It is a month since Brody Sweeney agreed to do this interview – and both his business and the world it operates in have witnessed significant change.

First, before the true scale of Covid-19 became apparent here, Sweeney pulled off quite the corporate coup, adding two high profile tech investors to the share register of his fast-growing Thai restaurant and delivery business Camile Thai.

At first glance, the decision by Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave and the venture capitalist Brian Caulfield to take a strategic stake in Camile Thai might seem incongruous given their backgrounds.

But the more you talk to Sweeney, the more obvious the synergies become. Behind the food, Sweeney is building a business based on technology – from trialling delivery drones with Bobby Healy’s Manna Aero to running cloud kitchens in London with Deliveroo.

Indeed, Sweeney argues that Camile Thai is a logistics business that uses technology to delivery Thai cuisine.

“No one really likes dealing with rejection but if you are serious about building up a business, you have to accept that rejection”

And the frequency of those deliveries is growing at quite the pace. From a standing start in 2011, the chain now consists of 28 outlets on the island of Ireland and six in south London. More than half of its revenues comes from online platforms Just Eat and Deliveroo, and Sweeney anticipates this increasing further as dining patterns continue to evolve and alter.

Sweeney has always been ambitious, and has a long-held desire to grow the chain to more than 100 outlets – much of this will be facilitated by a franchise model that Sweeney first exploited when he turned O’Brien’s Irish sandwich Bars into an international chain.

He lost the business during the financial crash – something that, unlike many other entrepreneurs, he is happy to talk about. Camile has been his comeback, and during our interview, he talks freely about the learnings from both his success and his failure.

Now, though, Covid-19 is impacting not just Camile Thai, but the wider hospitality sector. Industry analysts were already predicting the closure of two restaurants a week, and the lockdown will surely increase that number.

Sweeney knows this – revenues from Camile Thai restaurant fell 30 per cent at the weekend. Unlike many, his delivery business offers a hedge against in-restaurant dining, but Sweeney freely admits that his business could be decimated if the crisis last more than six months. It is on this this issue – the impact of Covid-19 on the hospitality industry – that we begin our interview.

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Ian Kehoe (IK): I will come to the impact on your own business in a moment. You have been around the hospitality industry and food industry for decades. It was already going to be a bad year for many of these outlets. But this takes them to a place no one wants to go.

Brody Sweeney (BS): It is outside all of our experiences – even with the worst of times previously, we are on an exceptionally new level here. To a large extent, as businesses, we are making it up as we go along. I am conscious that it is going to go on for some time and we need to try and survive.

It is not about making money at the moment, it is about surviving. We need to put tough steps in place to try and ensure that our businesses do survive and tough decisions involve really difficult calls around people and employees – who are you going to pay and when you are going to pay them, suspending any discretionary payments in the business. There are a lot of really tough calls to make.

At the same time, I think we need to maintain a sense of perspective that this will be over at some point. Hopefully, it will not go on much longer than six months and we will get back to our new normal. We should not take decisions today that will impact on how we come back out of this, when we do come out of it.

It is an absolute Armageddon. My heart goes out to all my colleagues in the hospitality industry,

IK: So many restaurants and cafes and bars have been operating on cash flow and that cash flow has just been decimated. Some of the numbers the government are talking about are frightening – 140,000 people on those industries. 

BS: It is an absolute Armageddon. My heart goes out to all my colleagues in the hospitality industry, whether they are in hotels or bars or restaurants. It is a horrible situation to be in. There is not much comfort in the fact that everyone is in the same boat and everyone is facing the same challenges.

I think the fact is we are all facing the same challenges and the fact we are all screwed in the same way means that the normal rules of engagement are off. And the fact that you have no cash flow means you can’t maintain the payment schedules – whether it is to your bank or your landlord or the rates office or the Revenue – that you would normally. That is a new paradigm that we have never experienced in business before.

Keeping that sense of perspective – most of the hospitality businesses will probably reopen or at least find a way to muddle though in very stressful and very difficult times. A lot will go to the wall, for sure. They just won’t be able to survive.

IK: You are seeing it on both sides – you have lost people going into your outlets, but you also have a lot of home delivery. How has it been and what is your expectation?

BS: We have just come through the first weekend of the shock that Irish people got late last week. We saw our sales down about 30 per cent over the weekend, which is a big number. In theory, we have some kind of a hedge in that we are able to deliver to people’s homes. We are waiting for a directive for the government relating to all restaurants, we have lobbied for a derogation for our type of business – where we can do a home delivery. It is a kind of public service in that we are able to get to people who are self-isolating or people who live on their own who are too ill to cook – we can prepare something for then. But we are waiting to see if that is taken on board.

We would like to think we could keep going but I absolutely would not be confident we could keep going – we just don’t know what is coming down the tracks.

IK: Are you confident on being able to get through this? Camile has been a brilliant success story over the past ten years. Will you be able to weather the storm?

