Barge East opened in 2018 after its founders brought a Dutch barge across the North Sea and converted it from a grain-carrying vessel into a restaurant. We chat to Tommo about the wider group’s boating ventures, local suppliers and use of artificial intelligence.

Tell us a bit about yourself then Tommo!

I turned 40 this year, so that was a bit of a scary milestone. I grew up with Scottish parents, so all my family are Scottish, but I was born in Liverpool and lived most of my life just outside London, near High Wycombe.

Mum was a physiotherapist and Dad worked for universities. They’ve always been really supportive of whatever my sister and I wanted to do.

When we were starting Barge East and Skuna Boats, my dad turned his hand to absolutely everything. He painted the barge, dug trenches and drove our boat around Europe to help out. In the early days, you don’t have enough hands or enough money to pay for them, so having Dad’s support in setting up the businesses was amazing.

At home, I have two amazing daughters, River, 5, and Indy, 3. My wife is amazingly supportive. Working in hospitality and leisure, the hours are long and erratic and schedules can go out the window with a phone call, so having supportive people around you makes such a difference.

How did it all start?

I’ve lived in London for nearly 20 years, all over the place, but my favourite time was when I lived on a narrowboat on the canals. My wife and I used to continuously cruise and moor literally opposite where Barge East is.

This was just after the Olympics, before there was anything there, and I would look out on that space of land and water and think it would make an amazing hospitality destination.

A few years later, I saw the Olympic Park and Canal & River Trust were running a tender for an interesting business concept for the space. The idea went into overdrive.

I came up with a hospitality destination involving food, drink, gardens and boats, all combined to make a magical space where people could have a wonderful time.

Was it hard to fulfil your vision for Barge East?

Once we got approval for the concept, the first step was finding a boat. That was in 2017.

We scoured the country but couldn’t find anything we could afford, so we extended the search to Holland and found De Hoop. She was cheap and exactly the right size to get to the site, but she had lots of holes in the hull.

De Hoop is about 130 years old and has a rich history of carrying grain around the Dutch canal system. That industrial heritage fitted perfectly with Hackney Wick. The challenge was getting her here.

We had to wait six months for a weather window to sail across the North Sea, a three-day journey. The weather turned halfway through and we had a few hairy moments towards the end.

We then refurbished her, turning an industrial grain-carrying boat into a bar and restaurant. I remember opening in June 2018 and thinking we had done all the hard work: a year and a half of planning, building and physically refurbishing a boat. Then we opened and realised maybe the hard part was just getting started all over again.

How did you raise the funds for the project? Did you have investors?

We scrimped and saved. There were three of us who started Barge East - me, my school friend Ryan, who was the brains behind the food and was a chef, and Blandy, who is still a business partner in Barge East and Skuna.

Together, we took out loans and credit cards, and begged and borrowed. It was very much a ground-up, low-budget start-up.

That’s good now because we don’t have the pressure of big investors. We are truly independent, as many businesses in Hackney Wick are, and I think that makes the character of the area.

What kind of experience are you and your team are creating with Barge East and your other businesses?

The original pitch was to create a magical food and drink destination that was really community-focused, and that still applies. We want a unique venue where you can eat, drink and spend time, whether that is having a meal on the barge, a casual drink in the gardens or using the space for an activity or event.

Every year we host about 30 arts and crafts classes with local makers and artists. We don’t charge for that space because it is much better to see spaces used than unused and dead.

And what about about the community clean-up events?

We’ve always tried to do whatever we can for the community. The community clean-up is a day every month when we open up our Moo Canoes kayaks and paddleboards for free.

Anyone in the area can come down for an hour, grab a litter bag, go out for a paddle, relax and pick up some rubbish. When they come back and finish their trip, we give them a free beer.

It is a nice way of introducing people to the water and getting anyone around Hackney Wick who may not be able to afford it, or may not be aware of it, to come down, have an hour on us and see how they enjoy it.

Do you have co-founders/co-owners/active partners? If so, what’s the dynamic like to run a group of pubs together?

At this stage, it is myself and my business partner, Blandy. We have about 80 staff in our peak summer months and between 50 and 60 all year round.

