Cross sector insight : managing a restaurant during lockdown

Steve Locklin FIH, General Manager at The Boat Inn shares how adopting a proactive attitude, being innovative and keeping the team motivated have been key to successful restaurant management over the past year.

Tell us a little bit about your career history in hospitality including your current role.

I started my hospitality career back in 2002 working at The Moat House at Acton Trussell in Staffordshire. I was luckily enough to work with a fantastic Restaurant Manager called Stephen Browning and Executive Chef, Matt Davies. From the moment I walked in, I knew this was for me. The chance to create lasting memories for people who had chosen to celebrate their special moments with us gave me such as buzz. Within two and a half year I worked my way from commis waiter to Assistant Restaurant Manager, maintaining our 2 AA Rosettes during that period. 

I decided it was time to move on from there and gain more experience, and so I went on to work at a variety of places including working as a butler at Weston Park in Shropshire and managing a suite at Old Trafford on match days. I spent two very happy years managing the restaurant at Moddershall Oaks Country Spa & Retreat in Staffordshire and then actually returned to The Moat House at Acton Trussell as Restaurant Director, it was great to be back with the Lewis Partnership for a few years.

I am currently General Manager at The Boat Inn in Lichfield, and it’s been a whirlwind of excitement. We’ve maintained our Michelin Assiette again for 2021 and within 12 months we’ve gone from zero to three AA Rosettes and now aiming for our fourth and hopefully the illusive Star. We are a team that is dedicated to creating memorable moments for our guests and I’m so excited about our future.

How have things been at The Boat Inn over the last 12 months? 

The past twelve months have been challenging for everyone but we are lucky that the land and premises are owned by the family and we’ve very much approached the whole situation with a “What CAN we do” attitude. 

During 2020 we spent time doing some rather major renovations to the interior and exterior of The Boat Inn. The land to the rear of the garden was re-landscaped with a new poly-tunnel which we are now growing our own produce and a new chicken house. Inside we saw major changes and redesigns including a new bar, new conservatory roof and full refurbishments of the toilets. We started to offer a takeaway service last year including our Lichfield Fried Chicken ‘Cluck and Collect’ which was a huge hit. Over Christmas we did a Cook at Home service for 5 days where we went into people’s houses and cooked a four course meal with wine pairings, again, this was a huge success and now we are running our Heat at Home boxes which are selling out every week but despite all this, we can’t wait to get open again.

How important was it to innovate during this time?

Essential, absolutely. Not only for the benefit of the business but for the mental health of our team. We had to keep going, we’re hospitality folk, it’s what we do! I likened us to Cogworth and Lumiere from Beauty & The Beast rattling around the castle waiting to serve someone! I even considered going for a jog at one point, that’s how bad it got! But seriously, we had to completely paradigm shift from what The Boat Inn is know for and do what we could to keep afloat (pardon the pun).

What’s the support been like for the business from the local community?

The support from the local people of Lichfield and surrounding areas has been absolutely incredible. They’ve supported everything that we have done during the lockdown from the Lichfield Fried Chicken (we did over 200 orders on the first night, it was amazing and humbling, they either wanted to support us or the people of Lichfield just love their chicken), to the Cook at Home where we did 20 houses in 5 days, to our Heat at Home and Valentine’s Day menu. But at the same time, Liam wanted to give back to the community to say ‘thank you’ so we have been donating 5 of our boxes every week to Liam’s former school, King Edwards VI School in Lichfield for them to distribute to families of key workers.

How have you ensured your team remained motivated during this crisis?

Our team have been great, they’ve wanted to be involved so once we could get things going again, they were coming in to take bookings for Heat at Home and Takeaways and painting, doing gardening and just wanting to be involved but we’ve kept in regular contact with everyone too just to check in on how they’re doing.

What’s your top piece of advice for coping during such challenging times?

It is so important to stay proactive and adopt that “What CAN I do” attitude. I know from my own mental health that I have to keep busy otherwise I sink. It’s been so beneficial for me having all the webinars that the Institute of Hospitality have been doing as I’ve attended many of them along with helping to organise the events for the Midlands Branch. In addition to that I’ve been reading lots to do with self-development and taking courses online. So I would say, keep motivated, know your own ‘WHY’ and keep working towards that and learn to know when you need to talk to somebody for support. It’s OK to not be OK!

You are secretary of the Midlands branch, why did you decide to take on this role?

In hospitality we aren’t just colleagues, we’re like one big extended family even if we don’t work directly together we all share one vision, to create smiles for our guests. The Institute of Hospitality offers so much support for people within the industry and when the opportunity arose to be involved in offering that support to others and giving something back to an industry that has always supported me, I wanted to play my part.

What are the aims of the branch for the next 12 months? 

I think the primary aim for the Midlands Branch in the next 12 months is engagement and letting people know we actually exist. Since taking on the position just over two years ago I have had many conversations with people who had never heard of us. The Midlands Branch is a large territory so we need lots of Members to be our voice and ambassadors and to spread the word. We have an amazing committee who I’m so lucky and proud to work alongside and The Midlands has so much to offer in hospitality, tourism and leisure, we have to be the megaphones of our region.

What events have you got coming up?

Our next event is actually this coming Thursday 4 March at 4pm called “Mise en Place – Work Ready”. We have a great panel who will be discussing what the future holds for students, people who were in the industry who have maybe been made redundant and also people wanting to come into the industry from other sectors. We will be looking at how important it is to be able to diversify during these times and maybe even consider an area of hospitality that you hadn’t thought about before. 

We also hold our monthly Midlands Meet-Up, which is a relaxed, informal chat where we discuss topical issues and members can put suggestions to the committee for future events or ways that we can be helping in the region.

Do you think there will be any positives for our industry when life returns to “normal”?

Yes definitely, I think not only the excitement of people wanting to come back to our venues for the experience but I think we have learnt to approach areas of service during COVID that we would never have considered before which in hindsight we may keep once “normal” returns, so I think as hard as it has been, it had given us a chance to develop and learn too. 

Which elements of your IoH membership have you found the most valuable during the crisis?

Without doubt, the incredible webinars that have been organised have been so valuable. At the start of this pandemic we were all facing a situation that we had never even considered would happen in our lifetimes. Closing down our beloved businesses, furloughing our teams (most of us had never even heard of furlough before March 2020!), writing risk assessments for a virus we’d never heard of and most importantly, being aware of how to care for the mental health of our teams. At every stage, the Institute of Hospitality had appropriate webinars to support us as we supported our teams and I’m truly grateful for that.

How has being an IoH member helped your career?

I’ve have so many new hospitality family members since joining in 2017 who I know I can always pick up the telephone to and ask for support and advice. Our Branch Chair, Sam Goss FIH has kept in touch with me during the pandemic to see how I am and how I’m coping. He knows my love of self-development so was sending book recommendations over to me, he even dropped in a book to The Boat Inn last week when picking up his Anniversary Heat at Home box. I met one of my heroes, Silvano Geraldin at The Savoy last year at the Restaurant Manager of the Year Awards and he gave me his card and said “If you need anything, call me”. To work in an industry where the competition helps each other out is incredible, seriously, what other industry does that? That is why hospitality is so special and why we know we will bounce back, because we are all here to support each other and the Institute of Hospitality facilitates us to make those relationships within our wonderful industry.