About Benjamin Sawyer
Thirty years in hospitality, from the pot-wash to the boardroom table, and most of the jobs in between, sometimes all on the same day.
Who is Benjamin Sawyer?
Benjamin Sawyer is an independent hospitality consultant and the founder of Atelier Sawyer, working with restaurants, pubs, bars, and cafés in the UK and on the Costa del Sol. He has spent more than 30 years in hospitality: as a management trainer at Mitchells & Butlers, a restaurant manager at Selfridges, the founder of the Radhost pub group in London and the Home Counties, a general manager at PizzaExpress in central London, and the owner of two businesses in Spain.
Thirty years, in brief
| When | Where | What |
|---|---|---|
| 2001 to 2004 | Mitchells & Butlers | Deputy manager and management trainer at a flagship training house: a large pub, restaurant, garden, and terrace, with a team of 60. Trained managers at every level, and reopened a site closed by the authorities in under a week, with a five-star rating. |
| 2004 to 2005 | Selfridges, Oxford Street | Restaurant manager of Lab Café, with its tea bar of more than 150 teas, and The Brass Rail, the store's salt beef bar. |
| 2005 to 2006 | The Fallen Angel and Jo Jo's Bar, London | Turned round a late-night club in about a month, taking nightly takings from around £250 to more than £3,500; and opened a new bar in Bethnal Green from scratch: drinks, music, design, recruitment, training, systems, and marketing. |
| 2007 to 2014 | Radhost | Founded my own pub group with very little capital: the Sun Inn in Bethnal Green, the Dew Drop Inn in Berkshire, and the Half Moon in Oxfordshire, and, for three months, the Waverley Arms in Nunhead. |
| 2013 to 2017 | PizzaExpress, central London | General manager of a high-volume restaurant, with full responsibility for its profit and loss, and a part in management assessments, performance, and loss prevention across central London. |
| 2021 to 2024 | Costa del Sol | El Punto Gastro Café in Benalmádena, sold within a year for three times my investment, then Pizzeria No. 7 in Málaga. |
| 2025 onwards | Atelier Sawyer | Hospitality consulting, websites, and systems for independents in the UK and Spain. |
What thirty years taught me
Standards are taught, not hoped for. Mitchells & Butlers put every manager, all the way to the board, through ten to twelve weeks of training in a working pub: pot-wash, kitchen, floor, bar, and office. I trained people that way, and I still believe in it.
A room tells you what a spreadsheet cannot. At Selfridges and PizzaExpress I learned the discipline of numbers at scale. At the Sun Inn, a pub that had seen 17 tenants in two years, I learned that the numbers only change when the room does.
Read the lease. A clause I signed at 26 eventually cost me three pubs. I read every lease since as though it could close you.
Make the offer hang together. At The Fallen Angel, nothing was clever. The music, the drinks, the team, and the door simply started to tell the same story.
Authenticity outlasts fashion. In Spain, the regulars who paid the bills came for proper coffee, good tea, and a free tapa with their drink, not for the latest idea.
How I work
- Accountability: I do not just give advice; I measure what changes, in plain sight.
- Collaboration: I would rather build a partnership than be a supplier.
- Empathy: I have run venues that struggled, and lost businesses. I know what it costs.
- Integrity: I follow my own advice, and I tell you the truth, even when it is hard.
Beyond the work
I am Scottish, from Inverness, and I live between Benalmádena and King's Cross, which is a fair summary of the business too. I have served as a lay member of the NHS People's Platform for inner north-east London, and helped found the Bethnal Green Business Community, which won council funding for local shops and a seat at the table in the town centre's regeneration. I build things for causes I believe in, such as Donkey Dreamland.
Qualifications: Member of the British Institute of Innkeeping (MBII). Advanced Diploma in International Relations, London Metropolitan University.
Talk it through
A free 30-minute call will tell us both whether I can help, and where to start.