Aiming to expand in a buyer’s market
By Gordon Davidson
Entrepreneurial chef patron Dean Banks is going into 2025 somewhat torn by the turbulent times gripping Scotland’s hospitality industry.
On one hand, he is furious about what he describes as the political mismanagement of the economy, and the rash of closures erupting from the hardships this has inflicted on venue operators and their staff.
On the other, Banks acknowledges that, for someone like himself whose business is on an upward, expansionist curve, it is a time of opportunity.
“That’s the two views of the sector really – great restaurants, cafes, bars closing, as we’ve already seen in the first two weeks of January, and those closures are only going to increase as the VAT quarters fall,” he predicted when SLTN met up with him at his Haar seafood restaurant in St Andrews.
“End of the first quarter, start of second quarter, that’s where you’ll see the biggest explosion of closures. The VAT thing is becoming an endless joke. It’s not even a small percentage of the sector – it’s the whole sector crying out to the government for a reduction in VAT so they can survive. Not thrive, just survive. But they aren’t listening.”
“The whole sector is crying out to the government for a reduction in VAT so they can survive. Not thrive, just survive. But they aren’t listening.”
Dean is equally withering about the imminent increase in National Insurance: “It’s a tax on employing people! You are literally getting taxed more for employing someone,” he declares, with all the passion of a man who has a core staff of 110, rising to 200 in peak season.
“It’s the complete opposite of what you should be doing when you are trying to grow an economy!”
The Edinburgh tourist tax gets similar short shrift: “If I go stay a night in Edinburgh I’m charged 5% as well, and I’m not a tourist, I’m a businessman working at my restaurants.
“It’s just VAT up to 25%. They’ve not specified how it’s going to be spent. They are so short of cash, it’s all just going in the pot, like the LEZ money.”
The whole subject clearly exasperates him, not least because he feels that this high tax environment sours the stew for business people, like himself, who are happy to get their hands dirty creating economic activity and jobs.
Whether in chef’s whites or workie overalls, he has personally created a substantial business empire – his debut Haar in St Andrews; then Haar at Home during lockdown; then Dulse in Edinburgh’s west end and his Dean Banks at the Pompadour fine dining venue within The Caledonian Hotel, Princes Street; The Dune ‘seafood shack’ in St Andrews; The Forager pub in Dollar; the Temple Lane cocktail bar in Dundee; a burger brand; a gin brand; a vodka brand; and most recently a sister to Dulse down in Leith.
“See these people running central government and local government? How many of these people have run businesses or been entrepreneurs, understand how to manage money, understand how to cut back on money, cut back on spending?
“They wouldn’t need to increase taxes if they managed the money properly, simple as that.”
But with a business plan geared to growth, Dean cannot help but see the ‘silver lining’ to the current glut of closures: “It’s a buyers’ market, which means we can approach landlords to agree deals that benefit us, rather than benefit them with the lion’s share of the money. If they want their location to sit empty for a few years, then Hell mend them.”
It’s that kind of ruthless deal-making verve that won Banks the 2024 SLTN Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and true to that title, he will not be sitting on his hands in 2025.
“If you are very cautious about what you are doing, you’re not going to grow exponentially”, he mused. “You’ll grow over time, incrementally, but we are looking for exponential growth.”
To that end Banks is currently looking at several new sites, some closer to his Fife centre of operations than others.
“We’re looking through everything with a fine-tooth comb. Usually we’d jump into a location. If I liked it, my gut said yes, finances would say yes as well, we’d jump in and be signing deals with the landlord two weeks later.
“This year I want to keep pushing, but we’ll be looking harder at the detail, make sure that everything works for us.”
“This year I want to keep pushing, but we’ll be looking harder at the detail, make sure that everything works for us.”
The Dulse restaurant brand is a focus for expansion, and Banks is painfully aware that Dulse Glasgow has been on the agenda for two years.
“We had a Glasgow location. Then we were a bit hasty with our announcement, because we were trying to drive it. Then there was a fall out with the landlord who wanted extra money.”
So a Dulse Glasgow is high on his to-do list – but so is a Dulse Manchester.
“We’ve been down to look at a location,” he revealed. “There’s a few other northern cities of interest – I do feel the economy is stronger in the north of England than it is in Scotland.
“When I was down, it was incredible. It’s nice to see the hospitality scene like that. There was a bar told me they were turning over £4million; the restaurant next door £7million; The Ivy, £12 million.
“These are crazy amounts of money for single standalone units. If we can get a slice of that, we’d be happy.”