BS: I hope so. I don’t think there are any guarantees. All the traditional bets are off. We are taking some comfort from what we see in China – a very firm hand seems to have put that onto a three-month timescale. One worries that we are not nearly as disciplined in western democracies than the Chinese were. I also know that we are only getting the news that the Chinese people want to give us. But they have broken the back of it and that keeps me optimistic and hopeful.

But if we are shut down for six months, all bets are off for all businesses. You are seeing fantastically robust businesses like Ryanair – if they are out of business for six months, what does that mean? I don’t know. We would like to think we could keep going but I absolutely would not be confident we could keep going – we just don’t know what is coming down the tracks.

Learning from O’Brien’s, ditching Chinese for Thai

IK: Of course, the genesis of this business comes from the last big crash – the financial crisis – and O’Brien’s Irish Sandwich bars. A tremendous success with more than 320 outlets that fell victim to the crisis.

BS: After my portion of O’Brien’s was put into receivership – of course O’Brien’s has survived well up to this point under its new management – after I came out of that and found myself without a job or any money, I was looking around for something to start. I had been interested for some time in two sectors of the takeaway business – one was Chinese and the other was fish and chips.

It had intrigued me for many years that nobody had put a brand name over the door of Chinese restaurant or a fish and chip shop.  They are both run by ethnic families – Italian and Chinese – and it struck me they were not strong on marketing or customer service. But they were incredibly popular.

“It did not work. It was a miserable failure.”

The original idea I had before Camile was to do a modern version of a Chinese takeaway. I thought it was ripe for modernisation. I am generalising here because there are some very good Chinese takeaways but the generalisation of a big tall counter with a wall behind it, you can’t see the kitchen and the menu is way too long. There is no customer service, no marketing. I thought I could bring these disciplines to this sector and bring it into the 21^st century. That was the original idea behind Camile. We set up the business call Yum Ciao in Dolphin’s Barn in 2010.

It did not work. It was a miserable failure.

IK: How so? Was it that no one went or you just could not build traction?

BS: I did not actually run it for very long as a Chinese takeaway so it could be that we just did not get traction. I felt that the Chinese brand was for low quality and low prices and what we were doing was not considered different to what anyone else was doing. The turnover was too low to make it viable.

When we changed it from a low quality, low priced Chinese restaurant to a high quality high priced Thai takeaway and delivery service, it just seemed to take off immediately. We changed very quickly from Chinese to Thai and we went on from there.

“In my last business with O’Brien’s, franchising was very good to me and very good to the business for 20 years and then it all went pear-shaped at the end.”

IK: It now has 28 outlets around the island of Ireland and six in the London area. In terms of the model, is it a franchise or do you own them?

BD: At the moment, we own about a third and two thirds are franchised. We see the future very much around franchising. In my last business with O’Brien’s, franchising was very god to me and very good to the business for 20 years and then it all went pear-shaped at the end. I know franchising and I am very positive about it as a method of expanding a business – our experience so far has been very positive with the franchisees we have on board with Camile. Very practically, it is a way of expanding a business relatively quickly with not a lot of capital – because franchisees put up the capital and take on the day-to-day management responsibility. Often that is easier than running a chain of company-owned restaurants.  

IK: Where do you see the future expansion? At some point you will hit saturation in Ireland – although I see from your website that you are still looking for new outlets here at the moment. Is Britain where you see the real growth?

BS: We modelled Camile on Domino’s Pizza. We have a very similar business model to them. In Ireland, they have slightly over 50 outlets – maybe 52 or 53. We are about 28 here now. If we get up to 52 or 53, that will be the limit here.

In the UK, Domino’s have about 1,100 outlets. Within the M25, they have 140. If we are able to follow the trajectory of Domino’s in Ireland, we have huge upside in the UK.

We have developed this small chain in south London, which is difficult. It is hard getting traction in such a well-supplied restaurant market but we have some good businesses there are we are confident we can build out from our base in south London out across the UK in time.

Drones, cloud kitchens and technology

IK: A number of significant investors in the tech industry including Paddy Cosgrave and Brian Caulfield have taken a strategic interest in the company. There has been a lot of talk about drones and cloud kitchens. Is that a sign that you see this as a tech play?

BS: A restaurant tech play – we are using a lot of technology. Arguably, Camile is a logistics business that uses technology to deliver healthy, delicious Thai food. Getting food to customers in 25 minutes is the essence of what makes it successful.

We use a lot of technology in house to try and get it there in 25 minutes we have a online ordering platform, which is doing about 60 per cent of our sales – through our own app. We are using logistics software within the business to manage the order.

We are the exclusive launch partner for Bobby Healy’s Manna, which is a drone delivery service. That ticks so many boxes for us and for the environment. We are really embracing that.

We have also moved into cloud kitchens with Deliveroo and we are looking at doing that in other jurisdictions as well.

IK: What do you mean re cloud kitchens?

