Andy Lennox's guest appearances

Andy Lennox

Screw It Just Do It with Alex Chisnall

Humans of Hospitality

BBX Quantum Leap

Mark Cribb

Rupert Holloway

Kris Gumbrell

Urban Guild

Cemal Ezel

Lewis Howes

Damion Lupo

Evan Carmichael

Andrew Walker

Mark Lewis

Richard Branson

John Lee Dumas

Rick Stein

Helen Browning

Jonathan Downey

OwlTail

Growing A Hospitality Business In Challenging Times - Andy Lennox / Quantum Leap into 2021

Growing A Hospitality Business In Challenging Times - Andy Lennox / Quantum Leap into 2021

Andy Lennox started his career as a ‘KP’, a kitchen porter, peeling potatoes.  When he was  21, he teamed up with two friends to create Koh Thai, a restaurant in Dorset, offering authentic Thai cooking with a South of France style of service.  As Andy put it, they ‘knew nothing and learned on the trot’ –  only realising  6 months in that they needed tills, rather than paper to relay orders to the kitchen and the bar. Soon the pace picked up to a gallop, as the Koh Thai concept took off and 11 more Kohs opened in Dorset, Hampshire and Somerset… It was great, but there were growing pains, as you’ll discover - like the fact that a deal is never sealed until the signature’s on the dotted line… 10 years on, Andy is onto his next concept, ‘Zim Braai’: the earthy, smokey slow cooked oxtail and wild boar potjies…bunny chows, curries in a bun…and ‘braais’ – barbeques that bring people together.

Andy Lennox started his career as a ‘KP’, a kitchen porter, peeling potatoes.  When he was  21, he teamed up with two friends to create Koh Thai, a restaurant in Dorset, offering authentic Thai cooking with a South of France style of service.  As Andy put it, they ‘knew nothing and learned on the trot’ –  only realising  6 months in that they needed tills, rather than paper to relay orders to the kitchen and the bar. Soon the pace picked up to a gallop, as the Koh Thai concept took off and 11 more Kohs opened in Dorset, Hampshire and Somerset… It was great, but there were growing pains, as you’ll discover - like the fact that a deal is never sealed until the signature’s on the dotted line… 10 years on, Andy is onto his next concept, ‘Zim Braai’: the earthy, smokey slow cooked oxtail and wild boar potjies…bunny chows, curries in a bun…and ‘braais’ – barbeques that bring people together.

#005 Andy Lennox - Zim Braai 

Koh Thai

"We're in this stage where you have no money again. And we've had the same problem twelve times. We've run out of money every single time we've done it. I wish someone had turned around to me at some point and gone 'listen, process, absorb'. Just listen to people. At the end of the day everybody turned round to me and said you're going to run out of cash...and I said 'no, no, no we're not going to run out of cash at all'. And..we ran out of cash. We ran out of cash three times until I realised that there's a lot more to running a restaurant and running a business than meets the eye." On today's show I bring you a taste of one of our 'live' events in anticipation of our first 'live' events of 2018 starting later this month. I welcome Andy Lennox from Koh Thai Tapas. Koh was founded in 2009 at the height of the recession when he had a choice of properties with low rent, but the challenge of having no capital from the banks. Andy opened the first restaurant in Bournemouth in 2009, winning restaurant of the year in its first year. This led to many more restaurant openings, fast forward to 2018 and they now have thirteen locations across the south of England. Andy started with £7,000 and three staff and a first year turnover of £20,000. In 2018 they now have 350 staff and a turnover of £12,000,000. Here's how he did it.

"We're in this stage where you have no money again. And we've had the same problem twelve times. We've run out of money every single time we've done it. I wish someone had turned around to me at some point and gone 'listen, process, absorb'. Just listen to people. At the end of the day everybody turned round to me and said you're going to run out of cash...and I said 'no, no, no we're not going to run out of cash at all'. And..we ran out of cash. We ran out of cash three times until I realised that there's a lot more to running a restaurant and running a business than meets the eye." On today's show I bring you a taste of one of our 'live' events in anticipation of our first 'live' events of 2018 starting later this month. I welcome Andy Lennox from Koh Thai Tapas. Koh was founded in 2009 at the height of the recession when he had a choice of properties with low rent, but the challenge of having no capital from the banks. Andy opened the first restaurant in Bournemouth in 2009, winning restaurant of the year in its first year. This led to many more restaurant openings, fast forward to 2018 and they now have thirteen locations across the south of England. Andy started with £7,000 and three staff and a first year turnover of £20,000. In 2018 they now have 350 staff and a turnover of £12,000,000. Here's how he did it.

#042: Team Builder:  Koh Thai's Andy Lennox