Charlie McVeigh
School of thought to help tackle the sector’s recruitment crisis
What do the founders of Shake Shack, Dunkin’ Donuts, the Lyft taxi app and the creator of the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder have in common?...
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Charlie Says
Charlie writes occasionally for the press on the food & beverage industry. Below are extracts from his column for the Propel newsletter.
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Charlie McVeigh
- Mar 9
- 4 min
Things Are Easy When You're Big In Japan
As a teenager in 1980s west London, I grew up with an awed longing for the twin behemoths of global cool, America and Japan. England was...
Charlie McVeigh
- Feb 21
- 3 min
A Sobering Thought
Those of you who know me might be surprised to learn that I gave up drinking in May. And I don’t really have a plan to start again. Being...
Charlie McVeigh
- Sep 30, 2022
- 4 min
There is (was?) a way through
The lesson I take from the reaction to the “mini-Budget”, including from some sector leaders, is we are all socialists now. In the...
Charlie McVeigh
- Jul 11, 2022
- 4 min
It Will Get Better
God it’s painful operating right now. It really is. Out of the frying pan of lockdown – and into the fire of scarcity, inflation and...
Charlie McVeigh
- Apr 5, 2022
- 4 min
Foodstuff: Delivering the Right Result
In the late 80s I went across to New York City for a short and intense weekend of partying, staying with friends in Greenwich Village. On...
Charlie McVeigh
- Jan 30, 2022
- 4 min
After Covid: Trust The People
It’s mid-March 2020 and I am on a 6-man ski-lift in Crans-Montana with a few pals. There’s also an Italian woman with a dry repetitive...
Charlie McVeigh
- Aug 13, 2021
- 3 min
I Got Culture-Slammed by Breakfast Club
Good culture is an amazing thing. This week I went to my first Breakfast Club Summer Slam, an all-day sports competition where the...
Charlie McVeigh
- Jul 2, 2021
- 3 min
Thinking about the perfect concept for the 2020s
Packing for a recent trip that never happened and cost a fortune, I noticed that a lot of my clothes are from Gap. Even relatively recent...
Charlie McVeigh
- May 7, 2021
- 3 min
It's Come to This: I Am Missing the Psychodrama of Conferences & Awards Ceremonies
The young, thrusting entrepreneur in ‘The Sector’ opening his or her third site starts to come to the attention of the trade press. If,...
Charlie McVeigh
- Apr 14, 2021
- 3 min
PEERING INTO THE FUTURE OF QSR FROM MANILA IN THE '90S
In 1995 the London-based consulting firm I was working for posted me to Manila to set up an Asia office to service our No.1 client,...
Charlie McVeigh
- Dec 7, 2020
- 3 min
Lessons from The Great Fire for Landlords and Operators
Anyone who went to school in this country knows that Great Fire of London started in a bakery on Pudding Lane just off Eastcheap on 2nd...
Charlie McVeigh
- Oct 16, 2020
- 4 min
2021: The Property Opportunity of a Generation?
In 1948 Donald Gosling and Ronald Hobson, recently demobbed from the navy, took a wild gamble. They scraped together £200 and bought a...
Charlie McVeigh
- Aug 7, 2020
- 4 min
Working from Home is Good for Noone
Picture the scene. An eager Head of People waits outside the Founder’s office. It’s her first big face-to-face meeting since lockdown and...
Charlie McVeigh
- Jun 14, 2020
- 1 min
PROJECT PINT LAUNCHES TO ‘FREE THE PINT’
I'm proud to announce the launch of Project Pint, a grass-roots campaign to re-open pubs and restaurants, as soon as possible, as they...
Charlie McVeigh
- Mar 20, 2020
- 4 min
Building a New Jerusalem after Corona
The original title of this piece was “What’s Culture without People?”. When I proposed this at the beginning of the week to Mark Wingett...
Charlie McVeigh
- Jan 26, 2020
- 4 min
Dance Like Nobody’s Watching
How to Succeed in Hospitality in the early 20s Reading the trades and business pages you’d be forgiven for thinking that the UK...
Charlie McVeigh
- Nov 29, 2019
- 4 min
The Turkish Grill Which, In A Small Way, Brings a Divided Community Together
When I bought my house just off Ladbroke Grove in 1991 – at a price agreed the week after George Bush Sr invaded Kuwait – the area still...
Charlie McVeigh
- Nov 5, 2019
- 4 min
A Pint is a Human Right. Even for the Sober Guy
This week I hopped on the train to Oxford to take my daughter out to lunch. She just started at the university there and we got to...
Charlie McVeigh
- Sep 29, 2019
- 3 min
Lunch is Dead! Long live Lunch!
There’s something about a “proper lunch” for a middle-aged hospitality professional that’s not dissimilar to his or her younger self...
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