#191 - Hospitality Meets James Brown - Bars, Boldness & Big Dives

Phil [00:00:00]:
And a huge hospitality meets welcome to James Brown.

James [00:00:03]:
Thank you very much. Thank you very much for coming down to one of our venues to do this podcast as well.

Phil [00:00:07]:
My absolute pleasure. I can't believe it's taken me this long to come here, to be honest, because everybody talks about it. And now that you've given me a tour around, we are, for context in Brewdog Waterloo. Wow. That's all I can say. It's quite the place.

James [00:00:24]:
It's awesome, isn't it? Everyone thought peloton was going to be the next big thing and no one would go back to the gym. That pained me as a cyclist, that pained me a bit as well. And yeah, everything was going to be on teams and zoom. And whilst some of that stuff stayed, the reality is that people were sociable, sociable animals, right? And we want to be out and about and even just being in this business the past couple of days of the football on and people want to experience things together. And whilst activity and bowling and competitive socializing is a huge thing, it's actually, it's nothing without the people and the connection between the people. And we took a big bet and this wasn't the only site we opened during COVID We prepared to open during COVID We also did a big site in Vegas as well as multiple other locations around the world. And we really believed that hospitality and had a purpose and it was part of those communities and it was, it was what people wanted. And I think hopefully we were proven right and not just for us, but for hospitality and other operators around the country.

Phil [00:01:26]:
Yeah, you're here to that. I mean, you're getting right on message straight away as well, which is good. It's good. He didn't even need to brief you.

James [00:01:33]:
They were just passionate hospitality people, you know, and there was moments in time, it was pretty dark place for all of us in the industry. Right. And if you, if you'd have read the paper and I wasn't the papers, I read the news at the time and thought we were all going to be in apartments on peloton bikes. That'd be a pretty depressed place to be for the rest of my life. So, yeah, it was what I often talk about previously. Quite often we talk about work life balance and actually I find for myself, and he agreed, is that work life integration is often a really nice way to how do you integrate your life to your work and make it work? For me, that means sometimes taking my family around the world and visiting brewdog pubs, but back to what I do, a real privilege of leading brew dogs bar division as CEO. Look, after all our global business, I've been here for nine years. I love it.

James [00:02:24]:
We get to do some really exciting projects. Never would have in my wildest dreams when I was a bartender would have ever been thought I'd have opened a bar in Seoul and South Korea, or Brisbane or in Las Vegas. We got to do some amazing projects or to do things like this, you know, so prepared that and on the side, and see on the side, but becoming bigger and bigger as we speak during that journey of opening brewdog bars and leading that business, I'm probably a natural problem solver. And I was really frustrated about the kind of how tips worked for staff and one, a little bit about the general industry fairness. But at the same time, just as we moved cashless, the lack of liquidity when I was a bartender back in 2001, two, three, we were to get a big bucket at the end of the night and we'd pour it onto the bar and we'd divide up the money. And if you'd got home early, you had a system where your friends and your colleagues would be overviewing that and, okay, that you'd get a hazed a few times, but you get a fair deal and you wouldn't be shortchanged. And you might get, if you left early and everyone was unhappy about it for whatever reason, you might get in five p coins. But it was the instant liquidity of tips that made it the reason why I joined hospitality and didn't go work in River island or next or H and M.

James [00:03:48]:
And that liquidity of tips and just the funds itself is a really important part of the hospitality proposition. And I think that was dying with cashless, and I wanted to try and fix it for workers so that there was born tip jarring. So that's my second job being a co founder of Tipjar, and it's doing really well. It's got 25 full time staff, full time CEO Ben, who does a much better job running it than I ever would. And, yeah, 50,000 users, three and a half thousand venues collecting tips, and it should be on track to do 50 million of tips through their platform this year.

Phil [00:04:25]:
Nice.

James [00:04:25]:
And we get that money to people way quicker than you would otherwise, and they get full transparency and they understand fairness of splitting and all that stuff. So, yeah, yeah, two jobs.

Phil [00:04:35]:
How the hell do you have time to do all that?

James [00:04:37]:
Going back to my original point, work life integration, you know, so I'm lucky, and we've all got friends who are teachers and doctors and nurses and the stuff that's going on in the NHS and you hear at dinner parties or barbecues or whenever you're chatting to them about how frustrated they are, the jobs. I super lucky that I fell in. Like many people in this industry, I kind of didn't plan to be here, but started and stuck around and then stayed for a bit longer and then got realized that I couldn't probably do anything else. Became a hospitality lifer.

Phil [00:05:12]:
Yeah, that's a lovely segue, actually, into commencing your journey. But I have to get the joke out of the way first, which I'm sure you've never heard before. How do you do all of that whilst also being one of the greatest blues singers of all time? First time you've heard that joke?

James [00:05:29]:
No, actually, when I was younger, I used to hate it. As I got older, I realized that it was actually a really nice way to break the ice with people. People liked it and I get travel on passport control in the US. People have a good laugh. And for what's something that I probably disliked when I was a teenager because I found it awkward. I actually think it's one of the best things. It's good fun to have fun with people writing.

Phil [00:05:53]:
Yeah.

James [00:05:53]:
If it makes people smile and they ask me to do a song or rejoke the fact that I'm probably the worst singer the two James Brown and I've got the least amount of soul and you definitely shouldn't see me dance, it's probably good fun. So as you mature and you start to preach a bit. So, yeah, I find it funny. Something that I find awkward, probably, as a teenager, like many things, but, yeah, now I enjoyed good fun.

Phil [00:06:15]:
Yeah, I think everybody probably has a relationship with their name of some description. Being called street was a moment of ridicule throughout my teenage years. But as you say, it's actually. Now I have this saying, when, you know, if you're ever, like, taking on a service or something over the phone, people say, what's your name? And I go, Phil Street. I automatically go into the next line, which is as in road, because people can't believe that somebody would have a name like street. But there we are.

James [00:06:44]:
I used to work with a guy in the same business called Dean Martin.

Phil [00:06:47]:
So we had to get the band back together.

James [00:06:51]:
We get the band back together, indeed.

Phil [00:06:53]:
Nice, right, well, yeah, let's go all the way back. Obviously, you've mentioned that you have been a bartender in your life, but was that your actual starting point in society?

James [00:07:01]:
No, it wasn't actually my starting point in hospitality was really rocky. I wanted to be a professional cyclist when I was younger. In fact, actually, I didn't want to be. I just really loved cycling. I lived in a rural community and the shows locked fine in Argyle, west of Scotland, probably an hour west to Glasgow. And as a teenager living in a village where there was only a shop and nothing else. And my friends lived in villages further away. And the way to get around was get a lift from an older brother.

