Top Tips and Strategies for Running Successful Airport Restaurants

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About The Episode

Welcome to yet another insightful episode of the Food Service Growth Show. Your ultimate destination for all things restaurant management and digitalization! This episode is all about restaurant digitalization.

Get ready for an insightful and comprehensive discussion, as we have a very special guest joining us today. Dean Wilson-Hartles, the esteemed Director of Food & Drink at The Restaurant Group, brings his wealth of knowledge and decades of experience to the table. Dean has won multiple awards for his exceptional contributions to the foodservice industry, and today, he’s here to reveal everything he has learned over his remarkable four-decade career.

Read The Interview

Carl: Hello, I’m Carl Jacobs and I’m the co-founder and CEO of Apicbase. At Apicbase, we are building the world’s best F&B management platform. But in this podcast series, it’s all about finding answers on how to grow and scale your food service business. I’m talking to experts and industry professionals who are passionate about building a healthy food service industry. Join me on this fascinating journey of entrepreneurship in food.

Hello everybody, welcome again to a new episode of the Food Service Growth Show. I’m very happy today to have a conversation with Dean Wilson-Hartles, who is the director of food and drinks at TRG concessions in the UK, which is a part of the restaurant Group PLC. Welcome, Dean.

Dean: Hello, welcome. How are you?

I’m fine, thank you very much. Thank you for being on the podcast. I always have the same first question: who is Dean and what has he been doing in the past?

Dean: So who is Dean? Dean Wilson, as you said, director of food and drinks for the restaurant group looking after TRG concessions, which is a pillar of the business. So it’s split into three pillars. We have TRG concessions, which look after the travel hubs within the UK. We have Brunning and Price Pubs, which is a pub division with pubs all across the UK, and we also have Wagamamas. But my focus is purely looking after the UK airports and any travel hubs that we have within our business. I’ve been cooking since 1985, sounds like a very long time ago. Started off as a young boy, left school on a Wednesday and got a job on a Friday in a gentleman’s club in Piccadilly, a well-known one called the Reform Club. I started off not as a chef but as a maintenance porter, changing light bulbs and painting walls. And then after six months, I got talking to the kitchen team and just fell in love with the chefs and the kitchen. I asked if I could do a couple of days a week in there, and before you know it, a year later, I was in the kitchen of the Reform Club and just learning a bit, and then started my cheffing career.

So you worked your way through London?

Dean: Yeah, back in 1985. I worked my way through London, took a job wherever I could to get experience. I did work experience, went to college, started off in a little restaurant, and always had goals I wanted to reach every couple of years. Then I went to Westminster College, which was well-known back then, still is now. I worked with people like the Roux brothers for a little while in the City of London. I worked with Mark Hicks, a well-known chef that runs the Caprice and the Ivy. Then I worked my way into some fine dining restaurants, a well-known one called Greens in Mayfair, which was Simon Parker-Bowles, which is connected to the Royals. I went on to work with Oliver Peyton at the Atlantic Bar and Grill, Candlewick Room restaurant. And then I took a step back from fine dining and casual dining and went into a wine bar group in the city. I spent quite a few years there.

Dean: Then I worked with a company called Benugo, well-known in London. They look after museums across the UK, Scotland, and places like that. I ran the V&A museum for a year and a half, and then got asked to join TRG. Nearly 11 years ago, I came on as a development chef. I had a vision of what I wanted to do in the airports because airport food had the perception of being frozen, expensive, and not good quality. So I had a vision to change that within TRG concessions within a couple of years, and I challenged the teams and their past practices, which were very successful. I nurtured the team to work the way I wanted, and I’ve been here 11 years. Covid changed things. We had quite a few sites, then shut them down, and then reopened. My role changed. I became the head of food, and about a year and a half ago, became director of food and drinks, looking after the whole of the concessions business and Barburrito as well.

And that’s where we are today.

Dean: Yes, it’s been a long career. A long time, yeah. 1985 to now. Very long.

It’s pretty interesting, actually. You’ve done the whole range from fine dining to quick service. Do you miss the fine dining?

