, but doing a risk assessment for COVID, which is necessary. I’m not denying it at all. But it’s like, oh, you have to really think and concentrate because it’s really, really important. And you have to really make sure you do the right thing because you’re also talking about the health and safety of not just your staff, but also every employee. And the worst case scenario, having a reputation, a bad reputation for business, being killed to business name.
16:14 So yeah, you’ve really got to, I think there’s a lot of, what I’ve seen is a lot of advice on the government website that I’m happy with. There really is a lot of advice through how to deal with these themes and examples. Even the furlough scheme and the eat out scheme. And I think they’ve rolled it out very quickly and very, very well. I can’t complain at all about the support that that’s been providing.
16:38 Yeah, it’s good. And there’s still things that, yeah, you don’t really want to have to think about it. You want to get on and run your business. What about, I mean, I’ve heard from people I know in the city that say, I have to wear a mask when I walk to my table and then I can take the mask off and then I don’t have to wear it into a pub, but kids don’t wear it at school. It just doesn’t seem to be standardized science behind some of these regulations.
17:02 Is that frustrating for you? Yeah, it’s frustrating for me from a very personal point of view is coming into a retail shop and having to wear a mask. So you’ll see here at this shop, we manage that from at the doorway where we have the rope and we can greet people at the door and then they, if they want to come inside, they can choose to. At my other store, we are allowing people to come in just like any other sort of quick service store. People would come in and there’s a lot of them who are not wearing the mask.
17:31 It’d be wonderful if we didn’t have to, it would just make it easier. But I understand the science behind it and thinking behind it, we need to take those steps to be safe as well. Yeah, yeah, it’s a fine line. Cause like, I just, yeah, I feel like we should invest a bit more in science and get everyone to agree on the science and then we board a policy, it just seems to be patched together a little bit. Yeah, the challenge, I mean, there’s also, there’s so many other countries that are doing it differently as well.
17:59 You know, there’s stories today about Sweden and had no real cases. Being from Melbourne, if you may know, the lockdown has been really quite severe and they had 40 cases yesterday, but they’re still in a really severe, 40 cases, like that’s nothing. I mean, they’re still in a really severe lockdown. So the way the government, and they’ve been there for a long weeks almost. Yeah.
18:21 So the way the governments are doing things, yeah, I have no sympathy for the government. They’ve chosen to do that job, but yeah, if it quite is, they say they’re not doing the best one. Yeah, it’s frustrating when the ramifications are businesses going out and a lot of capital. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s 98% of the economic activity in London is small, medium-sized businesses. I mean, it’s the lifeblood.
18:43 And yet, and then these people don’t have capital reserves, you know? You probably, because you’ve been in the business for a long time and planned ahead and worked surgically, you know, but you’re smart. Like a lot of small business owners don’t have that experience. They don’t have the capital reserves and they’re blown out forever. Yeah.
19:00 And that’s because the government can’t seem to get their head around what the right thing to do. And again, I think people forget about the economy. I mean, the economic devastation is severe. Yeah, and it’s huge. And that’s the thing about living in your own bubble.
19:13 You don’t really see how big that scale is. You want to start the travel around or as you do, you see different parts of London. It really is a big scale. It’s almost quite frightening. Yeah.
19:24 You mentioned the furlough program. I spoke with someone else who has a wine bar last week and he suggested that, you know, furlough was great, but it blanketed every company. Whereas right now, specific companies need more help, specifically retail, hospitality, anything else that’s hurting now as opposed to everyone getting this check, which doesn’t seem to be fair, but I do think the government should go in and pick certain industries and say, okay, we’ve got to save this by doing this and give certain assistance.
19:52 Yeah, definitely. Okay. How would that work? How would that work? Yeah.
