Overall ranking: 69 (ranked 67 in 2010)
Pub ranking: 6 (ranked 8 in 2010)
Rupert Clevely: Snapshot
Rupert Clevely co-founded Geronimo Inns, in 1995 with his wife Jo. His belief that London was ready for a new style of upmarket pub, similar to those he had seen in Sydney while working in the international drinks trade, has proven well-founded.
Proof that Geronimo had made more established pub operators sit up and take notice came in December 2010 when Young & Co bought the business for £60m, with Clevely joining the Young’s board.
Rupert Clevely: Career guide
In 1981, Clevely joined H Parrot & Co Wine Shippers, a subsidiary of Veuve Clicquot, as sales manager for Central London. In 1987, he was made sales director, and tasked with establishing an Asia Pacific regional office for Veuve Clicquot in Sydney, Australia.
He developed the Champagne brand in Australasia, opened new distribution channels in Asia and created a sales and distribution structure in Japan in association with Louis Vuitton. While with Veuve Clicquot he also identified and managed the purchase of the Cloudy Bay and Cape Mentelle wineries in New Zealand and Australia.
In 1990, he returned to the UK as managing director of Veuve Clicquot. By 1995, he had changed career track and acquired his first pub, the Chelsea Ram.
Geronimo’s combination of the warm traditional welcome of a local pub with high quality drinks and locally sourced, freshly-cooked food created a blueprint for a new style of city pub. The group also proved able to adapt the concept, opening at airport, railways and shopping centre sites.
Rupert Clevely: What we think
Most of us have sat in a poorly-run restaurant or bar in a prime location and pontificated about just how much better the business could be if only we were in charge.
Such talk usually goes no further. Rupert and Jo Clevely made it a reality, putting their money where their mouth was, and building a business that operated 26 pubs when Young’s stepped in to acquire Geronimo Inns in December 2010.
The synergies are clear. At a time when many operators were trying to disguise the pub origins of their estate and reinvent their businesses as restaurants, Geronimo recognised that pubs were precisely what a new, affluent market living and working in London’s more upmarket locations were looking for.
Young’s has similarly worked to retain its pub heritage while broadening its appeal, but has recognised the different perspective Geronimo brings. Stephen Goodyear, chief executive of Young’s, said the acquisition “fits very well with our expansion strategy which is focused on high quality, food-led, managed houses in the London area, a strategy that we will continue to pursue with both the Young’s and the Geronimo formats”.
From his seat in the Young’s board, Rupert Clevely is now in the enviable position of retaining Geronimo’s identity while influencing the development of the much larger Young’s managed pub business. For London’s pub goers, that looks to be very good news.
Rupert Cleverly’s ranking in the 2010 Caterersearch.com 100 >>
Young’s buys Geronimo for £60m >>
Rupert Clevely in Caterer and Hotelkeeper’s Minute on the Clock >>
Geronimo Inns website >>
Young & Co website >>