BS: We do primarily Thai but we have a second virtual brand called Slammin Ramen, which is doing quite well for us. We rent a space in a kitchen which may have ten other kitchens. We look after our own part of that.

The logic of cloud kitchen is that a cloud kitchen operator rents a commercial space in an urban area, fits it out with ten separate kitchens – we take one so the capital cost for us is much less than opening a restaurant and we don’t have any of the operating costs of the front of house of a restaurant – there is no phones, there is no front of house staff, no takeaway, it is a kitchen, but it goes with our brand and our marketing.

“We were at a conference in London in November where the hypothesis was that scratch cooking in homes will be over in urban areas by 2050, except as a hobby. We agree with that. “

IK: There has been such a fundamental shift in home delivery and eating habits. You were there earlier than most.

BS: To our credit, we saw it coming and we embraced it. We embraced online ordering from the start. There is a fundamental shift going on. You are seeing traditional restaurants like Pizza Express or Jamie Oliver’s or Wagamama have issues.

In the restaurant business, we look at two types of eating occasion – in the early part of the week, there is a functional eat – I am hungry. I don’t want to eat crap, but it is not a treat. Whereas at the weekend, it is a treat it – I am having dinner with my spouse or my family.

But the big change we have seen is that the ‘treat eat’ has not gone away but the functional eat at the early part of the week has changed – people are increasingly choosing to have that at home in front of their screen. They could have gone to a Wagamama or a Pizza Express for an hour and had a meal – but they are choosing not to do that now. They are preferring to go home and watch Netflix or Facebook or whatever their screen is – the usage if screens has led to a huge change in people’s eating habits.

If you think about the amount of time all of us are on screens; the amount of scratch cooking at home is declining rapidly. We were at a conference in London in November where the hypothesis was that scratch cooking in homes will be over in urban areas by 2050, except as a hobby. We agree with that. That is what is happening and the generations who are coming after us are not having a takeaway or a home delivery as a treat  – it is just the way they are consuming food.

IK: You had been talking about 100 outlets. Is there a magic number in the back of your head?

BS: We are very ambitious. We have a super young management team both here and in London and they are very ambitious as well. We intend to be the biggest Thai player in the UK. That is our intention and we are ambitious to go further than that. We have put a number of 100 that we would like to get to. We are at around 33 or 34 no today, and we think the 100 is attainable. Where we go after that I am not sure.

Lessons from the past, advice for the future

IK: In terms of the lessons from the past – both good and bad – what have you brought from the O’Brien’s experience to this new business?

BS: Personally, I have spent much more time on the people side. I am more ruthless about building a really strong management team in this business so we are using analogies like a team of A players. We want our best 15 players on the pitch from the squad of 23. If you are not shining you are not going to make the top 15. We use that kind of analogy in our business in terms of our management team.

I am spending much more time personally in recruiting and inducting and hiring the right people. If they are not working out, we move them on and suggest they might be happier in other places. We want a team of winners, that means we can build an A-class business.

“We would have noticed that sometimes in franchising, people think they are buying a job. And they are not.”

IK: I know you do a lot of mentoring. What advice do you give people starting in business?

BS: We talk about three things that make a business successful. When we look at the icons of Irish business – the Michael O’Leary’s and the Denis O’Brien’s – they adopt this logic.

The first is for someone starting or running their own business is the notion of personal responsibility. We would have noticed that sometimes in franchising, people think they are buying a job. And they are not. The notion that you take personal responsibility, it is your baby – it is sink or swim. It is you – it is not anybody else’s fault or anybody else’s responsibility.

The second one is that being successful in business involves going outside your comfort zone. We talk about the idea that to be successful, you have to do whatever it takes. For lots of us, whatever it takes is something we really have to stretch to. A good example is cold calling. No one really likes dealing with rejection but if you are serious about building up a business, you have to accept that rejection and get on with it and not blame the brochure or the price or the competition.

The third is that every successful entrepreneur has a plan. Even though you know intellectually and for certain that the plan will not turn out the way you think it should, people who have been successful in business have started with a plan – when reality sets in they change the plan and when that is not working they change it again and again. They keep changing it until they get it right.

IK: Did you always want to be an entrepreneur?

BS: I have never worked for anyone else except when I was a teenager. I love the freedom of being my own boss and making my own calls. I have hated the stressful bits and the mundane bits and the bits that don’t interest me. But, on balance, I have been very lucky and privileged in my life – having responsibility for my own destiny and being able to get the gratification of seeing ideas take root. We are employing 650 people across the Camile business at the moment and we are really proud of that. With our franchisees, some have become millionaires since they got involved with us – we are really proud of that. And taking a young management team and helping them realise their potential – I love doing that.

IK: Thanks Brody. It is a testing time for all business – so we wish you the best.

BS: And your our own start-up Ian. Best wishes.

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The Currency podcast series on Irish business is supported by Investec.

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