The majority of our team are employed throughout the year, and we have seasonal students who come in during the peak summer months. Barge East is very seasonal and Skuna less so.

What’s your approach to hiring, retaining and growing talent?

You definitely learn over time. One thing you perhaps don’t appreciate enough at the beginning is how important getting the right hires are.

We have made a few mistakes along the way, but right now we have an incredible team — definitely the best team we’ve ever had. It makes running a business so much better and more fun.

Hospitality has a reputation for being a challenging place to hire, and we’ve found that to be true. At the beginning, we had a great team, but then we were hit with Brexit and Covid.

We had some incredible staff, many from Italy and Spain, who didn’t come back after Covid. Replacing some of that original team was difficult because the industry had a hiring crisis and there were not enough trained and skilled staff.

Five years later, we have built an amazing group of people who are super-talented and really enjoyable to work with. We try to create a positive working environment and have a bit of fun. We always hold a big end-of-summer social because summer is busy and we want to say thanks!

Tell us about your approach to business partners/partnerships - are there any you’d like to call out?

Suppliers have always been important. Before starting these businesses, I worked as a business adviser for a not-for-profit that helped young people start businesses.

I helped people turn ideas into businesses and worked with some amazing enterprises setting up incredible products. I always had the itch to start my own.

When I started Barge East and Skuna, it was important to work with as many fellow small businesses in the area as possible. We’ve always worked with as many local suppliers as we can.

We get coffee from Bad Coffee and beer from East London brewers, including Signature Brew. Being part of the Hackney Wick and Fish Island community is really important.

We grow some hops in our garden, and each year we make a limited Barge East and Signature brew from them. We also have plums growing in abundance and are looking to work with Jim and Tonic, our house spirit supplier, on a plum-based gin.

What would you recommend to someone who wants to start own/run a restaurant or hospitality venture today?

The most important thing is location and space. I’ve seen a lot of businesses fail because of where they are rather than what they do, which is always sad because some amazing concepts do not survive.

It is very easy to have a concept and jump into a site that may have been doomed to fail from the beginning. You need the right footfall and the right type of customers.

At Barge East, the concept came from the space rather than the other way around. You also have to think about how much it will cost to start, build as accurate a picture as possible and work out whether you can afford to do it.

Some people start and then run out of money before they get over the line. You also need to know whether you can afford to live while doing it, because it’s tough at the beginning.

Tell us a couple of things you love about Hackney Wick and the area - got any favourite restaurants, cafés, watering holes, workout spots, or spaces to just relax?

There are so many great places and incredible spaces for food and drink. I have to call out Mapps Cafe. It must have been here longer than everyone else put together. If you want a good, traditional greasy-spoon cafe, there is no better one.

I have always loved Howling Hops and their tank beer. Natura, the Italian restaurant, is always great for an authentic Italian meal. The people there are so nice.

Given its pervasiveness and growing value for founders and business leaders, what’s your take on AI?

Hospitality and leisure are probably pretty safe from the AI revolution because I think people will always want them. For us, it is about seeing the positives and how AI can help with running a relatively small business.

It gives additional support and allows you to ask questions that would otherwise take a long time to answer, and to get work done faster.

We are encouraging all our managers to use AI and trying to adopt it as much as we can. We have Gemini as part of our Google package.

For the restaurant, we use software called Nory, which uses AI to forecast sales. It looks at our sales and the weather, and forecasts sales, allowing managers to plan shifts better.

When you run a small business, you have to do a bit of everything and you are not an expert at everything. AI, provided you review its accuracy, allows you to master topics outside your main expertise a little better. It can save money and time.

Lastly, what would you like readers to take away about Barge East?

We’re trying to create a magical, community-focused hospitality, food and drink business in Hackney Wick. Hopefully, people come down, enjoy the space and see it as something unique and magical.

We have a team who really love what they do, and hopefully that is portrayed in the food and drink people enjoy. We try to give people a great time and a great experience.

This story was drafted by Suru with AI assistance from the reporter's audio and notes, and was passed through Suru's journalism check (sourcing, neutrality, verifiability) before publication. Editorial responsibility: James Sandoval.