James [00:07:30]:
Or sometimes the only solution to it independently was to get a bike. So I did that. Got a bit good at it, started to buy the magazines. Wish you my age, but I used it. Lycra, probably, at the time. Yeah, it was probably a pretty trendy thing. Cycling is a lot more trendy now than it was then, which is frustrating. And I used to buy the magazines and get postal orders from the post office in my village and send away for bits and stuff.

James [00:07:57]:
And then that became more thing. And then to fund that, at the age of 14, I got a job in a chip shop in Verrari. Chip shop, which is anyone who knows it as a kind of seaside fishing village, took it former fishing village, gym on Loch Fyne with a pier and this white building. It's got castle, it's picturesque, it's a great tourist destination. So in the summer, all the local kids have to muck in and keep their businesses alive. And my job that summer was peeling potatoes and then chipping them. And then the rocky part and you.

Phil [00:08:29]:
Still came into hospitality.

James [00:08:31]:
The rocky part of the start was, I was lucky. The old guy that owned it, Cochino. There was an italian family that owned the chip shop, used to make sure I got fed and build me up, so I used to get a double fish supper for my tea. God knows what's done to my arteries every day, just to make sure I had double everything. And as a teenage boy who cycling to and from work 13 miles, I could eat a lot. So, yeah, that was great fun. The rocky part was that they got a machine to do it second summer, so it was kind of semi major Dundon, but they did help put me front house a bit and get me on for a while. But, yeah, as soon as I could, I really wanted to be a bartender and personal life.

James [00:09:08]:
My parents both worked in the NHS and then we moved to Sheffield in between that time. So I got a job with Mitchell and Butlers when I was 18 in Sheffield city centre. So I'd seen extremes of hospitality from a local tourist town in Scotland and rural Scotland, peeling potatoes to city centre pub life, doing a lot of half lager limes for the local. The local ladies used to come in and, yeah, it was good fun. Yeah, I enjoyed every minute of the bar life of Michelin brothers. It was great, right?

Phil [00:09:42]:
Yeah, yeah. So what year are we in here?

James [00:09:45]:
So that would have been 2000. So I was 18, so probably 2001. Probably just finished a levels, or just about two a levels. Probably was desperate. I loved hospitality and I loved the access to funds and money and to have cash, that wasn't a. It didn't come with constraints that parents would put on cash given to you. So I'm having my own money and freedom and independence was really important to me at that age and hospitality gave me that root and the glamour of the nightlife, of working at a bar. And we were actually a feeder.

James [00:10:17]:
The bar. I worked in a feeder bar to gate Crasher and Sheffield's obviously famous club night and game club. We sell tickets for it, so we knew the bouncers and the promoter, so we'd finish work and go to the club afterwards. So I became part of that scene and then just had such a great time.

Phil [00:10:33]:
Yeah. God, it's. Time flies, I suppose. But were you hook, line and sinker in at this point, did you.

James [00:10:40]:
Oh, no, no, definitely not. Definitely not. My parents both were in the NHS and wanted me to be a doctor. I was going to. I had a choice. When I went to. When I did my levels, I suddenly realized that I could apply for a scottish uni and qualify for free education. So, thank you to all your english taxpayer listeners to get to pay for my degree with no tuition fees.

James [00:11:02]:
So, yeah, I basically applied to go back to do biochemistry at Glasgow University and that was my. All the plan was always to be pressed. I probably had probably realized at that point, I probably couldn't become personal. I didn't have in my head, I probably had the fitness levels and I liked riding my bike. I didn't have the psychological discipline to basically give. To be a professional psychologist, you have to give up your life. I didn't have that. I look back now and can really confirm that I didn't have it at the time.

James [00:11:28]:
I probably didn't know for certain. But, yeah, I went back to. Back to Glasgow for uni. My sister actually lived there. She was a bit older and she'd never moved when my parents moved and went back to city where she lived and went to Glasgow Uni. And again, for freedom of money and independence from parents, I got a job. In fact, I was meant to be transferred from Mitchell and Butler's to Glasgow. And I turned up on my first day where I was meant to work.

James [00:11:55]:
So arranged through my manager and area manager, I turned up to the drum and monkey on Renfield street in Glasgow and they said I'd never heard of me and they didn't have a shift for me. Really? Yeah, yeah. So my friend gave me some advice and said, you should go dress all in black, go to the busiest, coolest bar that looks packed in the city centre on a busy day and ask if they've got any jobs. And then I did that for a company called G one group run by Steph and King. And I walked into the social and roller exchange square on a Saturday. It just opened and it gave us a really cool place, great crowd place. I want to be in a lively. Yeah, it was probably the coolest bar in Glasgow for quite a few years, even after that.

James [00:12:36]:
And I said, you got any jobs? And they said, can you make a french martini? I went, yep. And they went, can you start now? You start in an hour. And I went, I can start an hour. And I ended up working for that business for twelve years.

Phil [00:12:47]:
Right. Could you make a french martini?

James [00:12:49]:
I could, yeah, I actually could. Probably not as good as the ones they were making then, but yeah, I could make it and I could check my time in Michelin polls, I'd learned a bit of that stuff and, yeah, so that was the story of getting into it, but I still wasn't in, I was still trying to do uni and transient and it slowly grabbed me and kept me, if that makes sense.

Phil [00:13:10]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what a sliding doors moment right there. 100% like you turn up to Michelin Butlers and they do, they have heard of you. Who knows, right. What happens?

James [00:13:22]:
I don't know, but I mean, even when I walked into the pub, I wasn't outside. Maybe this isn't the place for me. It wasn't quite the same vibe as.

Phil [00:13:30]:
The one it was meant to be then.

James [00:13:31]:
Yeah, so maybe, and maybe I wouldn't have stuck at it, but yeah, it's definitely sliding doors moment. And looking back, everyone has those moments and that was definitely one for me.

Phil [00:13:40]:
Yeah, absolutely.

James [00:13:41]:
And also just, even just walking into a business that was growing and what people don't realize about their careers, and I often give advice to my team, is that a value in any job is not just about the money, the environment you're in, but it's also about the potential trajectory you're on. And I walked into a business, g one group, I never knew were going to be growing or ambitious or were innovative or wanting to do new things. I just looked at the place that I liked to work in and I was lucky, but I happened to be lucky to join a business that was growing and needed talent. Quite liked young people who were cheaper and a bit less experienced and were willing to do things and work harder and do longer hours and different stuff. It all worked out that, yeah. Not just the opportunity to work there, but the opportunities in the future that they had.