Dean: I get asked this question a lot. If I had my way and was younger, I would have loved to do Michelin star stuff. I think that’s what’s missing from my career. Is that proper, full-on Michelin star grounding, which the youngsters get now? I miss all that modern-day technology that I never had. Very old school. I’ve come from the old school background of cooking. Now everything is sous vide, boiling in the bag, and all sorts of gastronomy that I think I would struggle with in this day and age, just being that old school type person.

Carl: But do you use these new techniques within the restaurant group, or are you immune to them?

Dean: No, we don’t really use them. I think maybe in Brunning and Price they might use a little bit. I think Wagamamas is very fast-paced. In the concessions business, we just don’t have time in that airport environment. It’s open for thousands of passengers through the doors. We haven’t even got time to think sometimes. Trying to introduce water baths and sous vide is quite hard. I’m not saying in the future we can’t introduce some of that sort of stuff. We are looking at new technology back of house when it comes to cooking kit, because when you’re innovating, you’re not just innovating on food. You’ve got to innovate on equipment as well.

You mentioned that when you joined DRG, you wanted to bring some of your vision. What is that vision exactly?

Dean: Well, the first thing was freshness. As I said, in an airport, the perception is everything’s frozen, comes out quick, and it’s very expensive. I wanted to polish things up. How can we make that dish elevate to the next level? How can we give those guests that come through a special dining experience in an airport before they go on holiday? My vision was always about freshness, niche products, and things that the passenger might not have seen before. It’s not all about burgers and just a plain cheeseburger. How can we elevate that burger to the next level?

Carl: And did you succeed?

Dean: Yes, I did. It was a challenge for the first couple of years because changing everyone’s mindset is quite hard when they’ve been stuck in their ways for a long time. To bring fresh burgers in, to make sauces on site, and to make different things on site, you’ve got to get the buy-in from the teams. If you can’t get that buy-in from the beginning, you’re fighting a losing battle. I took them on that journey with me from the regional chefs down to the head chefs on the site. We opened some amazing sites across UK airports and worked with amazing people. Even to this day, we’re still doing some of that stuff.

The general feeling would say that once you go fresh and on-site with the creation and preparation of certain dishes, food costs become an issue. Is that something that you experienced as well? And how did you kind of keep this under control?

Dean: Back when I started, food cost was always important on every menu. The first thing you think about is the GP. We didn’t have the inflation we do now, so it was easier to convince people. Nowadays, you have to look at the ingredients. You can’t just put stuff on the menu and then look at the cost later. You have to menu engineer stuff, which is hard. But I’m always about the freshness and the quality because you have a captive audience. It’s really important to give that captive audience what they want. There are so many cooking programs on TV now, people watch. They’re not silly. The guests know what they want and what they’re eating. It’s always been a challenge and it’s more of a challenge now than it was eight years ago.

Carl: Are there things that you can’t make anymore that you used to make eight years ago because of GP?

Dean: Not because of the GP. I look at labor as well. Times have changed. With Covid, staff are not there like they always used to be. You’ve got to help out the units as well. If I can, rather than ask someone to stand over a stove and make a sauce for an hour and a half, I get that recipe made by a supplier and it comes in already made for us. Yes, it will be a little bit more, but I’ve taken the pressure off that site. The same with the burgers. We used to make burgers. Now I give the recipe to the butcher, he makes the burgers, they come in fresh. There’s a way around. I wanted everything made fresh. I was never one to say, “Oh my God, I’m going to get this coming in already made.” I would challenge the guys to make it. But sometimes you’ve got to stand back, look at the operation, and say, “You know what, these guys need a hand.” Try and give them as much help as possible and let the supplier do the work. That’s what suppliers are there for nowadays.

Carl: It sounds like you set up great partnerships with your suppliers then.

Dean: Yes. It’s important in a business like ours to build up relationships with suppliers because they want to work with you to create what you’re doing. They come into our unit, see what we’re doing, and then suggest, “We can make this for you. We can make that for you.” Brilliant. If they can get the taste right, we get it in and put it on the menu. It’s important to have that relationship with all our suppliers.

Carl: What is leading when you talk to a supplier, pricing or quality?

