The Big Interview: Roy Ellis

In the infancy of friendship few people would bother with a man who stole their girlfriend. But if Roy Ellis had held a grudge after Neil Macleod whisked his squeeze away to Spain, Inventive Leisure may never have formed.

They met in London through mutual friend John McDonald, who was Ellis’s flatmate at the time, and all worked in the same sector.

“I’d brought Melanie along to the hotel where I worked and the next thing I know she is with Neil in Spain celebrating New Year’s Eve together,” Ellis laughs.

Luckily for 18 to 35-year-olds, Inventive’s target market, he was able to put the matter behind him and the three remain friends today.

As a 12-year-old lad, Ellis got a job in a hotel to earn some money so he could sneak off to Liverpool FC games, which his parents had for-bidden him to do.

The waiting staff would each give him £1 for polishing the cutlery and his business mind immediately told him he “needed to be on the other side of the swinging door”.

It was in 1991 that he and Macleod got into business together with the aim of running a chain of hotels. But hotels were “a bit expensive” to start on, so Ellis told his bank manager he was doing a loft conversion and Macleod got some money from his father, who also invested and they started buying bars.

They soon built up a portfolio of seven or eight, including the Loose Moose and Boogie Wonderland.

Ellis likens them to Marston’s Pitcher & Piano brand or Mitchells & Butlers’ All Bar One.

The plan had been to make some money, sell the bars and invest in hotels. “We didn’t believe we could get the capital,” recalls Ellis.

“At the same time we had really enjoyed what we were doing and decided to come up with a branded idea that could be replicated throughout the country in major towns.”

In 1996 Revolution was born on Oxford Road in Manchester. Ellis still has “a soft spot” for the first of what was to become a highly successful chain.

Stirring up business​

A key element of its appeal was its extensive and imaginative cocktail list, which the team had not envisaged being so popular.

“They were massively more successful than we thought. We had to move bars and re-engineer the back-bars to accommodate all the stock.”

Cocktails account for 40% of wet sales and Ellis admits to enjoying “a schmooze” through the list himself. In fact, at the close of our interview, he is already lining up some of Revolution’s famous flavoured vodkas to share with finance director Sean Curran.

Aside from cocktails, Ellis puts the brand’s success down to constant reviewing and refining of the product. “I think it is only us and Tim Martin who do one thing really well,” he says.

“We work hard at rejuvenating and regenerating and have confidence in our product. If something happens we don’t panic ­­— we go back to the product. If you find a solution for one, you find a solution for all.”

Sister brand Revolución de Cuba came about when a number of good sites popped up that were just too close to already-operating Revolution bars.

“We didn’t want to lose the sites, but we were worried about cannibalising our own trade,” explains Ellis.

“We decided the solution was to come up with another product to go in those locations and for a long time we’d thought rum.

"We’d adapted cocktails at Revolution, like the raspberry mojito, to include vodka and they were very popular but really they are rum-based drinks. Sixteen years ago vodka was the fastest-growing spirit and the same excitement was emerging around rum.”

There followed much discussion and research as the company collaborated with Bacardi and visited Cuba, Puerto Rico and Miami for ideas and also worked with designers to get the right feel in the bars.

The perfect venue to test-run the new idea was already in the business — one unbranded bar in Sheffield that had been a Revolution but was too small and a better, bigger site had come up nearby. It was a 5,000sq ft cocktail bar called Bia Hoi and it re-opened as Revolución de Cuba in February last year. “We knew it was going to be successful,” says Ellis.

More Revolución de Cuba sites followed, either as stand-alone bars or integrated into Revolutions. Surprisingly, in cases where the two concepts were very close or even in the same building, the original sites did not lose any trade while the new ones also filled up.

The difference was that the clientele of the rum bars was slightly older and bought more food — 18% of sales compared to
Revolution’s 9%.

Food for thought​

Despite being known predominantly as a wet-led business, Inventive also has a good handle on food, and increasing sales has been a main focus of the past six months.

The menus are well-researched and change seasonally, but Ellis noticed that neighbouring competitors were getting the largest chunk of food trade.

With the aim of increasing food sales by 25%, Revolution embarked on a campaign and now, nearing the end of the six-month period, they are up 23%. And that is typical of the way Inventive is run — if something needs doing, it will get done.