Phil [00:14:28]:
Yeah, I think there's great messages all round in there, right around the fact that it's. Yeah, it's good to plan and you'll have ideas and goals about where you want to go, but I suppose, especially at this point in your life, you don't necessarily know that this is the ultimate trajectory for you. You're just kind of going with the flow of things. So while you're in that mental state, why not seek out the places that look cool that you feel like, yeah, I could work here.

James [00:14:52]:
Yeah. It aligned with myself for this place. And probably still at that time, I can't remember, but I could have probably just. There was no Internet. There probably was, but I didn't have a computer that time. But I could have gone and looked on the paper and gone and seen a river island job or, again, some other high street and could have gone into retail, but I didn't. And I just loved the glamour and the excitement of hospitality was more exciting at that time.

Phil [00:15:16]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what happened next? How long are you there?

James [00:15:19]:
So I join and I just love it. The people there are great. All the other bartenders, they're serious mixologists, so I get into that. Probably spent too much of my time flipping a bottle around and trying to be a flip. Yeah, yeah. I'm really embarrassed to say. There's a few of my older friends have got a couple of videos that have ever appeared on Instagram. I'd deny it was me, but, yeah, a bit cheesy.

Phil [00:15:42]:
If you're listening, send them in.

James [00:15:45]:
And, yeah, became. I just loved it and became boring. Our supervisor, which effectively meant I got to do breaks and make sure we get enough ice and the bars were set up and garnishes and stuff, and then we got to write some cocktail lists and other bits and bobs. And again, the company was innovative, looking to grow trusted young people and had good managers, also had some terrible managers that you could step up and do things you probably shouldn't have done because there's terrible managers and a bar supervisor and someone who had me was the training manager when I first joined but then became my area manager, David McDowell. I'd actually planned to disappear off in a year traveling with another bartender and be a bartender and started off in Barcelona, but basically bartender around Europe and handed him my notice. And Dave Medow appeared and took me for a walk around Royal Exchange square and said I could be an assistant manager. So I went from four pounds 15 pence an hour to four pounds 55 an hour to be an assistant manager, and I stayed.

Phil [00:16:50]:
Yeah, but you know what? Regardless of the fact that you didn't actually go off traveling in that moment.

James [00:16:54]:
Oh, the friend that went on his own was pretty peeved. And again, another sliding doors moment. I'm glad I stayed. It worked out for me. But often, I think what would have happened if I'd have disappeared off to Barcelona for the summer and then bobbed around Europe being a bartend? I don't know.

Phil [00:17:09]:
Yeah. But I think that what it does also highlight is that that skill that you've learned now at this point in your career is some thing that you could literally take anywhere in the world, and you'd probably walk into a job.

James [00:17:22]:
I mean, at least often I fantasize when life's difficult and complicated and which you can imagine is leading the business liberation sometimes and politics, people challenge. Whatever the problem of the day is, sometimes I do fantasize. If I just going to, I don't know, a greek, greek town for the summer and flare, bartend with. With some. Yeah, some of the best in the market, some of these older greek bartenders that have those kind of holiday moments. Maybe I'd have to dust off, dust off my flare skills and probably catch up with the latest trends and both drinks and flair style, but, yeah, sometimes that would be nice.

Phil [00:18:01]:
Yeah, maybe one day. I was talking to somebody. I did a podcast for the Institute of Hospitality the other week around the concept of retirement, which is a subject that, you know, probably we don't really talk about a lot.

James [00:18:15]:
It's definitely a more difficult one. In hospitality, people tend to, as they drift in, they also probably drift out and something that definitely interesting.

Phil [00:18:23]:
Yeah. But on the back of that, even under the fullness of discussion, it wasn't something I'd really thought about. I thought what a cool way to retire in the vertical. Comets would be to go to somewhere like Greece or Spain and go and, you know, wait tables. Yeah.

James [00:18:40]:
I was like, it's one of those seems like a fantasy in reality, and it might be more difficult.

Phil [00:18:45]:
Yeah. Well, indeed, indeed. But, yeah. You know, keeps you active, keeps you engrossed in conversation with people. If you're a people person, that's all good stuff. But anyway, that's. We're not near retirement yet, but yeah. So assistant manager under the watchful guise of Mister McDowell.

James [00:19:02]:
Yeah, he was there at manager's time when he was again, young in a great business.

Phil [00:19:06]:
He's not going on to do anything in his career, is he?

James [00:19:07]:
I know, I know, again, but these are the things that happen. You can work with people who are ambitious and talented and it's a really key thing to be not just in the business that's growing, but around people that are growing and ambitious as well. And again, I walked into the right location, the right company, and that's worked out well for us. And I think both David and I would look back at our time when G one and saw that kind of apprenticeship from the owner, Stephen King, which was just incredible, you know, he was a great entrepreneur, would buy freeholds of buildings. And when I was working at the Barton, I didn't understand this, but we traded and social from 08:00 a.m. till 03:00 a.m. you know. So it was a very weird juxtaposition to work a day shift and see a couple of grannies in having an omelet and a soup and a sandwich on a table that you knew someone was dancing on the night before.

James [00:19:57]:
Right. And it was a really hard thing to do because you have to clean out stands, have to be good and the stretch of the time, the operation, you have to have good management and good rostering and stuff. And yeah, it was like he was really good at running hospitality businesses and was passionate about it. And we learned so much not just from that, but central function, management, service delivery to operators, from graphics teams to it, all that stuff. We learnt a ton in there and then. Fantastic entrepreneur. If people haven't been to any of these venues, I highly recommend it.

Phil [00:20:30]:
Tough to work for somebody like that in the sense that, you know, if you've got direct access, sometimes it can be, you know, the making of you for sure, but also maybe have to do a lot of soul searching.

James [00:20:41]:
I didn't find it tough and I was lucky. So I'd say this about many businesses and many, especially when you're working for entrepreneur owners, if you love what you do and you're ambitious and there's a reason to be there and you've got, you're lucky enough. I had freedom. I didn't have any kids at the time. And all that stuff, so I could throw myself at work. And I loved it. It was almost like a hobby for me at the time that I just loved it. How much? How high, do you tell me? Like, yeah, I'll be there.

James [00:21:06]:
One time I got a phone call saying, hey, we're buying a couple of pubs tomorrow. It was like a late night call. Can you be there? 08:00 a.m. and I was like, yep, three bags full, sir. And, yeah, and I loved that part of it. And, yeah, and at the same time, he was really good at listening to young people in the business about what other young people wanted. And we created loads of concepts, from ragged concepts to karaoke concepts. I was laughing the other day because Stormzy's new club in London, the house party one, we did one called Flat Zero one in Glasgow, it was just basically exactly what they've done.

