To the kid at the back of the class who hates school and thinks life won’t get any better: take heed from Charlie Phillips. “I was an academic rebel,” he admits. “I enjoyed saying ‘no’ to teachers, and I didn’t do homework. When I got mostly got Bs and Cs, my academic school tried to kick me out, and I was the only kid in the year who didn’t apply to uni.”
When his school, Latymer Upper in Hammersmith, told everyone to find some work experience, “all my mates were at law firms and finance floors, whilst I was picking basil and scrubbing dishes at the River Café,” he says. Food was his thing: Phillips founded Morty & Bob’s, a three-strong restaurant chain (in King’s Cross, Kensal Rise and White City) and event-caterer which brings in more than £3 million a year.
“Once I got a taste of restaurants, there was no going back — although there were plenty of moments I was squeegeeing grey water into kitchen floor drains at 1am wishing I was at uni kicking back with my mates.”
It all started on a market stall. Phillips, 34, was born in the US “and I grew up eating a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches — mainly white bread and Kraft singles”. After school he dreamed of starting a gourmet grilled cheese street food truck, and applied for a stall at Hackney’s Netil Market to see if it would work.
That was 2013. Phillips maxed out his credit cards and spent weeks honing his perfect grilled cheese recipe (using Neal’s Yard Dairy expertise and London sourdough suppliers, rather than orange Kraft slices). “Then I bought a new Breville [toastie-maker] and a trestle table to Netil Market, and we sold out within two hours. I remember thinking, ‘that’s probably a good sign’.”
Phillips went on to buy an old Royal Mail van and turned it into a street food truck, which he took to music festivals including Glastonbury’s VIP area, where he upgraded his menu to three items: the Straight Up [cheese toastie], eight-hour BBQ pork shoulder, and a bacon and avocado sandwich for the breakfast crowd. “It was an incredible few summers of fun, hard work and tens of thousands of grilled cheese sandwiches, although there were hard times. A wash out at Secret Garden Party meant coming home with a quarter of a tonne of cheese, which was quite depressing.” Staff would also disappear mid-festivals, tempted away to the music.
“After several summers of trading, I began to think turning the business into bricks and mortar, to lock the door and leave everything inside.” Phillips opened his first Morty & Bob’s outlet in 2015, as the daytime operations of a bar next to Netil Market, paid for via a friends and family funding round of £45,000: “that bought lots of terrible, second-hand kitchen equipment which probably cost more to fix over a few years than just buying new, but needs must.”
The venue was up two flights of stairs at the back of an office building. “It was baffling to me that people were prepared to wait in a queue on weekends, but we graciously accepted their decision at the top of the 48 concrete stairs!”
Since then, investor Edition Capital has put in £1.2 million via three rounds, helping fund the three sites. The Kensal Rise branch opened four months ago.
Phillips is frank about sale plans, hoping to open another few branches in two years, before he expects his investor to want an exit. “I’d be interested in a partial exit too: I’ve been doing this for 10 years and not paid myself much at all. I’d like to be able to liquidate half my shares for a chunk of money.”
Is the restaurant business still a good way to make money or does he wish he’d gone into the City like so many school friends? Phillips is unwavering: “No one has stormed out just yet,” he says of having to pass on higher costs to customers’ bills. “People love to go out, eat out and drink out. That will never change.”
