Charlie McVeigh
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...
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Charlie McVeigh
Hospitality Sector Investor
Charlie Says
Charlie writes extensively for the press on the food & beverage industry. Below are extracts from his occasional column for the Propel newsletter.
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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 29, 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 12, 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 6, 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 15, 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...
Charlie McVeigh
- Sep 23, 2019
- 4 min
Dream Colossus
Draft House founder Charlie McVeigh asks what’s stopping the UK from producing global hospitality brands On a morning in August I decided...
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