But Banks is also aiming to grow his existing businesses, by a process of continually finessing what is on offer, then investing in marketing that ever-improving offer to customers old and new.
“We have the capability to grow every site by 25% to 30% on the seat covers, so with that alone, without opening any new sites, we can grow.
“You have to be pushing it all the time. Particularly on social media, trying to up the game, trying to keep in the limelight.”
“You have to be pushing it all the time. Particularly on social media, trying to up the game, trying to keep in the limelight.”
As part of his own efforts to stay on the front foot, Banks likes to keep an eye on the Scottish hospitality sector’s busiest sites, the sites getting the most awards, the places people really profess love for on social media.
He is proud that more of those kind of hospitality hits are now sited on his own Fifeish home turf.
“When we came to St Andrews six years ago, there wasn’t much, at least not relative to the wealth that is in this town.
“Of course it’s an amazing location, with the golf and the uni. But it’s also a perfect location for food and drink, literally a sheltered sea cove surrounded by amazing farmland.
“I’m really happy to see St Andrews coming on massively, even in last two years.
“Some businesses get upset about competition, but I love competition. It brings more foodies to the town.
“Ondine is opening round the corner. I love Roy Brett. He’s going to bring the Edinburgh crowd here.”
Further down the coast, there’s The Ship Inn in Elie, where Dean often takes his own family for meals, plus various premium venues in Anstruther, and places like the Kinneucher Inn in Kilconquhar, all benefitting from the Fife foodie boom.
“There is definitely enthusiasm for getting out of cities,” notes Dean. “I was in Dundee on Sunday, looking for a Sunday roast, and you just couldn’t get parked anywhere near. That is no good for families.
“If you are running a quality restaurant, outside the city centre, with free parking, you’ll get mobbed.”
As well as keeping his eye on such social trends, and what other restaurants might be doing, right or wrong, in response to them, Dean also takes every chance he can to pick the brains of other operators.
“You are left to your own devices in business. There’s no book, no instructions. Each business is designed by its owner, so it’s always fascinating to hear from successful people how they did it.”
“You are left to your own devices in business,” he observes. “There’s no book, no instructions. Each business is designed by its owner, so it’s always fascinating to hear from successful people how they did it.”
He is friends with Nico Simeone of the Six By Nico empire, having come up alongside him in the kitchens of The Balmoral, and they occasionally sit down for a coffee and chat.
“Nico said to me ‘Dean I’m not a hospitality group – I’m a marketing company’.
That’s how you get people in, and how you grow a group.”
With that in mind, Dean has a wee social media team of his own, and contributes a fair bit of material for them to work with, including video content, and graphic design work.
“That’s me, Jack of all trades – chef, interior decorator, graphic designer – whatever it takes. I put up that oak panelling yesterday,” he adds, pointing to an expansive chunk of wood on one of Haar’s internal walls.
“I could have paid someone £3000 to do that job. Instead it cost me £800 in materials and some of my own time.”
He’s laughing about it now – but he was bed-bound for three days last year when a combination of manual labour and stress ‘f***ed his back’, and it took six weeks with a chiropractor to properly sort it out.
But as his venues multiply, Banks is characteristically determined to keep his personal touch upon all of them. Each head chef on his roster has a degree of autonomy to interpret the menu, but only within a tightly managed system of consultation and feedback that keeps Dean thoroughly in the loop.
“The two Dulses don’t have the same menu,” he insists. “Same essence, but differences. I don’t want it to become a chain, so the chefs are encouraged to vary things where they see fit.”
There are weekly sit down meetings with each venues’ kitchen team, and a full breakdown of revenues, percentages and customer comments is compiled and sent to Dean every night by each sites’ general manager.
“That’s what I get up to read at 6.30am, and that helps dictate what I’ll be doing that day,” he says.
“One day a week they know when I’m coming, the other days… I don’t tell anyone my schedule.”
“One day a week they know when I’m coming, the other days… I don’t tell anyone my schedule.”
Interview over, and lunchtime approaches, so Dean recommends the ‘excellent’ Cheesey Toast Shack down next to St Andrews’ West Sands beach, and your SLTN reporter goes for a hot toastie and a cold paddle.
The man himself, meanwhile, heads back to his business’s new administrative office in Cupar, with a lengthy to-do list on his mind and a parting shot at the politicians on his tongue.
“This is the way it is if you want to be successful. Every day I’ll be knocking my pan in, every day going the extra mile, every day pushing for more customers in, better menus, better reviews.
“And then every three months I’ll be paying these huge VAT bills to the Government…”
