Vincent McKevitt
Vincent McKevitt, owner of salad bar brand, Tossed talks to Lydia Williams about giving his customers food for thought
Above: Tossed owner, Vincent McKevitt
Rabbit food, diet food and girl’s food… a few of the unkind tags that blight the humble salad. Yet most recently, watchdogs have revealed that lurking in the pseudo-innocent salads we virtuously buy for lunch, are more calories than a Big Mac. So what’s the point? We all yearn for a fast and fresh working lunch with no hidden nasties (or calories for that matter), but something that will inspire our tastebuds and keep mid-afternoon snacking at bay. A tall order you may think.
Such a quest has been taken on by Vincent McKevitt. At just 28, Vincent is an award-winning restaurateur and owner of salad bar brand, Tossed. Recently shortlisted in the 2007 Courvoisier Future 500 – a roll-call of the UK’s brightest UK business talent – he went on to be picked by judge Ian Pengelley as part of the Top 10 To Watch.
The Tossed brand is less than four years old; its first outlet opened in Paddington in 2005 and with three outlets up and running and four more planned for 2008, it seems Tossed is well on its way to re-inventing the shop-bought salad.
‘I did a degree in business whilst personally being passionate about fitness and healthy eating; I always wanted to combine the two when I started my own business,’ Vincent explains.
‘I initially looked into the buffet-style salad bar – the type you find in supermarkets – but wanted to take it to the next stage’. That next stage took him to New York. On the advice of a friend he spent three days ‘trawling the streets for inspiration’, picking up menus and seeing how the salad bar concept was done State-side.‘I found the tossed salads concept to be much cleaner, fresher and tailored to what the customer actually wants rather than a “one-size fits all” recipe. So I started to build the Tossed brand around that idea,’ he continues. Indeed, with a pick-and-mix concept of ingredients on offer, the customer can create their own salad to their exact whim. Vincent however, decided to take the brand a step further with: freshly-squeezed juices that, in one hit, deliver your five-a-day quota; homemade stews; and ready-prepared sandwiches. The common denominator is always freshly prepared, healthy food.
‘We appreciate people don’t want to eat salad everyday, but recognise that they want to eat healthily everyday, so we looked into soups, smoothies, juices, sandwiches and put a healthy twist on everything,’ Vincent says.With his concept cemented and menu planned, Vincent began to scour West London for his first Tossed outlet. ‘We chose Paddington Central because the area excited me, it was a new area for a new concept. Sheldon Square is great with the grass amphitheatre; it creates a real sense of cohesion.’
The modern, clean environment and green spaces of Sheldon Square are the perfect mirror to Tossed’s fresh concept and approach. Yet it was the local community that was already established in this new part of town that really helped Vincent find his feet. ‘Starting up as a company there meant so much to us as a business, we got a lot of feedback and comments from the customers which meant we could tweak the business model until we were really happy with it and it helped the brand grow’.
So was it all such smooth sailing? ‘From a personal point of view? It was hell! We didn’t have nearly enough money to get the company off the ground; in fact it ended up costing four times what we had forecast. It was physically demanding, I lost weight, I lost friends! But you learn and sacrifices were made, but we were lucky that we were busy from day one so things turned around quite quickly,’ he acknowledges.
Indeed, the success at Sheldon Square led to Tossed’s second opening, an on-site café inside the Monsoon headquarters just off the Harrow Road. Not such an odd move as it first appears, Vincent explains, ‘Peter Simon [chairman of Monsoon] saw his staff coming back to the office with our lunches and was intrigued. He’s a bit of a health and fitness obsessive too, so I think it appealed to him. So we put our heads together and Tossed moved in shortly after!’
The Tossed trilogy was complete in 2006 with the third store opening on St. Martin’s Lane, Covent Garden, and this month sees the unveiling of his fourth outlet, in Harrods’ food emporium, Harrods 102.
With the Tossed empire growing, what has been the biggest high so far? ‘When I arrived to find 35 people queuing outside our Sheldon Square shop for a Tossed salad. I thought they’d get fed up and not come back, but day after day they were there. That was pretty overwhelming’.
Such success does not come without commitment, as we talk he admits that he has barely taken a day off since the Sheldon Square branch opened. ‘I float between the three branches, talking to customers and tossing salads – it’s really important to me to be hands on,’ he explains.
As such a driving force behind his business, where does he look for inspiration? ‘Julian Metcalf [founder of Prêt a Manger] pioneered the concept that we are evolving; having a kitchen in every unit has to be a good thing when you are striving for fresh products. Prêt are definitely the quality standard that we aspire to.’
After our interview, Vincent emails me to thank me for my time, signing off: Vincent McKevitt – Turning over a new leaf. With Tossed’s grand ambitions for the humble lettuce, Vincent will soon have many more Londoners turning over a new leaf in their lunchtimes.
Tossed, Sheldon Square, W2 6EZ www.tosseduk.com. The 2008 Courvoisier Future 500 list is being compiled this month. To apply for a place or to nominate a local entrepreneur visit www.cvtf500.com