Feature: Making strides

With a flourishing estate elevated by a string of strategic investments and new openings, it’s no wonder that Individual Restaurants is about to close on its most profitable year to date. But for CEO Andrew Garton and his supporting team, the growth adventure has only just begun…

Conditions are rough out there, in the whirlwind that is hospitality. There’s no doubt that the restaurant sector is in turmoil, but the problem with focusing so intently on the negatives is that the positives are all too easily overlooked.

While there have indeed been many and rapid closures, there have also been countless and flourishing new openings. Hospitality’s recruitment landscape remains challenging, but there is also a solid and loyal workforce that knows the industry inside out.

And while businesses battle rising costs with little to no government support, many have risen against the odds to see their most successful year to date – Individual Restaurants being one.

Back from the brink

The group owns a portfolio of 31 restaurants nationwide, its brands including the more recently acquired Piccolo, along with Riva Blu, The Restaurant Bar & Grill, and the long-established Piccolino – a concept that has just marked 25 years in the game. But despite its longevity, the business has seen its fair share of unrest and uncertainty, having been bought out of administration by Ice Acquisitions Limited in 2020, in a transaction worth £40m. When Andrew Garton stepped into his CEO role in January 2023, the company was by no means in the stable position it appears to be in today.

“I originally studied at an agricultural university, so I’m a foodie from source,” he recently told Dine Out. “I left Harper Adams and went straight into retail, starting my career at Morrisons supermarkets, where I stayed for 13 years.”

That’s when Garton met Sir Malcolm Walker – who founded Iceland Supermarkets alongside Tarsem Dhaliwal, and is the driving force behind the aforementioned Ice Acquisitions. “In December 2022, Sir Malcolm and Tarsem asked whether I could be the CEO of Individual Restaurants. It was a big career move for me, out of retail and into hospitality – but I’ve never looked back. I’ve loved every minute of it.”

Looking at the numbers, Garton was indeed the right man for the job, with accounts to March 2024 reporting a turnover of £74m – the group’s largest yet – with a like-for-like sales increase of 6%. This growth was largely driven by a significant increase in Christmas covers under his direction, delivering a 20% surge in year-on-year sales for December 2023. Not only this, but the group has invested over £6m back into the business in the last 12 months. On top of refurbs and refits across the estate – including the iconic Leeds branch of Restaurant Bar & Grill, and Piccolino in Stockton Heath – the funds helped to launch the £2m Piccolino Grande in Wilmslow, Cheshire.

“Having this very special blend of retail and hospitality experience brings something quite magical,” Garton muses. “Hospitality people are fantastic at guest proposition and making people feel amazing, but retail brings a dynamism that’s all about financial control, structure and planning and, above all, running the business to make a profit. We’ve strengthened the leadership team this year and our executive board now has a nice balance of expertise across both channels. We’ll keep building on the team but will always keep the weight further towards hospitality.”

Buon appetito!

Of course, leadership is important, but it’s worthless without a top-quality concept and product to get behind. With the majority of the Individual Restaurants estate specialising in Italian, the group taps into a cuisine for which the UK has long held a great love, with a recent YouGov survey revealing it to be the favourite fare for over half (51%) of Brits.

“Italian offers various degrees of premiumisation that we’ve all been immersed in since childhood,” says Garton. “You’ve got beloved dishes like pizza and pasta all the way through to dishes like fillet steak and peppercorn sauce. It’s such a broad church that offers something for everybody. Italian food is accessible – it’s not polarising.”

The familiarity often found in Italian cuisine means people tend to feel comfortable when looking at a menu and therefore generally feel safe no matter what they order. As Garton explains: “Our job is to make sure that the dishes are perfect every time, but also that we inspire, influence and enhance where we can. We’ll always stay true to what the dishes are about – so our carbonara is no doubt a carbonara, but we’ll always aspire to make a better carbonara. It’s crucial, actually, because these dishes are the staples – they’re what people come to us for. We’re internally obsessive about quality, but also about protecting the authenticity of what we do.” Authenticity is an interesting point, as it’s one of increasing importance to consumers today. Whether they perceive the brand or product as real and aligning with their values really does make or break their decision to buy in. As such, could Individual Restaurants’ estimation that 50 to 60 percent of its workforce are of Italian descent be a key contributor of its lasting popularity?

“This isn’t a made-up brand,” says Garton. “It’s experiential, it’s real and it’s genuine,” he adds. “Speaking specifically of Piccolino, the brand has reverence. These are real Italians that live and work in the UK – they’re a community, they’re connected. They dine in our restaurants with family and friends, and they are part of the brand.

“While we are a group, we encourage our general managers, chefs and all of our people across all sites to work as one big family. I think that family feel is really important to us. By no means are we saying we only employ Italians – of course that isn’t the case. But being an Italian concept, it’s important to us because it’s not an act; it’s what we do, and that’s what makes the dining experience feel real.”

Let's get into digital

In what appears to have been an all-around milestone year for Individual Restaurants, 2024 also saw the business introduce its brand-new loyalty scheme. Club IR rolled out in January, with personalisation sitting at its heart and underpinning the scheme’s three tiers (Club, Black and Diamond). As the company approaches 12 months since the scheme’s launch, Garton is pleased to see a measurable improvement from its predecessor.

“Club Individual was also a loyalty scheme that was effectively just giving cash back to guests,” he notes. “If I’m being honest, there were two big problems with it – it didn’t really drive loyalty and it was very expensive for the organisation so, enough was enough.”

Though Club Individual was no more, the group still wanted to give back to guests, so last year the team undertook some research, talking to around 2,500 consumers about what they thought of loyalty and what it meant to them in a hospitality context. “Only four in 10 people saw the value of points,” he chimes. “What they really wanted instead was to feel special, and that’s where Club IR was born.”

Garton describes the initiative as “very nimble”, a service which is deeply personalised and based on lifestyle. “It’s an immersive institution, designed to give back to the guests who consistently reward us,” he adds. “We’ve got over 100,000 people using it now. They’re really engaged and it’s growing.”

The launch of the improved loyalty scheme was timely, with the industry increasingly shifting towards digital and AI tools slowly seeping further into front- and back-of-house operations. As Garton goes on: “For me, personalisation is the most important thing, but data, AI and, ultimately, technology are going to be very important for the future of hospitality through maximising output and efficiencies. However, everything has to have a ruler over it to ensure it’s not digressing or regressing away from the brand.

“We are a 25-year-old business, we’re not new. We get a high degree of reservations on telephones, but if you were to start a business today, we probably wouldn’t even have a telephone. It’s all about how you balance these things to make the business more modern.

“We’re a high-cost company so we have to make money, but we also want to employ lots of great people. I think if we can take some of those removable tasks out without deviating from the brand and what we stand for, then it would be sensible to do so.”

Onwards and upwards

So far Garton’s tenure has seen progress on all sides – but what comes next for the group?

“We don’t necessarily have to be bigger – of course we don’t – I just want to be better,” he posits. “That said, in terms of growth, where do we want to be? Well, we’ll grow more Piccolinos and Restaurant Bar & Grills from an organic perspective. Then, our second growth channel would be, wherever there are appropriate partnership opportunities – whether it’s hotels or any other like-minded business – we’d be happy to consider.

“You’ll also see us produce some new brands, giving us a broader church within the hospitality sector,” he concludes. “And finally, we’re going to be international. We’re going to be a bigger, better version of ourselves, and hopefully all of the team we have here now will be part of that.”

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