19:57 Or which industries do you think are important? Nightclubs, I know for sure. Okay. You know, when you’re out dancing and nightclubs, I know that they’re, you know, out theaters, hospitality, obviously, you know. I think it’s also, you have to be careful as well, like you said, there’s complimented me and said I was smart operator, but there’s also ones who are so smart and this sort of thing is going to sort out the week from the chef sort of thing, you know.
20:23 There’s ones who in many ways maybe don’t really, shouldn’t be in business. And yeah, it is easy in some ways to open a business and yeah, the strong will survive. But yeah, I think if the government can, they definitely need to provide some support to other parts of industries. The self-employed, you know, I don’t have any support. I don’t have anything, there’s lots of people who are out there who are self-employed.
20:49 My wife is self-employed. She’s had no support. So that’s the two of us who are basically had no real financial support and bless them. I love them all, but you know, the employees here are getting 80% of their wage and being at home. So that’s another big challenge as well.
21:06 How do you fix that? I have no idea. Okay, but it would make sense to have some attention on an industry specific basis. Yeah, of course. I think the Chancellor said, I’m in with this long run or I’m gonna support you in the early days.
21:20 We’re gonna see through this. And yeah, that’s a lovely big statement that you’ve got to follow through on it, don’t you? Yeah, and also you can’t have everyone on furlough forever. So that’s not practical. So you’ve got to make intelligent surgical decisions to save businesses that are gonna help the longevity of London and not just write checks everywhere because then we’ll all pay for that.
21:40 That’s right. And you can’t also save everybody either. That’s an impossibility. Yeah, that’s true. But as I mentioned before with previous disasters, London, how big is London?
21:49 How old is London? What has London been through in the past? We’ll make it through this again. It’s gonna be tough, but we’ll make it through again and we’ll survive on prosper. Yeah, we will.
21:59 How do we get tourists back in town? Because I’m guessing a chunk of your traffic has been tourists. Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, not a lot, but we obviously get quite a bit of tourists. We’re not in a tourist destination like Leicester Square or et cetera.
22:12 But having tourists back would be wonderful. I guess you’ve got to allow them into the country in the first place, don’t you? I don’t know the restrictions on countries coming in here. I don’t know. But my understanding is there’s a hotel near our other location who most of the clientele are Americans.
22:31 They can’t open yet because no Americans are coming over. And they’re like, well, no point in us opening when 90% of our clients are from the States. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on transport? I mean, I was riding in a couple black cabs recently and they’ve expressed how frustrating it is just to move around in the city.
22:48 They said businessmen before would have five meetings a day. Now they can only have two meetings a day because of the COVID barriers and things are shut down. And the mayor has said only public transport can go in certain places to encourage cycling. I’m wondering if you’ve seen any blowback of that here because of transport. No, not particularly.
23:06 No, I haven’t. I mean, I think that that is another huge challenge for them is having public transport and letting people back on and having people comfortable with going on the trains as well. The solution to that, I have no idea. That’s a big problem that maybe Mr. Khan can put his mind to.
23:22 He gets paid more than me. Well, and you brought up Mr. Khan. What if you got to be the next mayor of London? What would you do?
23:30 What would be the first thing you would do to change that would help not only your situation here, but other fellow entrepreneurs in your situation? So what are the first two or three things you would change? Gee, that’s a very good question. I don’t know that I know the answer to that. You probably, well, okay, maybe one would be- What would I do?
23:46 Listen to your outdoor space requests. I mean, yeah, outdoor space support. I mean, there’s so many things that he could be doing. But I think the first thing is promoting London as a safe space. I think that’s the big thing to do.
24:00 Come into London, enjoy your time. I mean, it’s empty of tourists now. So come into, if you’re an English tourist come in and go to the Tower of London and go and see these different things and check it out and come and stay. That’s important. I’ve heard that Westminster and the West End companies are trying to do that to promote London as a place to come.
24:22 But yeah, I’m not seeing it necessarily. I mean, that could be because they’re advertising outside of London. Why would you advertise in London to go and do things? But yeah. And yeah, public transport is I think there’s, you need to reassure people that it’s okay.