James [00:21:42]:
It was a house party. We bought the kitchen off eBay, they got a builder to put it in, and we used to sell frosty jacks and boxes of wine and all sorts of fun stuff. And, yeah, it was great. But, yeah, we got to have some great fun vesting real money, doing real businesses and understanding how they worked. And the great thing about Stefan's businesses were that he loved doing different stuff. So ending from a 69 p, a drink nightclub to a high end cinema to a regular cinema. So we put the first imax into Perth and central Scotland. So it wasn't one of those, I've got to do that and interact with IMAX organization and do business cases around that and figure out how that works to hotels, high end hotels, budget hotels.

James [00:22:24]:
We got to do, got to do all, you know, and from fit out design and be involved in those conversations and, yeah, it was just great fun. Yeah, really great fun. And I find myself so lucky and.

Phil [00:22:35]:
Yeah, so I suppose that's half the battle, though, isn't it? Like, I mean, you, what if, again, sliding doors that you can never really know. What if you go and work for these people and they're a nightmare or you don't?

James [00:22:49]:
It also depends on your attitude towards it, right. And, like, there were definitely difficult moments and things didn't go right and we had to own that. And as operators on the operator side, like, you're the one that's there on a Friday night or Saturday night when it's either busy or challenging or quiet, and sometimes that's the hardest challenge, when it's quiet. Yeah, you have to own it, whether the marketing department supporting you, whatever. So Stefan really taught us that kind of accountability piece and. Yeah, it was, it was such a great learning curve in our career.

Phil [00:23:17]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So are you in now? Are you hook, line and sinker?

James [00:23:23]:
This is the path I couldn't imagine working anywhere else. I probably. I don't think I could imagine them employing me either, because I would be getting very frustrated.

Phil [00:23:32]:
Right.

James [00:23:33]:
And then over and above that, if I ever did move anywhere else, I'd actively seek hospitality people to come and join me. Because when you think about. And I was talking about this with someone the other day, I can't remember who, but think about what you've gone through as a hospitality operator. You need a general manager of business. When I was a general manager, I ended up being the general manager of the social that I was a bartender in. And before, I went through other things but fire alarms, sprinklers going off, fuel in service, we had serious incidents of fights, we had like protests outside, all stuff that happens in city centres, you know, licensing visits, anything that goes wrong could go wrong, power goes off, you name it. And as a general manager, you just have to deal with this stuff and there's points where there's not. What else can you.

James [00:24:16]:
What else can you throw at me? You know? So that kind of problem solving attitude that hospitalized people have, because you know that if something goes wrong, you've still got to serve the person their burger for lunch or. Yeah, like, you've got to get the pint across the bar. If you run out of gas or the sail of cool has gone down, you're a problem solver and you're a doer and it all comes back to you. And I think often, I'd say my parents were probably, like, when I told them I was going to leave, you need to be a full time manager of a pub, they didn't really understand it. But what people don't understand is when I was 21, at the time I was running social, I was doing a couple, like 60, 70 grand a week. I was running a multi million pound business with huge profitability at 21. And when you think about the amount of individual businesses where you've got people in their twenties managing groups of 20 people plus millions of pounds of revenue, it's a lot. And I think that our sector is unique to that.

James [00:25:12]:
And when you fast forward a few years and people have done that a few times across different businesses, they become pretty darn good at fixing stuff and problem solving, and especially people management stuff as well, because you have to, because you're often on your own head. Officer not there. When you've got your team in, you're dealing with 18 1920 year olds who come with problems and challenges. And I often talk to my managers today, like, the stuff they have to deal with today. Social media, I didn't have to deal with at the time. And I remember actually someone from marketing called me when I was a manager saying, hey, there's this new thing called Bebo, we want you to post on it once a week. And I basically told them to get lost because I was like, well, I'm running a pub here. I've got busy, I've got a couple hundred customers to feed a lunchtime because the place was super busy.

James [00:25:58]:
And, yeah, so what they have to do, deal with now, and from all angles, you become experts in marketing and social and content, and even if you can't do it yourself, you know how to review it and get your team to do it for you. And, yeah, I think if you've been a pub, I think you're probably one of the most goddamn qualified people in the country, to be honest. I know that sounds really odd to non pub people, but you just deal.

Phil [00:26:21]:
With so much and it becomes second nature, so you don't even probably realize that you end up problem solving.

James [00:26:28]:
Yeah, I don't think you realize that, but I think you just get your sleeves rolled up and get it done because you have to, you know, because the pub have to open or has to stay open or whatever it might be. Yeah.

Phil [00:26:36]:
But these are great skills to take into your life, right? Whatever you're doing at home, you know, if there's a. I don't know, a door falls off its hinges. Problem solve, let's do it. Exactly, yeah. That's such a random thing. I don't think I've ever had a door fall off its hinges, but there.

James [00:26:52]:
We are, I think probably quite a lot. We had these again, the same pub, actually, these giant doors, and they used to also, my time as the manager would have to stay in because the alarm wouldn't set. Keys stuck in, even just things like at home, when you get stuck in Lockham, wife's like, we need to call her, we need to call her locksmith. Nah, this has happened to me so many times, locking up a pub at night and I wasn't hanging around in the city centre of Glasgow till five in the morning waiting for it. So basically you'd learn tricks of the train to get stuff sorted and. Yeah, so, yeah, well, you would call it a locksmith and they'd go, oh, next time, just do this and you'd fix this.

Phil [00:27:28]:
So you're climbing the ranks with G one.

James [00:27:31]:
Yeah. Time yesterday, GM and social for a few years, loved it. Again, it was a growing business, so we'd get to do other projects and help out other pubs. And like anyone, my advice is that make sure if you want to grow your career and you want to grow fast, put your hand up to help out when things need done. So the other thing about hospitality, while it's great for other stuff, there's also some people in it that probably shouldn't be in the business. And there's often things that go wrong because you don't have the skill set or there's not enough people in it. Probably as a manager, go and help out. Stop problems, go and help out.

James [00:28:04]:
So that's what I did and eventually got for the job, to be a area manager. So I got given five locations in Glasgow, did what everyone does in that moment in time. I tried to be the general manager of super GM of five sites, rather than being an area manager, which is a completely different skillset. I didn't realize I had time.

Phil [00:28:25]:
That was part of the learning curve, wasn't it?

