#266 - Hospitality Meets Eirini Tamousi - The Story of the Restaurant That Opened Without Food

What happens when a morning person who dreams of opening a coffee shop joins forces with a night person who wants a cocktail bar?

Naturally, they rope in their chef mother, add a fiancé with experience in marketing and finance, and open a Greek Mediterranean restaurant together.

This is the story of Eirini Tamousi and Nectar: a family business that took four years, several false starts, disappearing investors and a last piece of finance arriving one day before the deadline to become real.

Then came opening week.

It was, by Eirini’s own account, chaos and in fact her words before we started the chat - "I don't even know where to start"

But amidst the chaos, It was also the beginning of something rather special.

We Cover

• Falling into hospitality while studying in Edinburgh
• Leaving the industry for corporate HR, and missing its energy
• Combining one family’s very different skills
• Trying repeatedly to secure the money to open Nectar
• Receiving the final finance one day before the deadline
• Protecting a family relationship while building a family business
• The danger of expecting people to know when you need help
• Opening a restaurant without a working fryer or grill
• Asking neighbouring businesses whether they had seen your bins
• Why honesty during a disaster can build customer loyalty
• Reaching more than 300 five star reviews in the first year
• Creating a restaurant that feels less like a venue and more like home

Quotables

“We were living it without actually knowing if it was going to work out.”

“People don’t know what’s in your head, funny enough. Unless you tell them.”

“You told me there’s no food, but I can have alcohol.”

“I didn’t know our bins were going to fly away.”

“The things that feel like big setbacks in the moment are quite often the things that shape you the most.”

Final Observation

There is a polished version of entrepreneurship in which somebody has a brilliant idea, raises the money, opens the doors and confidently begins building an empire.

This is not that story.

This is four people repeatedly questioning whether they should continue, learning how not to destroy their family under pressure, opening without the ability to serve food and searching the streets of Edinburgh for wind assisted bins.

But it is also a story about what happens when people keep choosing the thing they believe in.

Almost one year later, Nectar has become exactly what the family hoped it might be: warm, imperfect, honest and full of people who keep coming back.

Hopefully, by the time Phil visits, it will also have food.

Show Partner

A big shout out to today’s show partner, RotaCloud - the people management platform built specifically for shift-based teams.

RotaCloud lets managers create and share rotas, record attendance, and manage annual leave in minutes — all from one simple, web-based app.

It also makes life easier for teams, allowing staff to check rotas, request holiday, and pick up extra shifts directly from their phones.

To find out more, head to RotaCloud

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy