Ooooohhhhh NOOOOO

FUUUUUUUUCK, TURN AROUND!! QUICK!! THEY’RE CUMMING.

Last Sunday, I was getting JIGGY WITH A PIGGY.

My pork roast was spell-bindingly DEEELISH at Adam Handling’s pub The Loch and The Tyne.

Adam’s pub is plopped in the lush, leafy, verdantly yummy Old Windsor countryside in a wonderfully strange postcode.

10 minutes from::

The Scum of The Earth in multi-million pound Wentworth Estate. Gargantuan grizzly cars, poetry of chrome and black, smeared with ostentatious bling glide through the private roads. Wentworth garrulous chubby hubbies with Twiglet-Thin, Vanilla-Thriller wives. More Money, More Problems.

3 minutes from::

The Salt of The Earth in Datchet - where croaky country roads harbour a dilapidated Tobey Carvery who’s outside paint job is peeling like a pasty Scot’s Tenerife sunburn. Opposite a Barbie fluorescent pink Hairdressers and next to a sad and sullen and obsequious Indian restaurant, called Spices, it’s lurid turquoise signage is missing letters and dying a low n’ slow flickering death.

J’aaaadoreeeeee, Mon Ami, Adam’s gaff. Truly egalitarian. The Chairman and The Binman can chortle and chitter-chatter togeva-foreva-babez.

Adam delivers a perfect punch of paradox - Sustainable British Luxury - straddling all classes, all prices points, all taste buds.

A roaring log fire billowed, her orange and blue flames licking the raw January air. Her totemic fumes pulled in a liquorice-all-sorts of people and classes and taste buds. Smoking cigarettes and cigars and drinking red wine. Laughing. Chatting. Chin

Gouty-George and Hemorrhoid-Ridden-Henry chatting to Astro-Turfed-Garden-Alfie and Electric-Fire-That-You-Can-Change-The-Colour-Of-With-A-Cool-App-From-Your-I-pad-Enzo.

The best pubs transcend class. Adam’s pubs do that. Perfect hospitality.

Anyhoo.

I ordered the Chicken Skin Bread & Butter. Utter fucking FAB. Little crispy golden nuggets of chicken skin jaunting out the Alpine snow globe butter.

Bread is door-stop-thick-stoic, aplomb and ready for a Blitzkrieg smearing of butter and chicken liver parfait and a waterboarding blood bath of gravy dunking.

I was dunking my bread into this mopping sauce, and shovelling it down my gob, in rapiDOOO quick.

I quaffed back my 3rd glass of ruse-inducing champers.

Alas, a roaring ruse zinged and skimmed and bounced across the sea of my mind, like a large orange inflatable football across a turquoise gin clear ocean.

BOOOOOMMMMM!! There it is. I’ve got an Idea to maybe save restaurants.

The problem for restaurants in 2026?

Problem One:
Impossible to get people through the door as people are skint.

Problem Two:
Impossible for restaurants to make any margin or profit as costs are soaring.

Problem Three:
Impossible to stand out in crowded categories and on socials when there’s so much noise.

How do we solve this?

“At School You Can’t Rewrite The Question, But In Business You Can” - Rory Sutherland

The common order of dishes in restaurants.

• Bread

• Starter

• Mains

• Desert

-Why has no one ever questioned this?
-What if we questioned this deeply?
-Could restaurants make more money and customers actually have a better experience if we changed this?

Rewriting questions

1. Is the current order of dishes (Bread, Starter, Mains, Dessert) in restaurants the best for customer experience?

2. Is the current order of dishes (Bread, Starter, Mains, Dessert) in restaurants the best for making profit?

3. What would happen if restaurants changed the order of dishes (Bread, Starter, Mains, Dessert)?

4. What would happen if restaurants focused on high margin dishes first to improve customer experience and make more profit?

The issue with starting with bread before your starters and desserts ?

1. Customer fills up quick and is less likely to order big on high cash margin items i.e. steak, pork chops, fish

2. Customer eats so much fucking bread, they leave the restaurant feel bloated and full - slightly neggy customer experience.

3. Customer doesn’t get to experience the full gambit of wonderful meat dishes

4. Customer silently knows bread has so much more potential than just salted butter.
   
   Customer knows dipping and mopping bread in a panoply of meaty sauces is INSANE

INTRODUCING THE MOET & MOPPING MENU

1st Dish - Meat
2nd Dish - Bread (mopping course) + Sides (unlimited refills)
3rd Dish - Dessert & Coffee

Why the Moet & Mopping Menu helps restaurants make more money ?

1. You bring out the tastiest, high cash margin dishes first when your customers are most HUNGRY. You make more money, customer gets a better experience.

2. Bread as a mopping course changes the context, and bread is high cash margin… you create theatre through multiple different breads and butterz (highly shareable on socials)

3. You only sell MOET - to increase perceived value and restaurant status. Buy Moet in huge bulk for economics of scale = more cash margin per glass sold.

Maybe this is a shit idea?
Maybe it’s a good idea?

That’s not the point.
The point: if you’re stuck in business.

Don’t try and come up with a solution. It’s often easier to just re-write the questions.

I actually did this on Wednesday at Tom Brown’s restaurant, Islands I ordered meat as the first course and asked for bread second.

T’was fucking BANGING.

still wanna eat out at banging resto’s during February ?

February yis a fucking pony month.

Cold. Wet. Miserable. Blah. New Year, New Me… shaaat appp.

BUT…

Food makes me so happy.

So I’ll still be smashing restaurants in February

During December and January, I used EatClub religiously (yes, they are a sponsor) and saved SERIOUS wonga at London’s top restaurants.

If you wanna take your family or your team or yourself out for a February pick me up?

Deeply implore you to download the app here to save serious dough

Popey D

xxxxxx

Still Hungry? Course you are…

Please feel free to gorge on the most downloaded podcast episodes of all time (these are CERTY: BANGERS)

1. Rory Sutherland: Why Challenger Brands Must Never Follow Logic to Truly Disrupt Categories 

2. Waitrose CEO: How Challenger Food & Drink Brands Can Win and Build Profitable Partnerships with Waitrose - James Baile

3. Spencer Matthews: How Spencer Matthews Built Unshakeable Resilience and Raised + £10m to Launch Clean Co. in Sainsbury's, Tesco and the U.S.A. 

4. How Grenade Exited to Mondelez for £200 Million and Lessons in Unapologetic Authenticity- Juliett Baratt

5. Tyrells Tycoon: How William Chase built and sold Tyrells for £50 million and sold Chase Distillery to DIAGEO 

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