Recipe for Success

When a mutual business associate suggested that two highly successful South Devon business owners meet up, it proved to be the perfect recipe.
 
James Eyre, Managing Director of Lifestyle Hospitality, who own Torquay harbourside’s most exciting eateries, met Kevin King of Createanet to discuss the group’s marketing strategy and website re-design.   What he hadn’t realised initially was that Kevin had been a chef in a former life, working at various hotels and restaurants around the Bay, owning his own restaurant in the then fashionable eating area of Abbey Road.  So it was very much a meeting of minds
 
‘There’s still a bit of me that yearns to go back to being a chef,’ confessed Kevin. ‘Catering is an industry I was brought up in and have always had a passion for.’
 
In fact Kevin’s first full time chef’s position was just 3 doors away from the Createanet offices on the harbourside.  He was appointed head chef at the Regina Hotel at just 19 years of age, working under the tutelage of then owner David Buckpitt whom he still credits with teaching him some very important business lessons.
 
Kevin saw working with Lifestyle as a opportunity to bring his knowledge of the catering industry together with the marketing experience that Createanet has gained over the last 12 years promoting both local and international companies.  In other words, the perfect ingredients.
 
Createanet are now in the process of rebuilding the Lifestyle groups websites as well as providing marketing strategies both on and offline. The recent FaceBook campaign Createanet put in place for Cafe Mambo on Torquay harbourside, was the first on many marketing campaigns planned for Lifestyle. Createanet has also just put in place a revolutionary online party booking management system that not only makes parties much easier to manage from the restaurants point of view but makes it a breeze for the party organiser who can now let anyone attending a party make their menu choices online. Kevin said ” parties are a great time to showcase a restaurant but it can be fraught with problems, large tables, people forgetting what they ordered, pieces of paper with menus getting lost etc, this system addresses all these problems and should make parties at any Lifestyle Restaurants go with a bang”.
 
‘We have some very exciting plans for the group so watch this space,’ said James. ‘It’s also great to be working with someone who really understands the hospitality business as well as having a great track record on marketing and web design.’
 
The group owns a range of hotels and eateries including the Apple and Parrot cider bar, Hook’s Bar and Grill and Cafe Mambo on the harbourside as well as Bombay Bill’s and Tiger Bill’s in Exeter and The Gissons Hotel and restaurant at Kennford.  
 
The Lifestyle Group is a huge success story against a background of British pubs closing every week.  James, former operations director with Eldridge Pope, is definitely bucking the trend. He is adding to his portfolio with the another acquisition, the historic Salutation at Topsham.