David from Grind London, a collection of coffee shops, cocktail bars and restaurants, started his hospitality journey by inheriting a mobile phone shop, where he loved the building but not the business.

Fast forward and David has managed to walk that tricky operational and design tightrope where his venues are both a great stop off for a daytime coffee, but also a sit down meal, and by night transform into a busy cocktail bar.  Not an easy feat, but something that feels so effortless when right, but in reality is a real challenge. 

I personally remember GRIND for some memorable crowd funding videos and how early in its development it managed to attract significant levels of investment and expanded into some high profile sites as a result.

We touch on the cycle of raising money and investing that money and how useful it is that they’d just raised funds prior to the pandemic, and had not yet spent them, albeit it is now very frustrating to have to burn through some of that cash just to keep heads above water rather than opening new venues.

We also touch on how the diversification into online retail has been helpful in keeping the business and some of the team ticking over.

David also touches on his thoughts on TRONC and the furlough scheme, as well as having some great perspectives on when to re-open, rental issues, distancing, blunt instruments, targeted measures and more.