. Picture: Phil Wilkinson
Published on Monday 20 February 2012 00:29
The founders of Howies restaurants are again in charge after buying back the business they sold in 2006. So, why didn’t tales of false teeth down the loo and communal sing-songs put them off, asks Lee Randall
“She got a little excited,” says Scott, in a voice resembling the velvety red he’s pouring into my glass. “She came over to me rather sheepishly, pulled me to one side and said, ‘David, I think my teeth are down the loo.’ These were retrieved, and I said, ‘We’ll wrap them up and you can take them home.’ She said, ‘I haven’t had my main course yet! Just give them a boil, I’ll pop them back in.’”
Scott and his wife, Alison Craig, best known as an author, broadcaster and now reporter with The One Show, opened the first Howies in July 1990, on St Leonard’s Street, Edinburgh, in the spot currently occupied by Blonde. The address started life as George’s Transport Cafe, then became Rasputin’s Russian Restaurant, owned by former Fleet Street star Dorothy Young. In the early days Scott spent some of his time in the kitchen and, after finishing her morning shift at Forth FM, Craig pitched in as a waitress. Even Scott’s mum provided Border tarts for the sweets menu.
“There was never a grand plan,” says Craig. “This is where David’s experience as an estate agent came in, because he was always aware of what was on the market. St Leonard’s Street wasn’t as busy and upmarket as it is now and people thought, ‘Is he barking?’ But word got around within days among the student population, so it became busy very quickly.”
Informality was a Howies hallmark, and one of the reasons for its popularity. “It wasn’t white tablecloths and people asking if they could top up your wine glass all the time,” says Craig. “In fact, one night David was cooking and I was waiting tables, and the place was rammed with students. For some reason someone stood up and began to sing a song, and their table all joined in. Then the next table stood up and sang a song. It went round the entire restaurant – by this time all these strangers were arm in arm. Finally it came to a table occupied by a couple. The man stood up and said, ‘I can assure you I will not be singing a song, nor have I ever sang a song in public.’ Everyone went back to eating. He paid his bill, but as they were leaving, a little voice in the corner began to sing, ‘So long, farewell … ’ and all the diners stood up and serenaded this guy.”
Scott, the son of a banker, is originally from Edinburgh, and Craig comes from Aberdeen. Though Scott attended university there for a year, he didn’t meet Craig until much later – they were both 29 – in the Bailie, in Stockbridge. He’d returned to Edinburgh and taken a job as a cashier in the Luckpenny on Hanover Street. Whenever things were quiet, chef Mike Scott (no relation) would teach him to cook. David progressed from the kitchen to managing the restaurant, and helping with their outside catering business and chip shop.
“But after five years I realised there was no future. It was a family operation and they had children. So I thought I’d go back to university to do a business degree at Heriot-Watt – and finish this time. I swore I’d never get involved in catering again, because it’s such a mad gig, too intense, a young person’s game. I was feeling old and run down in my twenties. But that’s because we used to work six or seven days a week, and we played very hard. In the summer we’d go out after finishing work then come straight in the next day not having slept.”
After university he worked briefly as an estate agent, but the company wanted to send him to the west coast. “That was like another country. I was chatting to Alison one night and she said, ‘What do you really want to do?’ I said, ‘Open a restaurant,’ and she said, ‘Well just bloody do it!’”
With St Leonard’s Street up and running, Scott was keen to expand. “My nature is not to stand still, so I thought: ‘OK, put the staff and systems into place and go find another one.’” They opened on Dalry Road in 1992, and never looked back. In time there would be branches on Alva Street, in Bruntsfield, and in Dundee and St Andrews.
In 2006 they surprised everyone by selling Howies to entrepreneurs Cameron McColl and John McCoach. Why? “Gosh,” says Scott, “it got to the point where we ran out of the impetus and energy to keep expanding. That was after 16 years – a long time to be running hard at it – and we received an offer that was hard to turn down.” He won’t be drawn, but the deal was reported to be in the £2 million range, with Scott and Craig retaining ownership of the actual properties at Waterloo Place, and Chapel Street in Aberdeen.
Scott’s idea was to devote his time to property and land investments. “I did projects with people I knew, getting involved in adding value by getting planning permissions and so on. But three years ago the markets dried up in terms of liquidity with the banks. They said, ‘Use your own money.’ I said, ‘I don’t think so.’”
Late last year the couple heard that Howies was headed for receivership and for sale at a combined value of offers over £485,000. Buying it back was a no-brainer – every instinct said go for it. “It would be difficult to see it in anybody else’s hands,” says Scott. “We’ve done that, and that was horrible,” echoes Craig.
It made sense to keep Waterloo Place and Aberdeen open, since they own the properties. As for Victoria Street – well, back when it was a Pierre Victoire, they had one of their first dates there. They rent that property, but it’s a room of two halves, with separate owners. “Edinburgh’s like that, there’s never any cut-and-clear divisions,” says Craig.
From an economic and business perspective, operating a delivering business from your own premises has a lot of appeal to the banks. “I do feel for the people who bought this business,” says Scott. “When you buy a catering business and you’re not actually involved in catering as part of your life, or haven’t been historically, there are huge challenges that aren’t apparent on the surface. That’s when it becomes more challenging.”
Was it heartbreaking watching the restaurants decline? “Because his name was above the door, it was always going to be personal, even if we were not involved,” says Craig, alluding to the fact that Scott’s middle name is Howie.
He says: “The toughest thing is that Edinburgh is a village, maybe a town if you’re lucky, and no matter what ends up in the press saying ‘Sold’, a lot of people still thought we were involved for the past five years. At times it was disappointing to go past and look at the building and think: ‘Oh, it doesn’t present itself the way you want it to; it doesn’t look fresh, it doesn’t look right, the lights aren’t on.’”
They are slowly refurbishing the venues, but the basic ethos is unchanged: simple cooking and wholesome, seasonal food. Famously, the restaurants only have tiny freezers, for storing sorbets and ice-cream, and food is delivered fresh seven days a week. Each of their three chefs – Stephen Wallace at Waterloo Place; Chris Thomas at Victoria Street, and Louis Hewitt in Aberdeen – is encouraged to put his own stamp on his menu, so they aren’t cookie-cutter identical.
Might they renew their policy of expansion? “If we were 20 years younger …” says Scott, leaving his sentence hanging. “But I think we’ll pause and make sure we’ve got it right and develop the theme.” Apart from anything else, they owe it to the staff. “It was a transfer of a going concern, so we bought all the assets from the administrator, which includes all the staff – some of whom we’ve known for a long time,” says Scott. That amounts to roughly 70 people, all of whom have lives and personalities and histories. “And we’ve taken that on,” says Craig. “There are probably people who have lost faith in the brand, and it’s our job to let them know that the original ideas and standards are very much back in operation.”
