About me
I'm Jon, born and raised in a small village in Wales. I then moved to Leeds for University to study sports science, to specialise in sports textiles and lived there for 15 years. Now a husband, father, step-father, part-time air guitarist residing in Liverpool and have a beguiled passion for food & drink and hospitality. This has been from a young age but more so since I opened my own coffee shops in Leeds in 2006 and which are still open and thriving today. My change in career path came after seeing the independent coffee shops and juice bars in California and Australia and wanted to have my own. This journey continued after finding love and moving to Liverpool, selling my shares in the coffee shops to my business partner and then being trusted to manage and respect other peoples 'babies' of coffee shops and restaurants. I now relish opportunities to help and support other peoples independent businesses to help them achieve their dreams and goals.The skills and knowledge I can share have been learnt by living and breathing the industry and 'bootstrapping' in all areas of a business. From cleaning the toilets, serving tables, taking the weekly Friday deliveries, to hours on excel analysing and forecasting figures (which I secretly love) to building working teams that have longevity and form long lasting friendships. To making mistakes and bad decisions over the years and learning from them. Now I love meeting people with a passion to produce something, or create a sense of community to those who have a vision to create a brand to take far from one premise.
I believe in consistency throughout a business, so every time a guest enters they know the level of service, quality and experience is the same upon every visit. Passing on this experience to others feels like the next step of this journey.
For example, a family might want to set up a coffee shop as a lifestyle business or a chef wants to open a neighbourhood bistro to showcase his passion and creativity but they don’t have the knowledge to price their menu to make it profitable or the to produce cash flow or profit and loss sheets to analyse and make the business long continue and succeed. From being in this position initially to put things like this in place for other places I have managed, I am very well placed and experienced to help you with this too.I want to listen and hear your story, to know your passion and why you set off on this rocky path of hospitality. I want to learn and respect your business and work with the ethos or vision you have, not to change it. I want to hear what areas you find successful and enjoy and then where you think you might be struggling or need some advice and guidance. From this position we can discuss the areas to work on first to improve or even give you the confidence things are in the right place or just need a little tweaking.I can use a range of tools to make sure your business is profitable by menu costing exercises, stock reports to then help produce in depth profit and loss sheets to see which areas (sales, wages, purchases, overheads) are solid and where improvement is needed.
I have a vast product and supplier understanding to help make improvements where necessary to help with sourcing, pricing and development.
From numerous surprise visits over the years from Environmental Health Officers, I know all too well how important it is to have everything in check to make sure you achieve that 5 star rating and have the confidence everything is dealt with safely for the most important person, your customers and their visit and experience.