Ed, Jill, Jack, Charlie and Rick Stein Branching out
Having come through a very public break-up, Rick and Jill Stein are as united as ever in driving forward the family business, which last year celebrated its 40th anniversary. Now, supported by their three sons, they are entering a new era of expansion. Janet Harmer speaks to all five Steins together in Padstow
I
t is a rare occurrence for all five members of the Stein family to be together in Padstow – home of the Seafood restaurant empire – at
any one time.
While four members of the family are now involved in the business full time, Rick continues to travel the world making televi- sion shows for the BBC and, until recently, spent a good chunk of the year living in Australia. Youngest son Charlie, a geology graduate, also comes and goes as he divides his time between his role managing the on-trade business at the Vintner wine company in London and the West Country. So I am fortunate to get to speak with all five
of them in one day to discover how the family has reached the point where they feel com- fortable about expanding beyond the county where the business was founded 40 years ago. It is something of a surprise that, having the benefit of a globally recognised name, that it
34 | Best of Chef | March 2016
has taken this long for the company to move beyond Cornwall. The arrival of John Jack- son as non-executive chairman of Seafood Trading appears to have been the catalyst that has enabled the Steins to take the plunge, with the opening of Rick Stein in Winchester, Hampshire, in December 2014. However, having had periodic contact with the Steins over the years – my first visit to
“I’m surprised really that the boys have come into the business as they witnessed so much stress in the early years” Rick Stein
Padstow was in the late 1980s when the Seafood Restaurant was accompanied by only a deli – I can understand why it has taken an outsider to make the family believe and recognise the value of the brand, which today encompasses eight restaurants, four shops, 40 bedrooms, a pub and a cookery school. Rick and Jill had no expectations when they opened the Seafood restaurant in 1975. “It was simply a means of paying the bills when we lost the club licence,” says Rick, referring to the nightclub they had to shut down after encountering problems with keeping law and order with a bunch of unruly fishermen. “But it seems that we tapped into our customers’ demand for simple, grilled fresh fish at a time when most places were buying it frozen and deep-frying it.”
Drumming up business
The Steins worked incredibly hard in the early
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