Hospitality Training with Sam Harrison Part 1

This show was published Friday, November 22, 2024

Overview

Sam Harrison is an independent restaurant owner along with partner Fanny, with brasseries & cafes in West London, with six sites and growing. We talk to Sam about staff training, the skills and roles in a restaurant, and how he uses internal promotions and training to drive his hospitality ethos.

This isn’t a wine focused podcast, but it is a real look behind the scenes of a busy, thriving independent restaurant business in London.

Sam started his first brasserie in Chiswick in 2005, but before that went from being a waiter at Rick Stein's in Padstow Cornwall to managing the restaurants for Rick & Jill Stein. Rick Stein backed Sam financially in 2005 to open two sites in Chiswick and Balham which they had for 10 years before selling. The first Sam's Riverside brasserie opened in 2019 and since then he has developed six different hospitality sites in West London employing 130 staff. His latest venture is Sam's Waterside in Brentford which sits alongside his flagship brasserie in Chiswick. These large brasseries serve 2000 covers a week. In addition, there are two Sam's Kitchens which are small cafes serving brunch & lunch and two deli shops called Sam's Larder.

We hear about the different roles from cleaners, kitchen porters and runners, to front and back of house staff and managers. Often recruited or promoted from within their own team such as someone who might start as a runner moving up to junior waiter, waiter, head waiter and eventually floor manager or even restaurant manager/general manager.

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Music

The music used for the UK Wine Show is Griffes de Jingle 1 by Marcel de la Jartèle and Silence by Etoile Noire.