Phil Cameron, the former theatre producer, airport lounge entrepreneur and backer of Claw, has told MCA sees great growth potential in the concept.
Cameron likened his role in the venture to that of a theatre producer, supporting Claw founder Fabian Clark to realise his creative vision for the concept.
He told MCA after the first bricks and mortar restaurant opens in Soho, which follows on from street food pop-ups and a shipping container residency in the City, the partners will assess their next step.
Camron said: “Who knows what the next thing could be – it might be we just do one restaurant, and there’s some other manifestation of Claw.
“My feeling is this is a great brand with potential and we’ll definitely grow it. The questions is in what direction and when. From experience you only grow it to the extent it’s ready to grow. A lot of things go wrong when you get too heavily into the rollout.
“This is Fabian’s thing, I’ve come in to support him where I can. Neither of us is a powerhouse restaurateur looking to roll out frantically. We want to get the brand right and grow as appropriate.”
Cameron has brought in designers, branding people, architects, operations people to help Clark develop Claw.
The entrepreneur, who founded and leads No1 Lounges, an eight-strong airport lounge group, said while a key draw of concept was the food, the shellfish angle was not so specialist as to alienate the broader dining demographic.
He said: “The nice thing about Claw It uses crab as the hero dish, than more broadly seafood, then even more broadly ‘land’ food and plant food. It’s a sharing menu, with a sense of coastal dining brought into the city.
“Seafood specialists can alienate a bit of the market, whereas this allows for much broader social dining, which has angle to it, and is really well positioned.”
On his supporting role, Cameron said: “In the theatre, if you want to do a good musical, you’ve got to have great singers, or you’ll never be forgiven. And I’ve always used that analogy for whatever I do.
He continued: “A good theatre producer doesn’t restrict a director, you have a shared vision and help achieve and adjust that vision as it goes to be nimble. Business plans always need to be adapted, and my role is to help them achieve their aims.”
“We have a clear aim of what Claw wants to be, and don’t want to lose the heart and soul it had as a pop-up.”
