Hot on the heels of Nightcap’s most recent acquisition, founder and CEO Sarah Willingham spoke on how she views the current challenges facing hospitality and the most profound moment she has experienced in the industry as “a woman in a man’s world”
Betting big on the recovery of the sector post-pandemic by floating the late-night bar operator on the stock market and then growing it into a £60m business cannot have come without its challenges. “We dragged it kicking and screaming over the line” the entrepreneur said.
Taking a holistic approach to the challenges of the more recent cost-of-living crisis, Willingham told MCA’s Pub Conference, “it’s so easy to look at the numbers and forget what we really do”.
Despite it being “the hardest it’s been trade-wise for us”, she described how demand on a Saturday is “crazy”. Yet when it comes to the weekdays it can be more like “tumbleweed”.
“That’s a very interesting dynamic for us because we’re getting to the point where you almost feel like an event space for a Saturday, which clearly doesn’t work as a long-term business model,” she said.
Instead, Willingham wants to focus on getting people back into the bar, at the bar stools and talking to the person behind it, to revel in “the craft, the savoir faire” of making cocktails.
Commenting on the biggest changes she has seen in this industry over the decades, she cited Covid-19 as one of the main catalysts in changing the way people interact with hospitality. “And of course, competition is greater than ever.
“The consumer has become much more discerning over the last 20 years. If you’re a gastropub, it must be a nightmare because everybody is watching BBC Two and they all think they’re a gourmet chef. It’s the same in cocktails, you’ve got to meet those demands.”
Looking back to her early years, Willingham treated the audience to a defining memory that completely changed her approach to being a woman in business.
She said that although she has always had “imposter syndrome” she sees it as actually “quite healthy”.
“I think it keeps our feet on the ground. I was very lucky in my twenties I had a real epiphany moment”.
Working for the board at Pizza Express at the time, Willingham was running an M&A legal deal and walked into a meeting room full of men.
As she walked in, the main legal counsel on the other side of the table said, “Thank goodness for that, mine’s white one sugar”. She made him a coffee and offered the rest of the room one before saying to the man, ‘So shall we start?’.
“As he looked up, I watched the colour drain from his face.”
Having walked out with the deal, Willingham had a major realisation. “You will get underestimated but let that be your superpower. It was the biggest gift anybody could have given me in that moment.”
