Tom Arnel and Sergio Lopez, photographed exclusively for Caterer Middle East, at The Sum of Us in Dubai.
That’s ingredients, location, and staff members ticked. But restaurants are a business, and like any other enterprise, it requires ROI. Lopez says: “Before going into anything, myself and the finance team sit down and see what are going to be the projections, and then we look at the rent they are offering us and then we give our counter-offer. If it goes ahead, it’s like any negotiation. We take it, and if not, we move on.”
Tom&Serg made its ROI in its first year, and when I ask about The Sum of Us, Lopez laughs and says: “It is a beast! It’s a 1000 square metres inside plus 200 square metres outside.” Due to the size and the roastery and bakery costs, Lopez estimates ROI at 18 months to two years. “Common Grounds will be earlier than Tom & Serg, because it’s a smaller venue with footfall. Mall of the Emirates had 75 million visitors last year. So the footfall is massive.”
Lopez continues: “When some banks approach us, they ask how we managed to open two more restaurants, and I said, just by being careful about what we spend — and how we spend. People with an AED 10 million budget spend eight million in fit-out, 1-1.5 million in staff and the rest in little bits. If we have 10 million, we’d spend four in fit out, four in our staff, and the rest we keep it for the next project.”
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And the two have their hands deep in the day-to-day running, with both making sure they visit all three venues every day. “We’re going to continue to do that,” adds Arnel confidently. Lopez says: “If you keep growing, it comes to a point where you cannot be at the same place all the time, so your staff needs to represent you. That’s why it’s important to invest in our staff. We have an initiative now where everyone in the office has to go work in Tom&Serg at least once a month. Including Tom and myself, we spend once or three times a month working, doing the service, making sure we get our hands dirty.”
Going back to the conversation we had with them a year ago, Arnel and Lopez had then confirmed that in addition to The Sum of Us, they were working on “four very quirky licensed and unlicensed outlets” — at the time pencilled in for 2015 — “which will focus on turning Dubai's casual dining scene on its head”. They have, in this interview, declined to share the information about how many restaurants they will be opening in 2016.
Lopez teases: “And you will see with our next openings, people will think, why are they opening here? How did you manage to get that?” Arnel adds tantalisingly: “The places that we have signed up for next year… nobody wanted them. So we put ourselves in an area of the market where there’s no competition. That’s one of the things that’s going to give us an X-factor.”
What they did reveal was that licensed venues are definitely in. Arnel reveals: “We’ve got some massive plans. We’ve not conformed and done what everyone thinks we’re going to do. We’ve got some really surprising and big projects coming up. Next year we’re doing licensed venues and we’re going to do them in an area that people would never expect. They’re going to be underground, not secretive, but in places that are accessible, but away from the glitz and glamour… very cool, very urban, very cosmopolitan.”
Lopez jumps in: “We can say by the end of next year, our company will have close to 500 employees. As long as we keep doing what we’re doing: having fun and bringing something different to Dubai, we’ll never stop.”
Arnel continues: “It’s a lot. We’ve been really ambitious. That’s why we have so many people in head office now. They’re not working for these three restaurants, they’re working on the expansion. But I think, we will still be the coolest private restaurant company in the UAE.”
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