Fresh details have emerged about the new Hawksmoor steak restaurant set to open in Liverpool.
The chain, named the best steak restaurant in the world earlier this year, will launch in the city's landmark Grade II-listed India Buildings on the corner of Brunswick Street and Fenwick Street in November.
After being founded in 2006 by school friends Will Beckett and Huw Gott, the chain has already branched out from its London base and expanded into Manchester, Edinburgh and New York.
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Ahead of its latest move, which comes before a further expansion into Dublin in the spring, co-founder Will Beckett spoke to the ECHO about the impact of the energy crisis, the role of private equity firm Graphite Capital in the company, the challenges around recruitment as well as the chain's sustainability goals, new Liverpool site and its future plans.
Speaking ahead of the announcement by Prime Minister Liz Truss on how the government will seek to tackle the rise in energy prices, Mr Beckett outlined how the crisis is impacting Hawksmoor and the hospitality industry as a whole.
He said: "At the moment the industry is coping with it through blind luck. If you're lucky enough, as Hawksmoor is, to be in contract and with an energy supplier that's solvent then you can ride it out. If you're not then you're in a world of trouble.
"A friend wrote to me this morning and said that he had been contacted by his gas supplier to say they would help him out by giving him the current rate for the next three years before everything gets worse which would have made his bills ten times higher from £3,800 in Q4 last year to £38,000 for Q4 this year.
"That wipes out everyone's profit and what it also means is inflation starts hitting people unevenly.
"Inflation at the moment is the same for all steak restaurants but if one of them suddenly is out of contract they are going to have to put their prices up massively while the rest of them don't and customers won't like that. They don't want to have to pay more just because someone is unlucky enough to be out of contact.
"If you're got money you can weather storms and the hospitality industry has none. It's massively indebted after covid when it wasn't able to trade and make any money.
"Its margins have been squished so your local pub or independent restaurant is operating with between 5% and 10% profits and all of that is going to get wiped out by the energy bills and they have no cash reserves that will help them get through it.
"Hawksmoor is lucky enough to be a big and successful company but most hospitality businesses are people living above a pub or restaurant. These are people's livelihoods and homes and it's a real problem."
Since 2013 Hawksmoor has been backed by private equity firm Graphite Capital which has previously invested in the likes of Game, Paperchase and Wagamama.
Asked whether being supported by the firm has helped Hawksmoor through the last few years, Mr Beckett said: "Being backed by a private equity firm really doesn't make that much of a difference. It just means that you're a daily successful business that someone wanted to invest in.
"It doesn't necessarily mean they're putting money into the business.
"We got through covid mostly because of the strength of the business. Over covid we lost about £5m and we had to borrow that to get through it. But we also had to trade well when we were allowed to be open. That relied on us having a strong business, keeping everyone together and opening up and hitting the ground running.
"Being a bigger and stronger business helped us get through covid but that's not the experience of most of the hospitality sector."
On the future of Hawksmoor's relationship with Graphite Capital, Mr Beckett added: "In 2013 we were a bit nervous about the perception of us receiving the investment. It's like the best private equity relationships in that they just let us get on with running the business.
"I think they would say they don't know much about running a restaurant business but they know lots about business full stop so they ask really interesting questions and make interesting challenges but we run the company and it's always been like that.
"At some point no doubt they will go and someone else will invest in the business but the really important thing for us is to find people who want to invest and back the founders and the brilliant people who we have working with us and let us get on with running the business."
In May 2021 Hawksmoor hit the headlines after it launched a recruitment recommend-a-friend scheme that rewarded its staff with up to £2,000 in a bid to fill job vacancies as restaurant bosses across the country reported a massive shortage of hospitality workers.
On those challenges, Mr Beckett said: "It's been challenging but there's something I quite enjoy about trying to meet challenges and work out what the best way to do it is. We've done a whole range of things including a recommend a friend scheme which was great and helped kick start us.
"But we've not been immune to the challenges and a lot of people have gone home to their own countries or left the industry because of Brexit or covid and it's been a challenge getting people into the industry.
