Faire people: Tom

Tom Batten,
Barcelona, Spain & (Amsterdam)

“The greatest gift you can give an entrepreneur is a chance to work on a new thing.”
Interview by Lyubov Reshetilo, published on July 29th, 2024

Tom, 32, has been in the hospitality industry for almost two decades. He’s one of the three founders of Faire Brunch & Drinks and Faire Tapas & Wine.  Here is Tom in his own words.

I got into hospitality by accident: I was a newspaper boy getting paid EUR 2,5 per hour, until my friend told me this one hotel was looking for a minibar boy that paid EUR 5 per hour. So I got in it for the money. 

Then I just naturally rolled into the hospitality sector and did 4 years of hotel school studies. Everything we learnt at school was about how to make a business operationally successful, how to maximize the profits, how to find the best quality of products at the cheapest price. I’ve been following this model most of my life, but it wasn’t satisfying.

You charge your guests for a luxury product, but you’re forced to serve it in a shitty glass, as the business decided to cut costs there. And then you have to come up with a lie that will explain why a EUR 30 per glass of champagne is served in a regular wine glass. You’re forced to feel like a fraud and like your work doesn’t matter enough to be provided with even the minimum of resources needed to do the job. 

Moving to Spain was a serendipity: if the Netherlands feels like a playground built well, then Spain feels like actually playing on that playground. 

Four years after moving here, in the middle of COVID pandemic, my business partner Onno and I were selling a hotel we built, and there was a downstairs lobby area. Nobody wanted it, it was worth nothing. 

At the same time there was this entrepreneur guy staying in our hotel. He got stuck there for three weeks instead of three days, and I was the only person who was physically present and working in the hotel, looking after him.

One day I asked him if he thought we could do something interesting with that empty space nobody wanted, and he said it’d be perfect for a brunch place. It was a cool idea, but I didn’t have any expertise in the restaurant business. Turns out that guy already had a successful restaurant in Paris. 

Two months later we were sitting in his restaurant in Paris, discussing how we wanted to take on a challenge of creating a business that would put contributing to people and the planet first, and make it commercially successful too. 

A lot of pieces came together at the right time, in the right place: each of us has a different skill set, different background, but we all share one ambition and willingness to take on a new venture that we genuinely believe in. This is how Faire was born.

Everyone told us we’re crazy to open a no-meat restaurant in Spain. 

Respect the risks of your own decisions and own up to the consequences of the risk, both good and bad ones. Then put all your energy into making your vision work, whatever goes wrong.

Two months after we opened Faire, we had to close it, because of COVID restrictions. We remained closed for 6 months, and at one point weren’t sure whether we would be able to pay the costs of keeping the business alive.  

May 2021 was actually our first actual opening date, and we never closed again. 

Sometimes things just happen: yesterday our roof started leaking just because it was raining all night long. It’s all about how you perceive them and what you do with the cards you’re dealt. Are you going to be frustrated about it, or are you going to look for solutions that will solve the problem and make your business more resilient for the long term.

Hire great people, good staffing levels, let them make mistakes. Learn from mistakes and grow together. 

There are two types of great people: the ones who take on the responsibility of making the business work and fix problems without needing micromanagement, and the ones who make the daily operations run smoothly and keep operational stability by doing their job well. Both are equally important to the business. 

Nobody ever left Faire voluntarily: I learnt a lot from my experience in hospitality and now I aim to create a different work environment, where we equip people with the tools to do their job well and provide enough for them to not live in a survival mode. 

You’re not the one who dictates what constitutes a good experience for your guests, they are. When the guest is unhappy with the service provided, give them an opportunity to tell you  what would help to improve the experience.

“Let me ask my manager” - is one of the worst things you can say when the guest is telling you how you can make up for a mistake. Your team needs to be empowered and confident to make these decisions autonomously, on the spot. 

I hope that each guest that comes to Faire, experiences the comfort, positivity and feels good about being here and enjoying our food. 

Sustainability is using less energy than the planet produces. 

With Faire, we want to prove that a business model that makes investing into the team, the planet and guests, commercially successful.