Spotlight Series: Copper House Bars Ltd
Legacy Club goes under the hood of some early stage entrepreneurs, to see what makes them and their businesses tick!
Bar & Brasserie, Copper House Bar Co-Owner Lyndsey Simpson
Please tell us a little bit about you the person (not you the business owner): I'm diminutive in size (4 foot 10) but make up for it in impact. I love travel, interiors, luxury, public speaking, keeping fit, meeting other entrepreneurs and cooking. I've been married for 10 years, no kids and have changed roles and industries many times over my career. I have deep experience in 3 sectors: Financial Services; HR & Recruitment and Leisure.
I enjoy reading business books and developing businesses. I sold my main business The Curve Group in March 2020 and have 3 other businesses I own; 1 that launched in April 2019, one that launched in June 2020 and the last one that is very early stage and co house registrations only completed in Oct 2020.
Describe your business in less than 30 words: Copper House is an independent bar & brasserie located in a stunning Grade II listed building in Berkhamsted. The relaxed but luxurious interiors provide the perfect setting to eat, drink and play.
What industry or sector does your business fall in to?: Leisure/Hospitality
What did you do before you started your business?: Worked in Financial Services for a decade - across strategy, business development, product & proposition and M&A Internationally. Then left to invest in a 8-person recruitment business that turned over £800k. Took that to a broad HR outsource business with 85 employees and £24m turnover before selling my shareholding in May 2020. I set up Copper House in November 2018, opening to the public in April 2019, as I started to move out of the operational side of my previous business and hand over to our ExCo to run day to day operations.
What have been the biggest struggles that you have encountered, and what did you do to overcome them?: 1) Getting planning permission and a late license
- won over the hearts and minds of the local community. Letter dropped them all to come in and meet us, see our plans, get a tour of the building, and worked with them to change aspects of our operation that concerned them so that we could gain their support to lobby the council
2) Locked down for 4 1/2 months. Didn't qualify for the £25k hospitality grant as our ratable value is £74k not under £51k, didn't qualify for the CBILS loan as we hadn't been trading 12 months...so no income and heavy costs for rent, alarms, insurance, stock, finance etc etc.
- Completely re-structured the business financially. Injected £250k of directors loans to re-pay the asset finance that had director's guarantees against it, then took out a £50k bounceback loan, and re-sold the assets back to the asset finance company for a £100k loan without any guarantees. Deep survey of our customers - wrote to 2800 customers with a 25 min in depth and very honest survey and had over 1400 customers complete in full within 24 hours. Changed masses in response to their feedback - proposition, our business name to brasserie rather than restaurant, our food and drinks menus etc... Introduced a customer focus group of 255 customers who vote on 4 key operational topics every month i.e should we wear full PPE even though the legislation doesn't require us to - they answered yes so we did from day 1 of re-opening. Would they eat outside if we invested in a heated & covered terrace on the pavement, voting on different menu options. After the Eat out to Help out scheme ended, all of our competitors extended it into Sep. I thought that was crazy and a race to the bottom so instead we created a membership scheme for customers to pay £10 per month to get exclusive benefits/savings so they invest and we invest rather than just discount. We had over 50 members (thus £6,000pa additional revenue) in the first 4 wks of soft launch.
Have you had any external investment to date?: Yes
What has been the impact of COVID-19 on your business and did you make any changes, or pivots?: See answer to previous question. We are continually adjusting our operating model and proposition, almost on a weekly basis to deal with the changes/uncertainty. Other examples include creating take-away cocktails for diners to take with them at 10pm when dinner is finished, creating a NYE package of events that includes a 7.45-10pm 4 course special meal, with a take home party pack including chilled Krug champagne, individual cocktails, homemade sausage rolls/hummus/scotch egg for midnight snacks as well as selfie props and party paraphernalia.
What has been a barrier to your business growth?: Access to finance/funding, Infrastructure
Do you have any business heroes, if so, who are they?: I respect Deborah Meaden's approach to investing in a portfolio of businesses, but only those she has capacity and influence to properly get involved with as well as a passion about the end result.
Napoleon Hill's Think & Grow Rich is the book that caused me to challenge and change myself and my methods of self-development to the most extent.
Verne Harnish's Scaling Up book is the one that caused me to make the most structural changes to my business operation and way of working.
Finally Brad Sugars has created a phenomenal "product" in Action Coach and his various books/coaching methodology to break down business challenges, like growing sales, into scalable processes.
Financial Rewards or Business Awards?: Financial Rewards
What was the last book you read?: The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne
Tell us something totally unique about your business: Our menus are designed by our customers
Finally, please tell us what we can look forward to with your business as we head in to 2021: Developing an industry-leading membership scheme that other hospitality businesses seek to emulate.