James [00:28:27]:
And I had great area managers like Dave, who's still an area manager at the time, the senior we called bdms, he was a senior BDM and I was a kind of young Padawan doing five sites and he probably had like 16 or 17 at the time. And I got to learn from those around me in that business and over time just gathered more and more stuff because g one was growing and we were doing interesting stuff. So, yeah, Gran Ashton Lane. It's funny, I always got given the social, no matter what, whenever we split the sites up and did restructure, I always got given the social. I could never get rid of it because it was always mine, because I of made my career there and it was always kind of synonymous with that side. So, yeah, yeah.

Phil [00:29:06]:
So what happened next?

James [00:29:08]:
Kept growing, you know, g one kept growing. I got, again, we had challenges, so I kind of got given more, more challenges, kind of family dining concept in East Cobra Height, not far from actually where I live now, actually geographically, I don't ever drive past it, but it was a challenge, challenge for both Dave and I in that business, and probably still as a challenge, just a difficult location. But we got given loads of staff and across a broad spectrum from nightclubs to hotels, and we generally got given full p and l accountability to manage it. So kept going to become head of a division in that business as it got bigger and the structure grew and changed to then running central departments to become what was they called a business development director, which looked, after all. So the kind of lead of all the area managers, and Dave was the kind of Ops director shook MD that business at that time. And yeah, it was great, great fun. And I got to 30 at that point, and I was really keen. David buggered off to brew dog at that time, and I was really keen to see the world and do more exciting and interesting things.

James [00:30:15]:
And I really wanted to move to London. And I took a job with Wasabi, Wasabi sushi and Bento, looking after. I think they had 40 ish locations at the time, in that time there for around a year, and very different business. Oh, crazy business. But the truth is, I was actually interviewing for loads of different jobs and I couldn't get a kind of casual. I interviewed for bills, I interviewed for Cafe Rouge of old places. I'm glad I didn't get that one. Sorry if anyone was listening to Caffre Rouge and they all said to me, you don't have any London experience.

James [00:30:47]:
And they didn't even know who g one was. They didn't have any clue who g one were. I used to also go to interviews with like, a little brochure on my way out of g one. I took like four or five of these little brochures of all our sites, just so they could see what we were doing. And it was stuff they were doing, if you know, some really cool stuff, really high spend, high capex, really big projects, really good stuff. And it wasn't one thing, so people confused. Why don't you just do one thing over and over again? Well, that's not the model. It was multiple different things and no longer experience.

James [00:31:20]:
So I ended up doing wasabi, got my London experience, but really understood that what hospitality meant for me was spending more time with the guest and who Wasabi was in and out to the point where I didn't even have any Wi Fi in. So you don't want anyone. Dwell time was like the reverse of dwell time. You measure in hospitality like reducing. It was a great learning curve. Allen. Loads about sociology, loads about rice, loads about managing people from different cultures, which you probably don't get in Scotland. Predominantly.

James [00:31:49]:
All your team are from Scotland, and some foreign international students, which are great for that kind of diversity, but probably not enough. And to understand how to manage people in London, which is different, really learned about really high volume locations and train station landlords opening new locations that we got to some new locations in New York at the time, which is the reason why I joined.

Phil [00:32:11]:
Who knew a train station landlord would be useful in the future?

James [00:32:15]:
Oh, no. Yeah, it worked out, worked out really, really helpful as we sit in a train station landlord location now. And yeah, I learned a lot. But then Prudhoe picked up the phone and said, hey, we've got more going on, got some big expansion happening. We had to be 18 locations at the time. And yeah, there was some exciting stuff happening. I went, you know what, probably for me, culturally, it's better. I've enjoyed QSR a little bit, but I can see myself that you didn't get that kind of in depth enjoyment of a customer.

James [00:32:42]:
It was a factory, lovely business, lovely people, but made the choice to join Brewdog and joined us. Ops director, then retail Ops director, then retail director, then MD, and then now CEO. So the role doesn't feel like it's changed that much, but it's just, we just got bigger. And then I try and do as much as what I used to do today as possible, because often it's about talking to bartenders and talking to servers and kitchen staff, see how they're getting on, what can we do to make their lives better? And I think it doesn't necessarily have to be the case, but I think great head office functions works really well, is when those people who work in head house functions can really connect with the people in the venues and understand what their challenges and what they face every day. And the customer really comes first. I've been a manager and had finance for me in the middle of London saying, hey, I really need this rapport now. Now I'm like, well, I've got customers waiting, what do you want me to do? And often head office apartments can become that. And when I joined, head office function was called like HQ, HQ bars or something like that, like head office for bars.

James [00:33:52]:
And I was like, you know, we should be called the bar support team and our job. So language is really important to me, how we, how we support those. The bars business is really important, so we don't exist if they don't exist. And Covid taught us that. Right? So, and there's also, there's no point in having someone in head office if they're not enabling guest experience or enabling revenue or doing something. And I that helps the manager spend more time on the floor. So I'm a big believer in trying to one of James Watts lines, but burn bureaucracy, minimal paperwork as possible. Don't want managers in offices wanting them out front, hands on and leading that customer experience, because that's the most important thing.

James [00:34:30]:
So, yeah, my view of my job now is to enable that. And the best way to do that is speak to as many managers as possible. Say, what can we do better? We often get our GM's together, and last time we got them together in one of our sites in Berlin. My team wince when I say this, but I remind everyone in the room that we work for them and it's our job to make their lives easier and better. And if we're not doing that, hold us accountable.

Phil [00:34:53]:
Such an important perspective, I think, on things, especially in the time that we're in. It's widely talked about that it's tough to find people and all of that kind of thing. And, in fact, this happens pretty much in every single conversation I have with people. Now, if you are a leader in a business, it's all about creating a space that people want to be. You want to have an impact.

James [00:35:17]:
They can go anywhere. There's a free market.

Phil [00:35:19]:
Absolutely. So I think if you're not focused in that way, then you quickly get left behind.

James [00:35:23]:
Yeah, agreed. I think that it's funny, we actually don't struggle to find good people, actually. I think I would genuinely look at our entire estate across the world and say that a big factor for that is, I think that people see it as a fun, exciting brand that's growing and people do see. We talked earlier about the kind of velocity of growth and ambition in the business. People say that's where you attract young, ambitious, all ambitious people. We attract and they want to come and build their career with us. I think that makes our life a bit easier as well. And we've got some great people.

Phil [00:35:56]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, people is what it's all about. Right? You can't have a great business without good people.

James [00:36:01]:
Yeah, agreed.

Phil [00:36:03]:
Yeah. God, we're just an echo chamber.