24:41 But I don’t know where you can get to that level or where it’s not okay. Yeah, it seems like they overdid the campaign of fear with that. Oh, yes. And you know, even our mayor has and it’s a shame because I just think it’s disproportionate what they’ve done. And now they have a new campaign to try to get people back.
24:59 But also, I don’t see them trying to lead. Let’s get London back to work. I don’t see people promoting this city. And I think until that happens, it’s gonna be very hard to do something else. Yeah.
25:10 What else is I gonna ask you about? Yeah, just when it comes to getting London back to work, anything else you would do if you could pull the shots? Is there any red tape you would like to be eliminated from you as a business person or the process? Oh, business rates. Okay, business rates.
25:25 Have yours dropped? Oh yeah, because we’re, you know, in many ways business rates was good for me because I’m at a low rateable value below that threshold. So I was given 50,000 pounds from, or 25,000 pounds from the government, just like that. Because I’m at low rateable value. So that worked for me.
25:44 But in an ongoing situation where you’re paying 12,000 to 18,000 pounds a year through your rates, that’s a lot of money. And there’s a lot of businesses out there who are suffering because of that. Finding a better solution for business rates when you’re battling against the online stores, especially. I don’t necessarily have that battle against the online stores. We’re a place where people come together to enjoy themselves and be looked after.
26:09 But yeah, other businesses too, as well. It’s a hard push. You have to look at every margin these days to try and make a successful business. Yeah, no, I think we have to cut business rates, especially for the sectors you talked about. You know, nightclubs, retail, restaurants, and get people back in.
26:27 Recently, the congestion charge went back up and it went 24 seven, which is frustrating. Again, I was talking to black cab drivers. I like talking to black cabbies because they’re the backbone of the city. They see everything, they talk to everybody and they also, they’re entrepreneurs as well. And he said, why would you, people would come in on the weekends to shop and spend money, but now there’s a congestion charge on top of that.
26:48 Is that frustrating for you? Oh, definitely. I mean, I don’t understand the, what’s the reasoning for it? I don’t understand the reasoning for it. It couldn’t be.
26:57 Why would you do that? Especially at night time when you got the people coming into the theaters, et cetera. Again, in many ways, you know, I am a small business, so how many people are going to drive in and come from my store? Not a lot, but there’s still a few. The bigger businesses and the bigger industries are the ones who are suffering.
27:15 And it was, yeah, it was quite a kick in the teeth or a nail in the coffin for many people to actually do that. But a very strange decision. Right, put those rates up, yeah. I mean, this whole concept of taxing and spending is, you know, it’s one that I don’t think works very well for businesses because you never see the spend. But I think if we just lower all these taxes, lower the congestion charge, lower the business rates, and then promote you with active policies of getting your outdoor seating, getting intelligent science-based COVID restrictions, but not something that was made willy-nilly because someone decided to do some policy and just be pro-business, lead from the front, get people coming back to London, speak to these global corporations, see if we can get, you know, 40% of your office back.
27:57 What does it take? Like, again, only if people are comfortable, but, you know, what else can we do? Do you want to build a real estate project in the future in Canary Wharf? Great, let’s talk about a tax break, but let’s get the people back into London. And then once people see people in London, people will come back to London, right?
28:12 And like you said, this city survived everything. The fire of 1666, right? You have plagues in the past, right? Countless depressions and recessions. So we know we can come back, but I just, we need some leadership, and the pain doesn’t have to be this bad, I don’t think.
28:29 No, no, I don’t think so. I think I completely agree. Leadership is lacking. Leadership needs to happen. Everyone wants to have a leader that they can trust and believe in and will forge that path forward.
28:41 And yeah, it’s not really there at the moment. I think it’d be great to have a strong leader, either at the very, very top or even if they’re in the local government within with the mayor of London, you know? Yeah. It’s not really happening. Do you think it’s hard to govern a city when you’ve never run a business?
