You were a top trader and hedge fund manager. What made you swap banking for wine?
Everybody has a wine that started it all. For me, it was a case of 1982 Château Figeac (a top Right Bank Bordeaux). I used to entertain a lot, which meant spending a lot on wine in restaurants. A few friends and I were getting sick of excessive mark-ups, so we looked into opening a wine bar around 2010 that would allow us to store our wine and drink it at a fair price. That didn’t work out but, in the process, we found the site that’s now 67 Pall Mall (in London’s St James’s). We originally wanted to launch a wine-focused restaurant, something like Medlar in Chelsea or one of Nigel Platts-Martin’s places, such as Chez Bruce or La Trompette.
How did you end up running a private members’ club?
Westminster Council wouldn’t let us open a restaurant. They said the location was only suitable for a private members’ club ( Pall Mall is home to many of London’s historic clubs, including the Reform Club, the Athenaeum, and the Army & Navy Club) and refused to grant us the A3 or A4 planning consent we needed. We figured we could find around 500 people in London who’d want to join a wine-focused private members’ club. It was originally meant to be a side project, but we now have more than 10,000 members. Shortly after our 2015 launch, I quit banking to run the business full-time and protect the very significant sum we had all invested. I’ve no regrets — though I’d probably be a lot richer if I’d stayed in banking.
What is the make-up of your membership?
About 15% of our members are wine industry or hospitality professionals. They get special pricing (half price) because we’re very keen to have them involved. The rest are wine lovers. It’s not a club for rich people. We have a broad spectrum of members, and we’re not trying to be a gentleman’s club. There aren’t many airs and graces — we don’t require people to wear a jacket, for instance. But if someone walks in wearing flip-flops, we might have a quiet word.
What are the benefits of being a member of 67 Pall Mall?
In addition to the usual club perks, we offer great wines at much lower prices than restaurants and other venues. Our gross profit margin on wine is always below 50%, and sometimes as low as 30%. We can do this because we charge a membership fee. Members can also store their wine with us. All our clubs — including those in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Verbier — have large cellars. Corkage is unlimited and charged at £30 per bottle. We only sell wine to be consumed ‘cork out’ at our clubs because we don’t want to compete with our members, many of whom are wine merchants themselves.
Tell us about your wine programme
Our London club has 5,000 different wines available to purchase and 1,000 available by the glass. We were early adopters of the Coravin preservation system, which makes this possible. We focus on older vintages. Too many restaurants offer lists full of wines that aren’t yet in their drinking window. We source from across the world: specialist merchants, châteaux, négociants, and private collectors. We have 300 to 400 suppliers, which makes for a diverse list. We stock some esoteric wines, but I wouldn’t say that’s our speciality. With so many listings, we offer virtually every style imaginable from all sorts of countries. But as far as I know, we don’t have any Prosecco.
How many sommeliers do you employ?
We have around 15 in London and a similar number across our other locations. We’re in the process of reducing the number of non-sommelier front-of-house staff. This is partly due to changes in NICs and partly because our membership model allows us to pay more highly skilled staff. Sommeliers are more than qualified to top up a guest’s water or take their food order. For this reason, we believe we offer a higher level of service than most restaurants.
The food at the London 67 Pall Mall has recently been overhauled…
The menu has been significantly upgraded following the appointment of Dan Page as executive chef. His CV includes senior roles with Simon Rogan and Jason Atherton. We started out with Marcus Verberne, who was excellent before leaving to return to New Zealand. Dan is also brilliant and has created a new wine-friendly menu. That means avoiding extremes of acidity and sweetness and steering clear of certain tricky ingredients — including pea shoots, which can make white wines taste bitter.
Tell us about your expansion plans
We want to have 10 clubs open by 2030. We’re working on five new launches, including Beaune, Bordeaux, Melbourne, and Shanghai. Most of these are much larger than our London club. We’re currently looking at a site in Tokyo that’s over 30,000sq ft. Our openings don’t come cheap. It varies by location but it typically costs between €10m and €25m per site. Stocking the wine cellar alone can cost up to €4m. All our wine and water glasses are made by Zalto (the famed Austrian stemware company). We pretty much closed down their factory a few years ago because we ordered so many. Nobody else could get hold of them for months.
How is the business funded?
I’ve essentially followed the same model I used when we launched the business with my mates. We have a decentralised investment model, with around 565 shareholders in total. For each new site, we have about 100 shareholders who own 49% of it. It’s a good model because nobody champions a business quite like an owner. They bring in friends for lunch, encourage them to become members, and sometimes even invest themselves.