Phil Parry has opened Red Perilla steak house, in Wavertree’s Smithdown Road, with his brothers Colin and Kevin. They hope to have a chain of five restaurants within the next eight years
7.30am: Alarm goes off for another eventful day. I have a quick shower and dress for work before getting the kids ready for school.
8am: I check my agenda for the day – I have a meeting at 10am with Artemis Media, our PR firm, followed by a meeting at midday at Red Perilla regarding our new summer menu and summer wine lists.
8.30am: Due to the meeting at 10, I take the rare opportunity to take the kids to school and spend some quality time with them as I am normally on my way to work by now.
9.15am: Check my emails before heading off to meet Artemis at their HQ. Spot an email regarding a potential reservation for a private function.
10am: Arrive at meeting excited to discuss our forthcoming events which include the World Cup, music nights, graduation and a charity sportsman dinner hosted by Jan Molby on July 15, talking about his 2010 World Cup experience. The main topic of conversation was our World Cup nights, at which we have decided to feature live music after the England games.
11.20am: Oops, meeting ran over a bit, after we got excited about our future plans. Better head off to my next appointment.
11.50am: Arrive at Red Perilla and get myself and the team some hot drinks. We get straight into our new menu ideas and menu design. We discuss at length the current menu to ensure we keep the customers’ favourites on there, and introduce our new dishes, which sound fantastic – I am getting hungry now.
2pm: After a very productive meeting, it’s now time to have a quick bite to eat and check my emails.
On my email, I receive a request for six tickets for England’s first group game against the USA from our accountant, Alan Woods, from Woods Squared.
3pm: Time to see what we have booked in for tonight and get ready for service. It is our free bottle of wine night tonight when you order a starter and main course; we have quite a few tables booked, so things are going to get busy and the people merry.
4.30pm: Dave, my wine rep, calls in, to hand over a suggested wine list to coincide with our summer menu. I get a copy of our summer menu, go through which wines will complement the food, and put some easy drinking wines on the list for the bar.
6pm: First customers arrive for the evening and we kick off. I spend a little of time with a member of my team training him on product knowledge as this is a key factor in the restaurant trade.
We won an award last year for training apprentices at our other restaurant, La Paz, in West Kirby, and currently have two apprentices at Red Perilla.
10pm: Very productive evening. You can see growth week on week, as word is starting to get around.
We now have some people coming in the bar just chilling out and having a drink.
I start talking to a couple who had a meal this evening and they really enjoyed it.
He is a professional photographer, so he’s going to call in to take some shots for us.
Great networking – we love supporting local businesses.
12.20am: Still chatting away and realise the time . . . best close up now, as it all starts again tomorrow.
