Grateful for Hospitality

JW Lees has just posted record revenue and profits in a market where, by the trade's own reckoning, there is 12p of profit in a pint. William Lees-Jones, managing director of the seventh-generation Manchester brewery since 2003, tells Mason how a "big small company" got there: selling more than 110 pubs, promoting two-thirds of hires from within and investing in a brewery that still sits in the bu...

When Danny Whittle arrived in Ibiza his VIP room was Mick Jagger, U2 and Madonna. Today it's old ravers with a credit card - and he thinks that's the best thing that ever happened to the island. Mason sits down in Ibiza with the ex-Royal Navy sailor and firefighter who spent 14 years as Pacha's music and brand director, co-founded the International Music Summit, and now programmes Chinois - a 1,50...

Everyone in hospitality talks about a recruitment crisis. Dawn Lawrence thinks we're solving the wrong problem. In this episode she makes the case that retention is the real issue - and that the fixes are cheaper and simpler than most operators assume. She unpacks why benefits belong at the top of every job ad, why free parking and a uniform count, why transparency on tips is now a competitive adv...

In Short Your engagement survey says everyone’s happy – so why do good people keep leaving? Jo Harley, founder of career conversations platform Korero, joins Mason to unpack why engagement scores don’t predict retention, what actually makes people stay, and the data showing staff who had a career conversation were six times less likely to leave. If you lead a team in hospitality, this is your play...

Episode summary Selling barbecue in California is, in Sean Walchef's words, an oxymoron. So is building a media empire on top of a struggling restaurant. He's done both. In this episode, the Cali BBQ owner and Cali BBQ Media founder takes us back to 2008 - the year he opened in the "dodgy part" of San Diego and couldn't pay his vendors, his team or himself. The lesson that saved the business? No o...

Tom Harrison spent nearly three years in fintech before opening Ace Pizza in Victoria Park - one of London's hottest new pizzerias - with his partner Rachel. He joins Mason to unpack what changes when you finally own the place. How he filters the avalanche of hospitality tech pitches, why his staff get 45-hour contracts as policy, and how a 72-hour fermented dough became the pillar everything else...

Episode Summary Paulo de Tarso opens the Grateful podcast with the clearest working definition of hospitality you'll hear all year. Service is the mechanics of getting a plate from the kitchen to the guest. Hospitality is how that guest feels walking out of the door. One is a process. The other is a memory. Paulo traces his unlikely 35-year arc from a Brooklyn coffee shop and a dishwashing job in...

Episode Summary In this debut episode, Mason welcomes Steve from TipHaus to explore the nuts and bolts of modern hospitality - specifically how technology, tipping culture, and genuine human connection intersect. Steve brings a transatlantic perspective, having gone from investment banking and venture capital to building an eight-location restaurant chain, selling it, serving as president of Ethan...

Some bonus clips from our first episode with Stephen Hooper Jr, co-CEO of TipHaus, where we talked about tipping and hospitality on both sides of the pond.

Podcast launches on the 26th March 2026, here's a little sneak peak from the start of episode one.