28:57 Some of these politicians, like I’m just saying, I’m looking at the outside, I’ve never been in politics, but I’m like, your whole life, your income is based on getting a salary from the government, it comes from taxes, but you’ve never known what it’s like to be an entrepreneur, the hard nights, the late nights, the things you struggle with. These pieces of red tape can make or break your business. Do you think that’s an inherent problem in government is that they’ve never dealt with a business?
29:21 Yeah, I would say so, because yeah, I mean, there are business people in government. I know that, I’m not a massive political person, but I think by having a business, it certainly toughens you up and smartens you up and shows you what you need to do. I think having that experience behind you, you’re a life person, and you’re a life and a business person, and bringing those two together into politics is you’ve got an addition, basically. You’ve got more power in terms of your knowledge and your understanding.
29:56 So more of a background, of course, is much better because you could draw on those experiences and bring those experiences into that political life. Right, and then it’d be nice, if the mayor had run a business before, he would understand, oh, you need to know about the outdoor seating because you need three weeks in advance to prepare for personnel issues, and they would get it, but they don’t get it. So when you’re calling up, they’re like, next week, I’ll tell you next week, what’s the problem?
30:18 And you’re like, there’s a lot of problems here because you’re messing my business up. I know, I didn’t reply to it, I was gonna reply to the well-eathed and I was like, next week, what are you talking about next week? And that’s the thing, in government, a week is just another week where I get my salary. In business, a week is a make or break. Oh, huge, yeah, and you know, this is what we’re doing now, basically going week by week.
30:40 It’s almost like, how much longer can we do this for? Well, let’s see what happens next week. Let’s see what happens next week. We don’t know what’s gonna happen next week. Wow.
30:48 It’s week by week, honestly. You know, you’re looking at your bank balance and your cash flow, et cetera, you’re predicting out. But it’s really challenging at the moment to be at a state of these guys, you know, how much longer, I mean, the worst case scenario is there’s a massive lockdown again and everyone has to go back home again. We don’t know when that’s gonna happen. I don’t think it will.
31:11 Yeah. But we’re all living on edge. Yeah, I know, it’s not a good way to live. No, not at all. Look, I just wanna applaud you for getting back to business and having that steely-eyed will and vision.
31:23 We’ve all been there as entrepreneurs and face down fear and you gotta move on and it takes real leadership and you’re responsible for a lot of salaries and a lot of business that knocks onto other businesses. So, I know you’ve been at the forefront of trying to reopen, trying to find safe ways to do it, getting those outdoor seating and just innovating. So, yeah, I just really appreciate you for doing that and I think you’re a good example for a lot of businesses and yeah, just for people out there, it’s being done in intelligent ways and I think the government needs to realize that we need more help and less red tape and just try some things.
31:53 Maybe say yes, the business isn’t asking because they’re bored, right? We’re not asking for outdoor seating because we wanna make some extra money, it’s like we wanna survive. So, maybe cut them some slack and give them the benefit of the doubt a little bit and just try to- And show them that they can do it. I mean, a lot of the talk of like, oh, you know, are hospitality venues safe to go to? Well, yeah, with coronavirus, are they clean?
32:16 Well, you used to eating them like they’re clean because you’re eating them. So, we know what we’re doing in hospitality. We are a clean people. We wash our hands all the time. We sanitize things all the time.
32:26 So, we’re doing that already and now, yes, we’ve increased that and we’ve done even further and maybe in the future we’ll continue to keep doing that. There’s no problem, why not? Keep sanitizing, keep sanitizer in the toilets so people can do their hands properly. That will help save the NHS of just colds and flus all the time. And, you know, I was looking back yesterday through my original business plans and all my original design drawings and all my original thoughts and writing down and all these sorts of things and looking back to all my historical folders that I have and just thinking, I’m not giving up.
