MAGAZINE

Continuous improvement

I really enjoyed my conversation with Chris King, founder of new hotel/members club Crafted, last month. The chat was for our lead interview in this issue (page 18) and involved focusing on a business that is not that common within these pages.

On the surface, Crafted, which opened late last year near Battle in East Sussex, is a hotel. That was the model King inherited when he bought the business. However, it was when combing through the original launch press release that I realised that this ‘hotel’ now had far more to it – since the major refurbishment that King and his team have implemented, Crafted is now a multifaceted concept that has brought together many of the finest and most popular elements of UK hospitality under multiple roofs. Including, the reason we’re here/there, its own pub. 

As you’ll read within the article, The Pub, as it has been affectionately named, exists both as part of the Crafted offer, but also as its own business. I observed firsthand how well this approach is working for the team when I visited the site last month – witnessing hotel guests enjoy a light lunch and a glass of wine during their stay, as well as locals flooding in for pints and cocktails later that evening. 

It was when I asked King how he managed to recruit such an amiable and attentive front-of-house team in such a short space of time that he talked about his ‘three C’ approach to operations – Choice, Comfort and Continuous Improvement. You can, of course, read more about what each element entails within the piece, but it’s that final point that addressed the question of his team’s talents. While it applies to every aspect of the business – design, food, atmosphere, etc – all of the people at Crafted seemed to live by the same mantra, as if they were all striving for continuous improvement during every service. And who wouldn’t want that from their front-of-house?

Tristan O’Hana - Editor