HUNGRY.

Full episode here! 👉🏻 https://youtu.be/cVG8TqtxJQE
After 20 years running The Hand & Flowers and 35 years in kitchens, Tom Kerridge says something most chefs won’t: restaurants don’t make money anymore.
In this clip, Kerridge breaks down why margins have been wiped out, why being “busy” means nothing, and why opening a restaurant today can actually be the worst financial decision you make. It’s a brutally honest look at hospitality — from pricing, staffing and VAT, to the hard leadership calls that come with ownership.
This isn’t about food. It’s about business reality, risk, and the uncomfortable decisions that keep companies alive.
===============
📱 ON THE MENU
===============
🍽️ Why packed restaurants still lose money
📉 How margins in hospitality were quietly eradicated
🤔 Why opening a restaurant now makes less sense than ever
⚖️ Separating emotion from business decisions
🚪 Closing sites, letting people go, and radical transparency
🧠 The shift from reactive chef to strategic operator
🔥 Why Kerridge thrives on risk — but hates being a passenger
🧩 What COVID taught him about control and problem-solving

Dan Pope sits down with Jack Rubin, co-founder and CEO of Purdy & Figg — a cleaning brand that somehow turned selling countertop spray into one of the fastest-growing consumer businesses in the UK.
Jack explains how a company that started with almost no marketing orthodoxy managed to rocket toward £100M scale by focusing on something surprisingly unglamorous: customer acquisition, ruthless simplicity, and relentless testing. Thousands of creatives, endless A/B tests, and years of building a loyal customer base all culminated in moments where a single campaign could generate a million pounds in a day.
Along the way, Jack reveals why he barely thinks about “brand” in the way most marketers obsess over it, and why instincts, judgment, and rational thinking matter more than frameworks. That’s where the conversation drifts into bigger territory — from Sun Tzu-style strategic thinking to Jeff Bezos and the idea that great founders make unusually good decisions under uncertainty.
But this isn’t a polished startup fairy tale. Jack also talks about the chaos behind hyper-growth: demand planning nightmares, operational fires, factories on the brink, and the uncomfortable truth that scaling a physical product business is mostly logistics, not glamour.
The result is a conversation about business that feels more like philosophy — why simplicity wins, why complexity kills companies, and how a seemingly boring product can become a £100M brand.
 ============================================== 
♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 
============================================== 
🌟 HUNGRY's Absolutely Bloody Marvellous Sponsors🌟 ============================================== 
A massive shoutout to our incredible sponsors who make HUNGRY possible: ​ 
►North Star: (www.northstarbc.co.uk) 
🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 
This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/)

============================================== 
♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 
 ---------------------------------
🤝 Let's Connect!
►Let's link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/)
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/)

Ever wondered what it takes to build a £10M restaurant empire? Chef Adam Handling joins Dan Pope to unpack the brutal realities of building a £10M restaurant empire. From nearly losing his parents' house during COVID-19 to making £148,000 on Valentine's Day via home deliveries, Adam's journey is a masterclass in resilience. We dive deep into his Chanel vs. Hermes philosophy on brand building, why his team researches guests online for the ultimate dining experience, and his bold mission to redefine British cuisine. If you want to know what it really takes to chase two Michelin stars while dodging every missile on planet earth, this is a must-listen.
#AdamHandling #Hospitality #BusinessGrowth #DanPope

ON THE MENU:
00:00 Intro
01:05 Surviving the Restaurant Business
03:16 The Cayman Islands Restaurant Disaster
10:16 How COVID Almost Destroyed Everything
15:02 Risking His Parents' House to Survive
17:59 The Power of Positive Leadership
25:00 Turning Down £100k to Protect the Brand
27:14 From Rebellious Kid to Gleneagles Chef
34:36 Building an Unbreakable Core Team
43:00 Brand Identity: Frog & Ugly Butterfly
55:14 The Secret to Ultimate Guest Experience
01:10:02 Making £10M & Reinvesting Profits
01:17:21 Launching a Secret Caviar Brand
01:19:33 Chasing Two Michelin Stars
01:24:31 Inside Adam's Intense Daily Routine
01:31:13 Personal Struggles & Cancel Culture
01:38:03 Redefining British Cuisine
02:14:37 Dealing with Haters & Misconceptions
 ============================================== 
♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 
============================================== 
🌟 HUNGRY's Absolutely Bloody Marvellous Sponsors🌟 ============================================== 
A massive shoutout to our incredible sponsors who make HUNGRY possible: ​ 
►North Star: (www.northstarbc.co.uk) 
🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 
This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/)