It’s our first value for a reason – we know that sharing ownership breeds a culture which wants the company to succeed. So when we get the chance to add more partners to our business, we grab it with both hands. We celebrated making three new partners while we were in Barcelona.
Ben Paul, GM at the Embankment, Bedford, Jordan Marr who runs the Chequers in Eversley and Trevor Blake our development chef. We’re so proud of what these guys have achieved at Peach in their combined time of 28 years! They’re all going to make awesome partners.
Here’s a bit more about them and what they said on hearing the news:
Ben Paul
“It’s six years almost to the day that I joined Peach. I used to be with TGI Friday’s where I worked my way up from being a bar tender to running their busiest and biggest turnover place. I joined Peach purely by chance as it turns out. I was at a Loch Fyne recruitment day in Woburn and recruiter needed a pint so we popped into the Black Horse over the road where I was persuaded to part with my CV. Not long afterwards I was the pub’s deputy and within six months I was the Manager. I’m proud to say that in the five years I ran it, the Black Horse grew year on year.
Since then I got married and became a dad. My little boy Mikey is now two. It’s a challenge being permanently knackered from lack of sleep and running successful pubs but one I’ve overcome with the help of coffee.
I was surprised and honoured to be made a partner and can’t wait to open more pubs for Peach and move up to a Poddie role.”
Jordan Marr
“This month I’ll be celebrating 11 years at Peach and have been lucky enough to work in some of our greatest pubs. I’ve always loved food and was usually found hanging round the kitchen at home. Most of my school holidays were spent working as a pizza chef or doing odd jobs in catering.
My first proper job was with Le Petit Blanc in Oxford where I went from waiting on tables to being trained in the kitchen by the head chef, great experience for stepping up to trainee manager when I moved to their Birmingham brasserie. It was here I met Lee although it was a couple of years before I went to work with him.
When I moved to The Almanack, I was promoted to manager, and I am proud to say we did some great things here, like winning the Godiva Awards for best customer service two years on the trot and doing £1.7 million in sales and £280k in profit in 2010. In 2011 I picked up an Acorn award, a big honour.
It’s been brilliant coming home to Hampshire where I’ve been at The Chequers since we opened. I love this pub and can’t wait to find another like it to make Peachy. To move into the community here at the Chequers has enabled me to give people a place they can call their own, a place they can trust. Having that recognised by being made a partner is fantastic.”
Trevor Blake
“I’ve had 11 great years at Peach, cooking in some cracking pubs before becoming a bit of a floating chef accessible to everyone.
I became a chef because my mum’s cooking was terrible. I was drawn to it, born to do it I think, and at school, I was just good at it. I got into the industry early after being given a placement whilst still at Birmingham College of Food, and went from making sarnies to à la carte cooking in a very short space of time.
I moved around a bit, from the Cumberland Hotel in London’s Marble Arch, to Mash & Air in Manchester and Hotel du Vin in Birmingham, doing a season cooking at the Moris Chalet Hotel in Val d’Isère, France in between.
My first job at Peach was to help open The Swan, and now I’m loving working with all the chefs across the business, helping them with training, new skills and food ideas to make us even better.
Becoming a Peach partner has fulfilled a dream I’ve had for a long time. It’s something I’ve worked towards and wanted and I’m so proud to be one. It’s like going from sous chef to suddenly finding myself dining at the top table! I can’t wait to see what’s round the corner for Peach. It’s going to be an exciting year; new chefs, new dishes, new pubs. And the small matter of becoming a dad.”