James [00:36:06]:
We're really lucky in the fact that we can sell excitement of travel. Right now I've got four or five staff in Germany, managers included, helping out because we've got Frankfurt, three sites in Berlin, site in Frankfurt, and the site in Hamburg. Where Hamburg's right next to the stadium.

Phil [00:36:24]:
And for context, we're recording this right.

James [00:36:26]:
In the middle of the euros. Yeah. And the. Yeah. And then phone call. I got a text the weekend saying, hey, can so and so stay here for another two weeks? I'm like, cool for me. Got to check with their manager and their area manager. Yeah.

James [00:36:41]:
Like, I'm cool with that. And then. But other people in the business. See that? And they like to travel and like to experience these things, and we hate to do a lot. And the guy who runs Australia and Asia for us used to be an assistant manager in Newcastle bar. We've got. If you go to Ohio, there's some. Most of our managers are scottish.

James [00:36:59]:
I don't know why that happened. We sent one person who then brought out their boyfriend to became the manager as well. They ended up getting married and they now run pubs for us out there. And they've built families and got kids. And there's a little cluster of scottish people in Ohio. And, yeah, we often joke that we export great beer and great people around the world.

Phil [00:37:19]:
Let's not tell them about that. There's something about America in Scotland, though, because I remember I did a student to a little town in New Jersey called Lavalette, befriended the exact chef of the bosses business. And he and his family took me to, like, this local fair that was going on. And the big focal point of that was a massive scottish piping band. It was like, what the hell?

James [00:37:44]:
We get a lot of that when we're there. When we opened our first location in Ohio, and people need to understand, we built, like, a $50 million brewery with a huge taproom on the side of it. And it was actually the first really big thing we'd done before. It was mainly small pubs and we'd hired 50 staff, thinking, yeah, that'd be enough. And we waited. Also, we had budget and really tight cash constraints on. Actually, we were, as always, close to running out of cash. Perennial problem at Brewdog as we grew.

James [00:38:14]:
And so we had 50 staffing, that'd be enough. In reality, we probably needed 150. It was so busy. And what we didn't understand was that James and Martin had a tv show. They had a tv show out there. We didn't understand their popularity. We had people. They had the four or five series on cable tv.

James [00:38:26]:
We had people driving rvs from Texas for days to come to the opening. And we're like. It was like a stadium queue, people outside. So we gulped a bit and we naively only hired servers and bartenders. And we needed loads of buses, like, loads of buses and loads of food runners at the same time. But when we opened that location in the US, we were just kind of blown away with the response to that business and just how many people we needed. So going back to our kind of transport, I think on the night time, after the first day, I made about five phone calls saying, hey, can you come to America? And they went, yeah, when thinking I was going to say two or three weeks or next month, I was like, I can get you on a plane tomorrow morning. So we did a lot of that stuff.

James [00:39:16]:
It was a fantastic experience out in the US.

Phil [00:39:19]:
Yeah. I think this is one of the joy, certainly from the outside looking in, of brewdog, obviously, scottish business. That's kind of close to my heart a little bit, given that I'm born and bred from that part of the world. But you guys just seem to. There's no rule book, really. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. It's almost like a shoot first and then answer the questions later rather than ask.

James [00:39:42]:
Sometimes it might seem like that and sometimes that's true, but often there's strategy behind that. And we often say that the only rules are, are we really passionate about it, do we love it and does it help us grow our beer business? And you could look at some of our decisions in the past and go, we didn't. They didn't meet those. So we opened a hot dog restaurant in angel, for example. Cheapest thing we've ever done. Disaster.

Phil [00:40:03]:
Right. We're actually willing to try it.

James [00:40:06]:
Yeah, we tried it and we wouldn't try it now because we probably know ourselves well enough. So, for example, the hot dog restaurant had a. I think I had 15 hot dogs on the menu. And they all came from different suppliers. All were like, super niche products, totally over specced to the point where we had to sell them for too expensive and we'd kind of gone too highbrow on the whole thing and we'd missed the market. Not really. Consider the customer expectation. And also, when you're thinking about going out for dinner, you should go for a burger, pizza, pasta, thai.

James [00:40:35]:
I was getting Indiana. Get some great vietnamese. Like, you probably have to go out quite a long time before you fancy it going to a dedicated hot dog restaurant. So. Yeah, but so we definitely. You can see why there's no rule book. But that rule book has been defined over time. The more mistakes we made.

James [00:40:53]:
Again, when we went to the US, we kind of fell in love with dive bars in the US and just how popular they were. And we thought in our genius, that this concept should come to the UK. So I'm really glad that I've not got a photo to show you, but we decided after the story of opening this big bar in Ohio that we wanted to bring a dive bar concept back to the UK. And we thought Homerton needed one. So we got this business in Homerton and it was already pretty rough. And ready and we made it a lot more rough and ready. Blanked out the windows and it had a brew dog bar inside and had craft beer and stuff. So it was kind of crafty.

James [00:41:30]:
But yeah.

Phil [00:41:31]:
What is a dive bar?

James [00:41:33]:
So a dive bar in the US is often dark. Could be in a strip mall, it could be on a high street. It can also just be anywhere really. Sometimes as a side of a garage where you basically have a kind of tiny entrance. Often kind of rock and roll themed. Lots of stickers on the windows and inside kind of dark. There's a really good one, the best one in London. Is it called Jimmy's in Angel? Have you ever been to Jimmy's and Angel? It's like very american Barbara.

James [00:41:58]:
Like it's a bit diveye. Cheap drinks don't imagine great quality but the stereotypical beers are probably pabs, blue ribbon for a dollar or $2 in a bottle and rolling rock something like that for one or $2 probably showing, probably like ten, $5 now is the price point. It's probably got a pool table but don't expect good pool. It's probably got the QNS missing and a rip and then they've probably got burst sofa and a jukebox and probably a neon somewhere. That's what dive bar is to us. And they just have a kind of cultural reference in the US and speak to all types of communities from truck drivers that have finished their shift and fancy a beer to students do sorts of stuff. So we kind of film over some of the type of hours we went and thought it was a good idea to bring one back.

Phil [00:42:46]:
Yeah, but I think the key thing here is the willingness to make mistakes. Like, I mean, you know, because otherwise how do you push the boundaries if you keep playing safe? I've got a saying which I think I made up. I don't know, might be a standardized version of somebody else's thoughts. Usually the way it works but nothing spectacular happens. Walking down the path of least resistance. Yeah, and that's. I haven't always lived my life by that mantra but there's been a few times where I've made safe decisions and kind of look back on that now.

James [00:43:18]:
Go wonder what would happen if I take a bit more of a risk.