Dean: If I put Dean’s hat on, it would be quality. If I put my business hat on, it’s pricing first, then quality. That would have been different eight years ago. Quality would have been at the forefront. But nowadays, it’s about pricing because you can’t start charging so much for a burger. There’s obviously a glass ceiling up there and you can’t smash that glass ceiling.

That was a running start. Thank you very much for that. I wanted to focus a little bit also on the restaurant group itself. Can you tell a little bit about how it came into being, what kind of business structure is behind it, and how many locations?

Dean: TRG concessions has 35 units across multiple UK airports. That’s Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Manchester, Liverpool, East Midlands, all the way down to Bournemouth and as far up as Aberdeen, including Glasgow and Edinburgh. We have a mixture of casual dining, pubs, and franchise partners. Brunning and Price have about 80 across the southeast and up in the north. Wagamamas has about 168 sites at the moment.

Carl: And, I hear you say 35 units. Are you managing all of them in the concessions? How is this food and beverage structured within these 35 units? Are they 35 unique units, or are you standardizing and having a standardized menu across the board?

Dean: Every unit is different. We have a few franchises, like Archie’s Burgers in Manchester, San Carlo, and another one in Manchester, part of the ETM group. Then we have our own units, which are pubs. Each pub has a different menu. We have an Italian restaurant in Aberdeen with a different menu to another restaurant. Every site has a different menu. They are not standardized. We have standardized products. For example, a fresh burger will be used across multiple units. The same with buns, chips, and some sauces. I’ve got a food team of two executive chefs and an innovation manager. They split themselves and work on those menus and present to me. It’s not easy creating menus each year. We work closely with the franchise partners. They put a menu in front of us, and we adapt that menu to airport trading.

Carl: How many different items are you serving at any given moment?

Dean: Back in the old days, menus in airports were quite big, with 40 plus dishes. Over time, we brought it down. The trend now is smaller menus, focusing on what you’ve got. For example, an average breakfast menu in TRG has anything from 12 to 18 dishes, covering a wide range of offers like vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, and traditional English. Main menus have about 20 to 25 dishes depending on the brand. That’s a wide range of dishes from burgers, fish and chips, pizzas to small plates. Minimal desserts. They all have the same sort of structure but are very different, using the same ingredients. We have one great burger that gets used in multiple restaurants across the brand.

In airports, are they mainly driven by drinks or is food a substantial part of the revenue?

Dean: It depends on the airport and the brand. Some of our sites are 70/30 dry to wet. Some are more wet than food. It depends on the airport, demographics, and the brand. Some pubs are packed in the morning with people eating breakfast and drinking alcohol and coffee. The type of unit determines the split of wet to dry.

Carl: How many times a year do you refresh the menu? Is this like a one-time thing?

Dean: Back in the day, we used to do one menu change a year with a little tweak halfway. With the cost of menu prints and stuff like that, we’ve reined it back. It’s very difficult in an airport compared to the high street. You don’t always get the same passengers. We try to do one nice change a year and throughout the year have some limited time offers focused on drinks and Christmas stuff to freshen it up. We don’t do development during busy times like the summer season. Once a year change is ample now to keep menu print and ingredient costs down.

How crucial is inventory management in an airport operation like yours or travel locations?

Dean: We don’t try to let the sites have a lot of stock lying around. They need enough stock to get through a couple of days. Some sites get three-day or five-day deliveries. In an airport, you can’t just deliver food. You need to book it into consolidation, it needs to be scanned through security, then brought to the unit. It’s a long process. You need to make sure you have enough backup to see you through a busy morning before the next delivery comes in. That’s not just for food and drink but also chemicals and consumables. You’ve got to be ahead of the game, especially in the busy Heathrow sites.

How do you work together with franchisees and franchisors? What is the relationship you have with them?

Dean: With a franchise like San Carlo, a well-known Italian restaurant based in north Manchester, we have a very big menu. Without damaging their brand, we work closely with them. I meet their CEO and executive chefs, look at the menu, and adapt it for the airport without compromising their brand. On the high street, you can sit in their restaurant for 2 to 3 hours. In an airport, you have to get food out within 15 minutes. We make sure we work together from drinks to food menu, representing the brand well. We meet a few times a year and have quarterly meetings. Franchise partners can audit our sites anytime and provide feedback.

