Oxford accent

Stuart Campbell is no stranger to the stresses of opening a restaurant but, in the countdown to the opening of Savannah in Oxford, there's something more personal at stake. Rosalind Mullen pays her first visit to the site.

When a company's reputation is at risk, Stuart Campbell has proved that he can get restaurants up and running. Besides opening Michael Gottlieb's Smollensky's Balloon in London, he notched up a series of successes in his previous job as group operations manager for Gioma (UK). They include turning around the fortunes of Calzone Pizza Bar, launching Gaucho Grill and taking Down Mexico Way into Europe. His biggest challenge now is to prove that he can maintain this track record with his own restaurant, Savannah, in Oxford.

Needless to say, Campbell's 17 years of experience in the restaurant trade don't defend him from stress. "I can rely on the fact that I've opened restaurants before," he says. "The new part is that I'm where the buck stops."

As he acknowledges, though, the real stress hasn't even begun. In short, the potential of the 120-seat restaurant has yet to be tested, as building works, which started in June, have proved more extensive than expected, delaying the opening by a month. The problem is that the site is on the ground floor of the Royal Oxford hotel and much of the work - involving 12 tonnes of structural steel - has been to separate the two premises. The contractors are now expected to hand over on 19 October, and Campbell intends to launch a week later.

Campbell, who signed for the site last November, is unfazed by the delay, but he says that many entrepreneurs going it alone don't factor in possible problems. "People must realise they need a year before they can open," he warns.

He has taken a 20-year lease on the premises, paying £97,000 a year to the consortium of businessmen who own the Royal Oxford hotel. One thing Campbell is at pains to emphasise, however, is that the restaurant has no ties with the hotel. "We want to be stand-alone," he stresses. "It's just a coincidence that this property was available. I never wanted to be a hotel restaurant - that's a London trend."

In fact, Campbell has made a point of not getting entangled in London trends. In his view, the West End in particular is saturated with restaurants that are constantly forced to reinvent themselves to compete, and in a bid to avoid this pattern he identified places such as Reading, Cambridge and his home town of Guildford for his new venture. He settled on the Oxford site simply because it came up first - but it also fits his criteria.

For instance, the restaurant is situated near the station, just off the city centre, and Campbell says that he always intended Savannah to be a destination restaurant. On top of that, as a university town, Oxford has a regular influx of people, a strong tourist draw and an intelligent local community that would be attracted by Savannah.

So what exactly is Savannah? In a walk-through of what is pretty much a building site, Campbell conjures up a vision of the restaurant as light and airy with "no boundaries between kitchen and restaurant". He describes how diners will be ushered up to a counter in front of the open kitchen by a host. There they will be able to choose their own cut of "hormone-free" steak, priced £10-£19, or choose between fish such as grilled bream, £10, or tuna steak, £11. Back at the table, they will be given complimentary bread, salad and purified water and can sit back and watch their food being cooked to specification in the kitchen.

"Today's consumer is keen to understand raw materials," explains Campbell, "and the only way to get around that is to display it and get them to participate in the choice of how it is cooked, with accompaniments and sauce."

He was inspired toward this natural, uncomplicated approach to cooking by his travels in South Africa. "I was impressed by the restaurants," he says. "They had terrific prawns but they would just grill them. The food was less oversauced. Less was more."

Another of Campbell's aims is to take away the mystery and hype surrounding wine. As a result, there will be an area where customers can taste any wines they want before ordering a bottle.

He reckons this formula will attract as many as 1,500 diners a week, spending about £25 each and generating sales of £1.5m a year. So thoroughly has he planned everything that he expects to be generating a 20% pre-tax profit after three years.

Indeed, Campbell, 45, has not entered into this project lightly. Although he had toyed with starting an independent venture for some time, it wasn't until he embarked on an MBA at the London Business School in 1998 that his entrepreneurial spirit found its expression. In fact, he wrote his business plan for Savannah as part of the course. "I thought it was time to do something for myself before it was too late," he says. "I wasn't prepared to mortgage the house and sell the kids, but the course educated me in debt management and convinced me that, while stressful, debt can be managed."

Unlike many fellow entrepreneurs, the one thing he vows he would never have done is launch a restaurant on a shoestring. By the time it opens, Savannah will have cost £1m, funded by one business angel and two venture capital funds.

So, funding is sorted. The next big headache in the run-up to the opening is that old chestnut, staff. The aim is to recruit 30 staff, plus a management team - and there are still 20 vacancies. Already on board are head chef Charles Noorland, formerly regional head chef at Belgo, general manager Saher Sidhom, who is undertaking an MA in marketing, plus assistant manager Alexandra Bond and sous chef John Cunliffe.

Getting the managers on board early is expensive but, as Campbell explains, it is a necessity, particularly in Oxford, which has low unemployment. "In the current climate," he says, "there are more jobs than people, so you need to secure staff. Also, it is important that they contribute to the concept."

Once it's open, of course, the real challenge of winning custom will begin. Although Campbell has a £50,000 marketing budget for the first year, he is hoping that word of mouth will generate the most business. And he is clearly optimistic. Oxford may not yet be open, but he is already looking to open his second outlet next year, and to this end he has secured the freehold of a site in Reading and the leasehold of a site in Guildford. The plan is to have opened 15 restaurants within five years.

"I learnt early on about the difficulty of securing sites," he says. "When you find one, you have to visit it every day and walk the streets. I would not go for a site where I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say, ‘This is the one.' That's why Oxford is the first."

Adopted Businesses

Caterer has "adopted" a cross section of hospitality businesses, which we will visit in rotation every six weeks.

The Adopted Businesses are: Casteljaloux Golf Club, France; the Crown in Iverley, West Midlands; Hogarth's in Bournemouth, Dorset; Savannah in Oxford; and the Appletree Inn, near York.

Savannah

17 Park End Street, Oxford OX1 1HU
Tel: 01865 793793
Web site: www.savannah.uk.com

Seats: 120
Projected annual sales: £1.5m
Projected pre-tax profit: 20% after three years
Average spend: £25
Projected covers: 1,500 a week

Savannah Restaurants (UK)

Chairman and lead investor: Paul Brett (other investors are represented on the board)
Managing director: Stuart Campbell
Investors: one business angel and venture capital funds; shareholding split equally between investors and management
Investment: £2m raised to open first and second restaurants, with plans to open 11 further restaurants over four years funded by a second tranche of £4m, plus internal cash flow
Projected group turnover: sales of £20m and pre-tax profits of £4.2m in next six years

Next visit to Savannah: 22 November