Phil [00:43:20]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you apply that into a business environment whereby you know, you're. Of course you have to make the business successful. That's, you know, there's no business otherwise. But if you're just going to play it safe all the time then where's.

James [00:43:36]:
The fun in that, yeah, there isn't much fun sometimes. What I would say to the brew dog businesses that James and Martin, from the very outset, were really big risk takers from signing their first contract with Tesco and not having a brewery to try to get a bangle and to build one in the meantime, they live life on the edge and that kind of was in our culture and that same decision. It's funny because Dave and James and I were talking about doing bigger format stuff in 2015, 2016, and I'd found a site in Tower Hill. If you've ever been to one of our sites in Tower Hill, and it's 10,000 sqft, but with kitchen and toilet, it's probably only 8000 sqft for customer space. And we're like, could we do this? Is it gonna be busy? Do you think office workers will come to us rather than the fullers across the road? And then we were like, oh, maybe we could share half of it with another operator. And we heard the alchemists were half interested in it as well. Maybe we could split it. And then we ended up in a site visit with James and Gob to get the hard hat on and still took out boots, which he still whined me up about.

James [00:44:41]:
And we walked in, went, you know, we could probably, like, just getting him in the space and getting his buy in to that risk and ambition. Didn't know if it was going to work or not. One of our best sites ever still wouldn't be. We thought we wouldn't open at the weekends because there was no offices around, but it was just stone. So away from tower London and we're packed on a Saturday Sunday because of tourists. And walking between the kind of walkie talkie building and the sky garden to that area has got busier weekends with tourism. And yeah, it's been great. And ever since then we've seen, oh, well, we can do bigger stuff.

James [00:45:10]:
And then we started, we did a big site, a really big site in Dublin, which again, trades fantastic to us. Just had this record week last week, another one. So we just started to like bigger format stuff. To the point when talking about risk with COVID and the world being shot and assigned this lease, and when we.

Phil [00:45:26]:
Say we're sat in, your biggest risk.

James [00:45:28]:
Yeah, yeah. Well, there's one that's like, it's only ever so slightly busy in Vegas was actually a much bigger risk because it's for further away and less hard to. We didn't know the market well as well. We ended up opening their site in Vegas, painfully from a time upset of like two months after this one. So our entire team who did this wasn't, had to get up and go again in a matter of months to do Vegas. And Vegas was a similar size, but twice the cost because of the US. It's just so much, so much harder to build in the. And just a massive risk.

James [00:46:01]:
But again, we saw the site, we went, we loved it and went, oh, should we pitch this or not? And then we got James on the roof and he went, we're doing it. It's great. This is amazing because the view is just. The view is just. It's got to be the best view in Vegas. That's what we advertise anyway. And, yeah, we got him excited about it and we made it happen. We had to pull some to get vestas on board and all the other things that have to happen.

James [00:46:26]:
Do a big project like that. And then we did it and it worked out. And that site's trading out of its socks, thankfully, because the other thing people don't, don't probably realize is maybe a perception that Brewdog can be sometimes bigger than it is. But if one of these sites hadn't worked because we had them so close together, we'd have been in real trouble, really. They're just so big. They're just like, right now, these two sites are just. This site, in terms of revenue for us, is worth 20 other sites, you know, and then profitability even more than that, because it converts so well, because it's one location, Vegas, similarly, actually, Vegas actually busy in this site and seasonality. But probably, see, after both of them having their full second year, is probably Vegas a little bit more profitable as well.

James [00:47:11]:
Yeah. So, yeah, big risk. Big, really big time changes. And often when I meet people, they say, oh, it must be really difficult with time zones. And time zones definitely don't make it easy with the biggest challenge in Brewdog is the range of sites we have. We have sites that, I don't know, the four grand a week. So the very first site, James and Martin opened and they built it themselves. And there's a little tiny bar in Aberdeen, four or five grand a week.

James [00:47:35]:
It's a cool craft beer bar. We've got pizza on the end of the bar, a couple of staff. On Max peak time, there's two staff. Off peak, there's one. And we actually built a really big location four or five doors down, which actually made it a little bit quieter. But we keep it from an emotional long standing room. It's our first ever location. We call it flagship.

James [00:47:55]:
It's got its own special way of working to the other end of the scale. We've got Vegas and Waterloo's doing three 4500 grand a week sometimes. And Vegas. Yeah, we think we didn't quite get that last year, but we think probably Vegas on, if all things get to one spot, could potentially do, potentially touchwood one day. We might get a million dollar a week if we get the right bookings and we get the right events on a town at the same time. If it could all come together, we could do an epic read there. So. Not happened yet.

James [00:48:23]:
Probably a bit of a unicorn with chasing, but, yeah, we'll see. So the biggest challenge is that the range of people and the skills you need in that business and the managers that run Vegas are completely different breed and skill set of people who run a craft beer bar in London, for example. So that definitely makes it more challenging but also makes it more interesting.

Phil [00:48:43]:
Yeah. And probably a very super competitive market as well, I guess.

James [00:48:49]:
Yeah. I mean, competitive for attention. And something that really dawned on us as we were building it. I was spending, unfortunately, I've been there like 30, 40 times. And I don't think I'd go back again if I didn't work for Brewdog. I don't think I'd go back again unless I was there for work. I do like it. I've become.

James [00:49:07]:
I've become fond of the place, but it's definitely a choco cheese kind of place. And spend a lot of time in casinos and walking through casinos from your hotel, etcetera. It's also very, very hot for scottish people. It's tough. It's really tough. We actually have a scottish guy running it. He's a deputy manager, actually. And we have a local girl called Anisha running as GM, but he pretty much runs the front house operation.

James [00:49:29]:
And then I was on the phone to him last summer and we were talking about something. He was walking around. He's like, james, I have to phone you back. I was like, what is it? He's like, I've been outside on the patio talking to you on the phone, walking around and my feet have burned. It's burned through his feet. So he's like, so hot. And then all that you can tell the uk staff are there because they've all got sun cream on all the time and they've all got the chapped lips because the desert's dry and winter and summer, but, yeah. So go back to my point.

James [00:49:55]:
When we opened, we realized that on the opening night, we had Adele first couple, she was on, like, second or third night up the road. Red aerosmith playing across the road. We had an NHL game across the road, my life, and we had to convince everyone that we were something to locals and tourists, that we were something to do. And Vegas is a very interesting place because 600,000 new people come every week. Sometimes they're repeat visitors, and they come once a year or twice a year, but, yeah, 600,000 new visitors every week. You said competitive. Yes, but once you've got them, they spend money like, they spend money like no tomorrow, and they've got their Vegas money in their pocket, and they're probably unhappy if they haven't spent all. And it's very much the case that we've got $150 wagyu burger on the menu.