In 2008 the manager of a Revolution in Watford told Ellis the chain should sell pizza. Ellis “thought it sounded like a good idea” and after a quick trial pizza ovens were rolled out at all sites within a few weeks.

A big Italy-themed campaign went with it and pizza suddenly accounted for 40% of food sales — a smart move. They have since dropped to 20% as more innovative dishes have been added. Denver fries — a plate of fries with cheese and garlic mushrooms or peppered steak — were inspired by Ellis following a trip to Denver, Colorado — and make up 7% of food sales.

However, even Ellis has bad ideas sometimes. “I thought we could sell the Privilege Cards (loyalty cards) with a big gold medallion and it would really appeal to our target market. It didn’t.

“We still have about 5,000 gold medallions in the back,” he laughs. But bad ideas are a rarity.

“If an idea is not good in the beginning I’ll keep going until it is.” He is still as passionate and motivated about the brand today as he was 21 years ago. This, he believes, is what makes him the right man for the job.

Personal touch​

As he walks round the Revolution bar at Albert Dock in Liverpool, Ellis notices a sticky handrail here and an out-of-place cable there. It is this attention to detail that has helped Inventive become the success it is.

He is heavily involved with the design of every site the company opens, sometimes changing plans at the last minute as existing features are revealed during the ‘strip-back’ part of a refurbishment.

All the bars have similar features, including polished wooden floors, extravagant back-bar displays and plenty of booth seating, but each has its own twist as well. There is an annual budget of £3.5m for site upkeep and every bar will be touched up every year.

Though the company does not have a direct competitor, Ellis keeps a close eye on the market both here and abroad, and adapts aspects he admires to fit the Revolution brand.

For a man at the helm of a flourishing business in a time when it is more common to see companies fail, Ellis is refreshingly humble.

He credits every person in the team, from glass collectors to those at board level, with making Revolution what it is. And it is a great company at which to build a career.

Around 70% of managers have worked their way up; there are incentives for all staff; at executive level the average length of service is 17 years and bar-staff service has increased from six months to a year.

A highlight in every employee’s calendar is the no-expense-spared Christmas party and awards ceremony where around 2,000 of 2,500 employees are taken by coach to Tatton Park in Manchester where they are treated to a £35-a-head meal and drinks.

Ellis, who was raised in Edge Hill, south-east Liverpool, and now lives on the other side of the Mersey, manages to fit in an impressive number of hobbies in his spare time.

These include fund-raising and social events at the rugby club he has belonged to since he was 16, regular running and occasional half-marathons. He also spends a lot of time with his young children.

In among all of that Inventive Leisure has weathered many storms and is riding out the current economic slump with apparent ease.
The company has slashed its debt to a third of what it was, is opening between one and 10 new bars every year, and raking in £120m revenue.

The Revolution site in Cardiff once took a phenomenal £100,000 in just one day. But Ellis says: “It’s going to be another tough year. I think of it as a nip from a dog ­— it hurts but you just have to hang on.”

With 66 Revolution bars and a handful of Revolución de Cuba outlets, the number in mind for the chain is 120. “We’ve done the easy half,” says Ellis. “Now it gets harder.”

With two children under four and a baby on the way, it certainly will.

My kind of pub​

“I really like all the Brunning & Price pubs, but if I had to pick just one it would be the Pant-yr-Ochain in Gresford, Wrexham, North Wales. The pubs haven’t lost any of their uniqueness and quality since being taken over by The Restaurant Group.

“They do everything I like, with interesting buildings, sympathetic design and also give autonomy to the managers. They are great, traditional, classic pubs with fantastic food, service and settings. If I was starting again I’d do the same sort of operation.

“I also like Gordon’s Wine Bar on the Thames in London, near Charing Cross.”

Key dates​

1982 ​Roy Ellis gains an HND from Manchester Polytechnic

1984 ​Joins Bass (Crest Hotels at the time) and specialises in food and drink

1988​ Joins PKFA in London, one of the top-five accountancy firms in the world, and stays three years

1991​ Sets up Inventive Leisure with Neil and Angus Macleod

1993​ John McDonald joins and invests in the business

1995​ Ellis is made CEO

1996​ The first Revolution opens in Manchester

2000​ The business floats on the stock market

2006​ Business taken private with Alchemy Partners

2008​ The biggest site opens in Cardiff, at 20,000sq ft

2011​ The first Revolución de Cuba opens in Sheffield