ESG is the new green. Are your customers at the airports already asking about this, and how are you dealing with it?

Dean: TRG is ahead of the game. We removed plastic straws before Covid. We are looking at sustainability and ESG. People are aware of it in the airports. The airports are all about sustainability. We are working on reducing the carbon footprint on menus. We are trialing it in the Wagamama’s sites first and then filtering it into the rest of the business. Sustainability and ESG are high on the agenda of the business.

Covid had a big impact. What was the change and how big was it before and after Covid for this industry?

Dean: It was massive. We shut down all the sites in an airport, gave the food away. No one knew what would happen. We thought we’d be back to work soon, but it went on longer than expected. Hospitality lost a lot of good people. People started to go back home. It became a scary place to work. Coming out of it, aviation came back with a bang. Walking around Luton Airport with my new boss, there were only 20 people in the terminal. It was eerie. But we reopened and came back strong, along with aviation.

Carl: Are there any positives coming out of this period as well?

Dean: Yes, aviation came back strong, but now the cost of living crisis is taking effect. People are spending less at airports, bringing their own food through security, and sitting in the lounges. It’s annoying for us, but they are trying to save money.

Carl: How do you adapt to this new reality?

Dean: It’s hard. In a casual dining restaurant, people might bring their sandwiches but buy a couple of pints of lager. We can’t really chuck them out because they’re still spending. It’s the same in all the units in the airport. People buy a drink from us but bring their own food. It’s hard.

You’ve been with the restaurant group for ten years. How did you see the industry change in those years?

Dean: It’s moved on. When I started, it was very old school cooking. Now there are modern techniques. Chefs now want to come out of college and earn big money. Back in the day, you had to go through the process to get to the top. Eating habits have changed a lot as well. People know what they want to eat now. They are demanding. The guest is always right.

Carl: What are these changing eating habits that you see emerging?

Dean: Price. Even Michelin star restaurants now offer deals. People are looking out for deals. If you can eat in a Michelin star restaurant for lunch under £50, you’ll go there instead of £200 a head. The competition is massive. QSR brands are taking over the world. I’ve never seen so many QSR brands on the high street. QSR could be the way forward.

How do you set yourself apart in such a competitive world, especially from a food perspective?

Dean: You’ve got to have great menus, the right price, and quality. The minute you start dumbing down quality, people notice and go to your competitor. You need to be ahead of the game on quality, freshness, and trends. Trends are important. You can’t have trends from five or six years ago. You need to have the latest stuff, even if it’s only on the menu for six months. Being ahead of the curve sets us apart.

Carl: Do plant-based burgers play a part in that?

Dean: We’ve had plant-based stuff on the menu for years. We’ve gone through vegetarian and vegan options, fake meats. Veganism is here to stay. I think people want plants, things made from vegetables because it’s better for them. We are slowly looking at plant-based options and removing fake meats. People want plant-based products now, and we get asked for it all the time.

How do you find the balance between classics and new trends on your menu?

Dean: In an airport, we have to have the classics. Full English breakfast, burgers, and fish and chips are always the top sellers. People traveling want to eat what they know. You’ll get people trying the new stuff, but the classics will always be the top sellers.

This was a very interesting conversation. One final question: can you look five years ahead? Where will we be with the industry?

Dean: I think we’ll see more QSR within five years. The high street will still have niche restaurants, but QSR is going to take over. Airports will look for freshness and change the dining experience. I hope to be retired by then, but I’ll keep developing with my food team until the end. We’ll always give it our all in the airports and make things work.

That sounds promising. Thank you very much, Dean Wilson-Hartles, for this conversation. And to my listeners of the Foodservice Growth Show, thank you very much for tuning in. We already have more than 20 episodes, which you can check online at foodservicegrowthshow.com. Feel free to listen to some extra podcasts. Thank you, Dean, for joining me. See you soon.

Dean: Thank you very much. Cheers.

Carl: Goodbye. Bye bye.

Guest & Host

Dean Wilson Hartles

Director of Food and Drinks
The Restaurant Group

Carl Jacobs

Co-founder & CEO
Apicbase

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