James [00:50:43]:
It comes in a treasure chest, and with lights underneath it, you open up and smoke comes out. We sell way more of them than we thought we would. We'd put it on the menu to think if people just have a mentality of having fun and pushing the boat out in Vegas and having a good time, either to impress other people or to have a good time themselves, or to put on their Instagram as a definite engagement from customers on fun, interesting, exclusive, or adventurous or exciting customer propositions. But definitely the biggest one for us is making sure we're spending enough on attention, you know? Have you been to Vegas or not?

Phil [00:51:17]:
I have. Not for a long time.

James [00:51:18]:
But when you get off the plane, the advertisements in the airport, they're everywhere, right? Taxi tops. Would you get a hospitality person to do 50 taxi tops in London? Probably not. It might be worthwhile, but you'd probably be better on social media. The problem with Vegas is that 600,000 people, they're booking six months in advance normally, and they're booking one or two things in advance as well. So in the rest of the time, they've got two or three meals to book on top of that, lunches, breakfast, etcetera. And, yeah, you've got to grab their attention before and after. So you really got to invest in being aware and aware of you. So, yeah, we've got a giant sign.

James [00:51:59]:
It's like we had to get to the airport to sign off because the sign was so big, and we had to shut the strip for three days to get three nights in a row to get the sign up. So we do our. Do our level best on that front, but there's also just so much competition. Like, there's some great operators out there. If anyone is going or is due to go. There's a kind of thing called Amiga Mart, which is this kind of like fake supermarket. It's in a concept called area 15 and it's got loads of experiential hospitality stuff. You go into a completely fake supermarket and you can walk into secret cocktail bars and light shows and theaters.

James [00:52:31]:
There's just so much great stuff out there. One day I'd love to bring some of the stuff back. My favorite restaurant is called best friend and it's. Again, I've got a shop theme here, but it's a kind of american, mexican, korean, kind of like fusion restaurant. And you can go into an old book in a bodega shop and you go into back here and it's a restaurant, but you can. There's just some really cool stuff out there. I don't think I realized until I spend more time on how much innovation in there for be there. It's got to be single handedly because the casinos subsidize so much of it subsidized both capex and probably the ongoing running of it.

James [00:53:06]:
Some of the stuff that goes on out there and it's just incredible.

Phil [00:53:10]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

James [00:53:11]:
I didn't. I didn't. As a hospitality professional, I probably beat myself up. I didn't know this all this was all here. Even the Italy out there. Like, Italy's are great anyway, but that one's at another level, you know, and there's so much people there and it's just. They can scale and it's part of a casino, so. Yeah, it's just the whole thing's great.

Phil [00:53:29]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm eminently conscious of time, but the. What I really, really love about your journey so far. Cause, you know, still got a lot to do, is if we harp back to that sliding doors moment we talked about with your mate, when you could have gone off travelling, I mean, you're kind of going off travelling and doing that now anyway.

James [00:53:48]:
Right, exactly.

Phil [00:53:48]:
And it doesn't, I suppose, matter. Whatever level you're at, the opportunity is always going to be there. Especially if you're operating in a business that is innovative and agile and I, you know, is not afraid to take risks and things like that. The opportunity like that is always just going to be just around the corner, I would imagine. But, yeah, I mean, did you ever think or imagine or dream that when you didn't really have a clue what you wanted to do and you were just going with the flow, that you'd end up in a row like you're doing now?

James [00:54:19]:
No chance I had a moment, like, to myself in Vegas when we had the rooftop open and we, we had this amazing band. We assigned disappointment. They were my favorite band. Well, one of my favorite bands at uni, and I managed to book them for a rooftop gig in Vegas. And I thought to myself, I've done it right. I just thought it was less about that. It was more just like, I just really tried to take it all in. I took some videos, but I also just went, I need to just like, put my phone in my pocket, turn off and just like, take it all in for a minute, because it was just such a special moment and I just knew it was like a once in a lifetime thing and I just never would do.

James [00:54:55]:
I'd never do it again. And there's been a few moments like that and I'm really lucky to have had them and also really lucky to share them with some awesome team as well. And, like, we actually opened Vegas on Thanksgiving, the week after Thanksgiving weekend. So all our us team were with their families at home and we actually got invited some family houses, but there was 25 UK staff, so we couldn't just appear at someone's house, which was. So we ended up all the UK staff cooked this awesome dinner on the roof. I had my kids and my wife. Well, and we just had this amazing rooftop family dinner in the sun. And our first.

James [00:55:29]:
All of our, everyone that was there was our first Thanksgiving dinner. And so, yeah, you get to not just get to great projects, but you get to share some really special moments with people. And everyone loved doing that one.

Phil [00:55:40]:
Yeah, yeah. I've had, I think, you know, Chris Fletcher.

James [00:55:43]:
Yeah, Walker.

Phil [00:55:43]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had him on. He was one of the early adopters of the podcast and I always remembered the story he told about when he was working for hard rock and they used to do hard rock in Hyde park and, you know, they're busy setting up as he, I think, classified it burger flipping. And on stage are pink Floyd playing comfortably numb, you know.

James [00:56:03]:
Yeah, that's bonkers.

Phil [00:56:04]:
Yeah. And you just think he said, yeah, just have a moment where you think, my God, like, nobody else is getting to experience this right now.

James [00:56:11]:
I'm so glad I didn't get a job in a. I don't know, a Dixon's or.

Phil [00:56:16]:
Yeah.

James [00:56:16]:
Or something like that. You could go, yeah. Work somewhere else, you know. Yeah, we got those moments being far between life and to take them in. It's great.

Phil [00:56:25]:
Absolutely. I'm sure there's way more that we could talk about, but I am conscious of your time.

James [00:56:31]:
I really enjoyed it and thanks for coming to visit us and a bit of Waterloo and this podcast studio, if you like it and if the recording hopefully has worked, is welcome. You're welcome to use anytime.

Phil [00:56:41]:
Touch, Woody?

James [00:56:42]:
Yeah, welcome to use anytime.

Phil [00:56:43]:
That's very kind of you. Thank you very, very much. And wish you guys all the, all the best with the next chapter, whatever that looks like. Who knows, right?

James [00:56:51]:
Well, we'll see is there's lots happening.

Phil [00:56:53]:
Yeah. Top man.

James [00:56:54]:
Thanks very much.

Phil [00:56:55]:
Cheers. Cheers.