"Hawksmoor hasn't traditionally been a business that's taken people on for their first job. You've gone somewhere else, worked for two years and done really well and then you've come here.
"We've had to work hard to hire people and get them up to speed but I think we've weathered it better than most people because we've put an unbelievable amount of time and energy into it.
"If we put a job advert out and you reply to it we will get back to you unbelievably quickly even if we want you or not.
"If you say you'd like to come to a job trial we will remind you twice and if we're going to make you an offer you will find out about it really quickly.
"We're on it all the time and that requires a lot of resources to get that right."
Hawksmoor is on the cusp of opening its latest restaurant in Liverpool in early to mid-November. Set to create around 80 jobs, the new site will have space for 150 covers but an exact opening date is still being kept under wraps.
Mr Beckett said Liverpool had been on the company's shortlist of new locations for "a really long time". He said: "We've always got in our heads a little shortlist of cities that we really like and where we would love to open a restaurant at some point.
"I've got quite a lot of connections with the city as I've got family around there and I support Liverpool FC. I've got lots of friends in Liverpool and I've always really loved the city. The building came up and that's why we decided to go for it now. We try as much as possible to open restaurants in beautiful heritage buildings.
"The India Buildings came up and we fell in love with it and the area and it just felt right. What really helps is that the restaurant in Manchester is full of people who want to do more.
"Manchester is such a fantastic group of people and such a great restaurant but unless people want to move to London, Edinburgh or New York, which are obviously fairly significant moves, it's been difficult for them to develop in their careers a little bit.
"But actually we've got quite a lot of people for who going to work in Liverpool is really no more or less difficult than it is going to work in Manchester. So the Liverpool restaurant will also create jobs in Manchester and give people some opportunities that they've not had."
While the decision to open a restaurant in Liverpool was made some time ago, the new site will be launching amid a cost of living crisis which is hitting everyone. With potential customers having less disposable income because of the sharp rise in bills and food prices, it remains to be seen whether Hawksmoor will continue its remarkably successful run on Merseyside.
Mr Becket continued: "It's a risk but all of these things are a risk to some extent. If we don't make money in the first year then so be it. We're trying to create something that has longevity and I'd love it to feel like a Liverpool institution.
"My view on the cost of living crisis, and bearing in mind that Hawksmoor has been through one recession already, is that people don't necessarily stop spending money above 'X'.
"They just think more carefully about where they spend their money and they are less accepting of mediocrity or poor value. I think you can buy something for £20 that feels like bad value and you can buy something for £50 that feels like good value.
"It's really important that when people leave Hawksmoor, irrespective of how much they spend, they feel like it was worth it."
Over the last few years sustainability and the environment have become increasingly a focus for businesses. Some have been busy putting new policies in place to improve their environment credentials. But Hawksmoor has been ahead of the curve for over a decade.
Mr Beckett said: "We're founder members of the Sustainable Restaurant Association which is an organisation that benchmarks restaurants on their ethics and sustainability.
"We've held the top three stars for 12 years and we've always been one of the most sustainable restaurant groups in the country. We're also a carbon neutral restaurant and we've just been certified as a B Corp, the first UK restaurant ever to do that.
"We source beef from about 600 farms across the country and we're starting to work with our suppliers on their carbon emissions and what they can do over the next two to three years to try and bring their levels down."
After the success of its New York restaurant, the company is on track to open its second site outside of the UK next year. A new Hawksmoor restaurant will launch in Dublin in the spring but, Mr Beckett said, that will not be the end of the chain's international ambitions.
He said: "We opened in New York last year and we've had some really great reviews there. We opened for lunch this week and it's our year anniversary soon. That's been simultaneously a joy and really hard work. We opened at the tail end of covid and it was quite difficult to travel there. Getting that going has been really interesting, challenging and rewarding.
"What we will see over the next few years is there is more to come in the US as well as in the UK. We want to balance ourselves a bit more between the US and the UK."
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