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www.thecaterer.com Gary Usher
Brought up in St Albans, Gary Usher kicked off his career at the Chester Grosvenor before moving on to Chapter One and spending formative stints at Chez Bruce, York & Albany and Jamie’s Italian. But Usher is at pains to point out that it wasn’t just the headline names that have influenced his career. “Actually, the majority of what I’ve done is
not that,” he says. “Some of the things that stick in my head have come from bosses that just worked in pubs. There was one boss who said something that will stick with me for the rest of my life.”
“One boss said something that will stick with me for the rest of my life”
Usher had offered to serve up the staff meals and, having brought in three sirloin steaks, he offered to cook one each for the pub owner and the head chef. “I put the steaks in a pan and started them off with a bit of oil. Then I put my fingers into a load of butter, put the butter in the pan and started cooking it. My boss asked me what the hell I was doing. I said, I’m just cooking the steaks. He said: ‘I know you’re cooking the steaks… why the hell are you using my butter? That’s my bloody money!’ I was using it on the sirloin steaks that I’d paid for!” Usher, aged 20 at the time, thought
about what had happened for the rest of the afternoon, which led his boss to ask him if he was still sulking about the incident. “I said I was because it was a bit harsh, but he explained [about controlling costs]. It’s always stuck with me because it’s really true.”
“You don’t get anything back for it,” says
Usher. “I’ve spent the money, it’s all gone! But without those £100 vouchers, we wouldn’t have a restaurant. We’re going to try and limit the number of voucher bookings per night. We’ve got the people that have got the restau- rant booked out as well – the ones who’ve paid £2,000 and £5,000.” The most financially satisfying reward that
Usher offered on Kickstarter was the chance to bag one of 50 Sticky Walnut branded butch- ers’ aprons for a cool £50 a pop. He explains: “That’s what you dream of in a crowdfunding situation. Putting something like an apron on at £50 means you’re getting most of the cash and that really is giving you the opportunity to open a restaurant from nothing. The food and that kind of stuff end up being pretty even.” Usher’s first foray into crowdfunding was undeniably triumphant; but is it a route to finance that he would consider again for res- taurant number three? Absolutely, but he admits that there are those that don’t neces-
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sarily agree with this idea. “To do a third site, I know I wouldn’t have money in the restau- rants to be able to do it,” he explains. “A lot of people think that it’s crazy that
we’ve been given 100 grand and that we didn’t deserve it because we’ve got a busy restaurant already. Why would I need to crowdfund a res- taurant when this one is successful? We do well at Sticky, but we spend all the money we make back on the business. Last year we spent 70 grand on refurbishing the kitchen, which might not sound like much to a lot of people, but to me that’s everything we had.” But while Usher might already be thinking about where a third restaurant might be, he’s firm about the need to see how he manages with two first. “You just don’t know whether Sticky has done well because we’ve been lucky,” he suggests with typical humility. “I need to see whether the second one works. If we have got a recipe here that can be replicated somewhere else, then I think number three will be quite easy in comparison to number two.”
31 July 2015 | The Caterer | 49
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