Gary Manning

Elizabeth Donevan eyes the specials board longingly as 60 Hope Street’s Gary Manning talks guardedly about a decade of restaurateurship in Liverpool...

EN has dealt with some cagey interviewees in its time and Gary Manning, co-founder of Liverpool’s 60 Hope Street, The Quarter and HoSt restaurants, is another to add to that troop. For ten years, since opening his first restaurant in Liverpool in 1999, he’s made sure his business has remained strictly a family affair.

After attending catering college in Liverpool and training as a chef in restaurants in London and Australia, Manning returned to his hometown in 1997 with the hope of achieving his dream of opening a restaurant before he reached his 30th birthday. His brother Colin had also honed his hospitality skills, in front-of-house roles and as a relations manager for British Airways.

Manning says, “Every time Colin and I came back to Liverpool we struggled with where to go and eat. I thought there was huge potential in Liverpool.”

Tom Morris, Manning’s cousin and founder of TJ Morris – operator of the Home Bargains discount retail chain – was the sole financial backer of the first venture, providing the funds to purchase a freehold property on Hope Street (previously Chauffeur’s nightclub) and refurbish it to its former Georgian townhouse glory.

Manning refuses to reveal the exact figures involved in the deal but says, “It was a small sum – my house is worth more now”. The refurbishment of the property accounted for the rest of the cash Morris was willing to invest and 60 Hope Street opened on St George’s Day 1999.

“We got a total bargain with the property but the building was falling down, it needed the saved money ploughing back into it. Tom said to us at the time, ‘it seems like a lot of money now but in five years’ time it will seem like nothing’ and, as time has ticked on, it does.”

After five years of steady growth and with a well-established reputation for modern fine dining, the Manning brothers, taking advice from Morris, considered expansion. A vacant property opposite Hope Street became available and profits from 60 were used to open The Quarter, an Italian café bar with outdoor seating, in July 2004.

Manning says the deal to secure the first property on Hope Street at a bargain price is in some ways his best yet but he admits his cousin would have to take much of the credit: “His business experience was priceless. We were a little restaurant but having Tom’s business as a sister company gave us more clout and made things happen.”

A deal done nine years later, however, to buy Morris out of the business, is one for which he and his brother can take full credit and, for that reason, he says it’s probably his very best.

In early 2008, while plans to open another restaurant on Hope Street were underway, the Mannings bought Morris’s share of the business leaving them with a 50:50 split.

“It was always the plan to do that,” he says. “All the money had been paid back, we had had a good 18 months and we had the money in the bank.”

Quite how much money, Manning refuses to say, but he tells EN that Morris, having bought all of the properties outright, is still his landlord. He says, “The arrangement was mutual in that we understood the business would be worth nothing without Colin and me, so call that 20 per cent, but then that 20 per cent was counteracted by the gamble that Tom took by putting all of the money up. It’s as simple as that, really.”

After taking full ownership of the business, the Mannings opened their third restaurant, HoSt, in November 2008, using bank lending for the first time. Despite a tough first year, Manning says he expects HoSt to account for around 20 per cent of group turnover when the 2009 figures are calculated in December, with The Quarter and 60 Hope Street contributing 35 per cent and 45 per cent respectively.

Group turnover in 2008 was around £2.5 million and “if HoSt comes good” should grow by 25 per cent in 2009.

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