How BloomsYard's Bharti Radix created a success story out of Covid

It was Jamie Oliver. He only had one restaurant at that point, which was Fifteen. I grew with him – as his business expanded, my career progressed – and after five years we'd gone from one restaurant to 44, which incorporated a few different brands.

I was there for five years and in that time I fell in love with the industry. I think a lot of that is down to what I tasted and experienced while with Jamie. From that point forward, I didn't want to work in any other industry.

What led you to starting your own brand?

After working for Jamie, I moved on to be finance director for the Draft House Group. We sold the business to BrewDog, which was excellent for my experience – the transaction of the sale and everything that comes with that. After that I went on to be chief financial officer for a big coffee company. I was there for 11 months, but that 11 months was the craziest time of my career to date and I was pretty much working every single second I was awake. To be honest, I was burnt out, so I quit at the end of February 2020.

Three weeks later I went into lockdown unemployed, but I wasn't thinking of starting my own business. I thought about what my options were and the absolute dream was to have a hospitality business of my own and that's where BloomsYard came in.

Tell me about BloomsYard

BloomsYard is basically all of the things I love. It's a café wine bar serving speciality coffee, wellbeing tea and wonderful wine, and all the foodie bits to go with that. You can come in for a coffee and a pastry in the morning and then come back at lunchtime for a freshly made salad, sandwich or soup. You can come back in the afternoon for a cup of tea and a slice of cake and again in the evening for a glass of wine and some picky things.

How did you open your first site?

During lockdown I thought I'd build a website to sell tea, coffee and wine from home. I built up a really great network of suppliers and people in the industry that I could just call up and say, "can you send me this wine or this coffee?".

Due to Covid, there were lots of empty units in my local shopping centre and not very many people that were willing to take the risk, and that was my first site.

Suddenly I needed to learn how to become a barista. I went to Assembly, which was my chosen supplier for coffee, and the people there trained me. I practised and practised how to make coffee so it could be perfect for when I opened. After that, because I was willing to be a risk-taker, I was able to take on more and more sites and then, all of a sudden, here we are, three years later, and I've opened my sixth site.

What are the challenges of being a day-to-night concept?

That concept of café wine bar is a little bit difficult to get out there. We have to really put it in people's faces for them to see that we also serve wine, not just coffee. We're also very clear on what we're not – we're not a restaurant, you won't have a three-course, sit-down meal at BloomsYard. We only have prep kitchens, so there's no actual cooking. The business in that way is quite straightforward, because I don't deal with the complexities of a back of house team.

The team at BloomsYard are all-rounders. I quite like that variety for them – I think it helps keep them on their toes.

How have you found staffing?

Super-difficult. I was starting a business in a time when hospitality was on its knees. Staffing is the worst thing I have to deal with. It's every day even now.

But you took the opportunity during Covid to create a success story?

I've gone through rapid growth in turbulent times. My second site was in a massive office building near Liverpool Street and we're the only café inside it.

I think in normal circumstances, without Covid, there is no way I could have won that site. I think it was the timing of Covid and me being willing to take a risk that allowed me to get into such a fantastic building. I would have had to go through a tender process against maybe 10 or 12 other operators. Why would they have given it to me? I had zero trading history at that point. So for me, the timing was right.