Los Gatos - The Full Story

Here we post the full story of the opening of Los Gatos. Reflecting as we have, after the recent conclusion of "The Restaurant" TV show, we would like to share this real-life story of two amateurs opening a retaurant and apparently succeeding. Good luck to JJ and James - they are now discovering the hard work and the joys of the restaurant business for real...

The Story of Los Gatos

In April 2006, we opened Los Gatos in Swindon. Neither of us had any professional experience of cooking or of the food industry, just a love of food and a passion for sharing it. After more than 25 years in the electronics industry, Phil decided to take a gamble on a long-held ambition to open some kind of restaurant, and Shareen was about to return to a management post in the NHS. Whether the business would succeed, we didn't really know.

We decided on a tapas bar because we love Spain and we had often wished there was one in Swindon. We wrote a business plan, guessing at most of the numbers. Phil borrowed the money to buy the lease on a small café. Shareen took time off to help open the bar.

We spent months researching Spanish recipes and ingredients, cooking, eating, tasting, refining and trying again. We travelled to Spain and to any other tapas bars and restaurants that we could reach in the South of England. We recruited a chef, a kitchen assistant and some waiting staff, most of them Spanish or Spanish speaking. On a very tight budget, we redesigned the layout of the bar and kitchen areas and bought the equipment we could afford. The building work started and the opening date was announced.

The chef resigned the week before we opened, worried about the risk of working with two amateurs. With the opening date advertised, Shareen agreed to stay on for a couple of weeks until we found someone else. We trained the staff – though some of them had more experience than we had. We opened as a really enthusiastic, but otherwise completely naïve team, terrified at the thought of certain doom and humiliation...

From our first week we were packed every night and much of the day. It seemed everybody wanted to try! Before we opened, the local paper ran a full page story and we had bookings months ahead.... a few weeks later they ran a favourable review, creating another wave of new and enthusiastic customers.

3But behind the scenes... we were in a mess, having no idea how to run a commercial kitchen! Our best information came from TV programmes like Kitchen Nightmares. We worked from 7 in the morning until we had cleaned up after closing at 11 pm - in the first few weeks, this meant 2 or 3 am. We cut ourselves and burned ourselves and Shareen lost all sensation in her toes, having worked in heels for the first week! We both lost weight – there was no time to eat and we were exercising like never before!

BUT WE WERE HAVING SUCH FUN! IT WAS LIKE HAVING A PARTY EVERY NIGHT! Many of our customers became regulars, some coming daily, some weekly, but always coming back and bringing friends. We rarely advertise. Other local businesses have been supportive and friendly, and helped us when we needed it. Between them and our customers, we have made so many new friends...

After a few months things started getting easier. We developed routines, found reliable suppliers, sorted out quantities, became much more consistent. We replaced some of the inefficient equipment we had inherited and recruited more staff to help, a number of whom are still with us. More than three years and 35,000 hand-rolled albondigas later, we are still in business – rated number one restaurant in Swindon on Trip Advisor.

But most importantly, we are very happy and incredibly proud that we have, unexpectedly, created a place in Swindon for people to eat decent simple food cooked from fresh ingredients and made with passion - and that there are enough people who enjoy it and come back for more.

Spain has so much to offer from cool north to hot south, from Atlantic coast to Mediterranean coast, from lakes and mountains to rivers and great plains. Not only does Spain have regional cooking styles that reflect this peninsular geography, but also its political history - rule of the Moors, inquisition, civil war, isolation from the rest of Europe - makes it unique. The result is that Spanish food now offers a very special combination of a deep understanding of the produce of its own land and sea, the sophistication of Europe, the elegant spicing of Africa, and the produce of its former colonies in South America.

We hope through this blog to share some of the pleasure we get from cooking and eating Spanish food – and as the whole point of tapas in Spain is to soak up your wine or beer… we always wash it all down with a good glass!