The Big Interview: Jamie Barber on Cabana

Closing two restaurants could never be seen as a desirable outcome. But for restaurateur Jamie Barber it had become the only option in an enduringly tough trading climate.

Despite concerted efforts to make them work, he said two regional sites in Southampton and Manchester remained unviable, and they were immediately closed when KPMG was appointed administrator last week.

It follows a branch closure in Leeds earlier this year, and a further three sites last year, in Islington, Brixton and Newcastle, leaving Cabana with five sites.

“It’s not a nice thing to do,” he told MCA. “We really wanted to avoid that scenario.

“We’d done a lot of work to make those sites work and try and make them viable. But the sector is incredibly tough, and we didn’t have many options left in the end. It’s been a very difficult period obviously.”

The silver lining has been the secured future of the Cabana brand, albeit downsized, under Barber’s other restaurant group Hush Brasseries, joining the eponymous brasserie and premium French burger concept Hache.

In its new home, Cabana will get some much-needed investment, work to modernise its food offer will continue, with potential for synergies in shared overheads.

Hush shareholders have committed new funds to invest into the estate, with sector veteran Ian Neill, already an investor in Cabana, overseeing the brand in his capacity as chairman of Hush.

“On a positive note, we have found a reason to keep the other restaurants going, with new funding to invest in the sites – and to be honest some have been underinvested.

“A transformation is not going to happen on day one. We need to consider how best to do it.

“But I think it’s a really positive outcome that we’ve managed to protect and preserve so many jobs, and the future of the brand.”

Meanwhile, the team will look to leverage co-founder David Ponte’s Brazilian heritage, and Hush’s food team, to continue to evolve Cabana’s food offer and bring it in line with contemporary consumer tastes.

This will involve further work to make the menu less meat focussed and heavy, with about 40% of menu already changed last year.

“To be honest, I think we’ve got more work to do. We feel reenergised by the difficulties the brand has had. Now we’ve got support to invest.”

“I don’t think there will be quick changes – I don’t want to kneejerk into a new format. We will spend three-six months on really going back to our roots, looking at every single aspect of the brand from start to finish, and modernizing for what is turning out to be a different generation of people wanting to eat in different ways.

“David and I and the rest of the team are going to go back to basics and deliver really tasty food at affordable prices. I know that sounds trite, but you can never do enough of that. The successful brands are the ones that can deliver on that promise.”

Needless to say, after such a bruising period, there is little appetite to jump back into expansion.

“Everybody in the sector is massively cautious,” Barber adds. “Nobody knows what the next few months is going to hold. It’s been a very hard process. The outcome at Cabana has been positive for Hush, but we’ve now got it integrate that, brush ourselves down, batten down the hatches and get down to business. No one is pretending the sector is easy.”