33:05 Do you know what I’ve been through to get to this stage? Just looking through all that stuff and just thinking, Jesus Christ, I’ve been through a whole lot of stuff just to get 11 years this business, five years the other one. I’m a small copy shop in honest with you. Many people in the industry say I’m one of the leaders, we just do what we do. But that really yesterday inspired me.
33:26 I’m not giving up, no way. I really appreciate that. And that’s what it is. People, they look at these shops when they walk by and they think they’re just, oh, there’s another retail shop. No, there’s a person behind that with a vision who took risk, who put their own capital at stake, who’s got to rally people every day who are scared, who are panicking, who don’t wanna be there.
33:47 I mean, there’s people behind that and there’s a real stories, they’re families. And it’s like, yeah, I think we need to recognize that and try to find ways to promote you. Because again, this is that lifeblood of the spirit that creates great things. I mean, you have a very innovative business here and you did even when you started 11 years ago and that brings life to the city. We wanna support people like you and not just turn you into a number or turn you into some global brands.
34:10 Like it’s the essence of what makes great culture and which makes the city great is small businesses like you and entrepreneurs. And the people who work here, the people who work for me currently and in the past, they’re the ones who are at the front facing, like I said before, they’re the ones who wanna support this business and they see the work that I do but they’re also, they’re putting in a massive effort as well to keep it going and to keep people happy and to be hospitable to people. And I have so much respect for them, they’re fantastic.
34:41 Yeah, all the frontline workers are amazing. Any final thoughts out there to anybody who’s listening on things that you could help with or things you would do as your first day on there? The theme a bit has obviously come back to London. If you’re out there and you wanna come into London, it is quiet. I always think it’s wonderful and safe.
34:58 Pincerovia itself is a beautiful area. I’ve got some great restaurants, obviously great coffee shops. Come in, enjoy the weather while you can but come back into London and support us, support the small independents as well. The big chains, the big venture capitalist ones, you can choose to support them but to be honest, I’d much rather support an independent shop and go out there. And that’s the good thing that we’ve seen over lockdown is the local neighborhood shops.
35:24 A lot of people are out there saying, no, I’m gonna spend my money with you now rather than Waitrose or Chesco or whatever. Support those independents because as you said, they’re the ones at the forefront, they’re the ones at the front line. Put the blood, sweat and tears into it. Yeah, they’re the ones who deserve it. Yeah, no, I agree.
35:39 Look, the venture capitalists are gonna be okay, all right? I used to be in that business, right? But the local businesses aren’t. So this is the time to spend and get out there and look, let’s get London back to work. This city is incredible, the culture is incredible.
35:52 I think we can lead the world if we just got better leadership, some science-based policies and got everyone back here. I think we really could be a beacon and there’s some places that are much worse than us, don’t get me wrong, but I think we could be leading the world and showing them how a metropolis like this can get back, bring the culture back, bring the optimism back, do it safely. Or we can just bump along and be in also ran and we’re gonna suffer and it’s gonna take years to rebuild, you know?
36:18 Yeah, we don’t want that. We don’t want that. I didn’t come to London from now before that. I came to London to be part of a successful city and to be successful myself and that’s what I want. There it is, the London dream.
36:29 All right, look, I really appreciate you, Peter. And again, I know you’ve been working really hard. I can see it in your eyes as a fellow entrepreneur. I know that look, it’s hard out there and look, we’ve been in the same situation since March, just trying to find ways to innovate and still provide value to our customers and that’s what you’ve been continuing to broadcast. So I appreciate you with what you do and look, let’s get London back to work.
36:49 Let’s make London great again is what I wanna say. And yeah, this is it, caffeine, great place. I’ve heard about you the last few years as well. So I do know about you and your brand and let’s support these businesses. Let’s say yes when they ask for retail space.
37:02 Let’s say yes when they ask for lower business rates. Let’s say yes when they ask for less restriction, less red tape and let’s rebuild the city. So thanks for your time.
