jacob jørgsholm
Unity, blood, sweat and tears - meet the restaurateur who turned Corona into profit
PUBLISHED AUGUST 2021 ı PHOTO: PETER BONDO GRAVESEN
As Denmark’s first Corona lockdown hit restaurants in March 2020, a bewildered owner of Feed Bistro, Jacob Jørgsholm, sat down with his crew and every open bottle in the house to hatch a plan for the future. The plan led to a Youtube channel that amassed 3 million views in less than six months. It doubled his company’s turnover in times where others struggled to stay afloat. And had his crew smiling and dancing through the busiest periods of their lives as society reopened.
Things were finally going well for Jacob Jørgsholm in the beginning of 2020. The restaurant he and his wife built from scratch and slaved to run alone for years experienced some incredibly successful months in January and February. Expansions had been made. Dedicated staff had been hired in. Menus and wine lists upgraded. Customers were happy. Business was booming. Things were looking bright. And then Corona hit. Devastatingly so.
With one day’s notice, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced a total shutdown of the restaurant industry and a bewildered entrepreneur was left wondering how to carry on: “We all sat at Feed Bistro not knowing what to do as the news broke,” Jacob remembers as Yeswefood.com catches him for an interview in late November of 2020. “I told the team: we are all just going to sit here, drink every open bottle and hatch a plan. So we sat there till 2 AM, getting drunk and pondering the impossible!”
Should they do catering? Takeaway? Or merely shut down and try to take advantage of various compensation packages offered by the government? His eventual choice - fueled by careful consideration, not shots of alcohol - went against his Advisory Board’s recommendation. It also seemed a bewildering choice for a notoriously hard-working entrepreneur. He completely shut down Feed Bistro temporarily. Sent his crew home on partially subsidized wages. Accepted the loss. And waited for the storm to pass.
Read also: Modern fast food - Get three fast food recipes from Jacob Jørgsholm you can cook at home
“Everybody else did takeaway,” he sighs, “most stopped again after two weeks because it simply was not profitable or doable. I did the exact opposite. I do not find our food suitable for takeaway or the venture financially feasible. I secured my employees. I accepted the loss and I found something else to do.”
That “something else” turned out to be a turning point for Jacob’s career and a saving grace for his Feed Bistro. He got hold of a cameraman and started a YouTube channel with one simple goal. Make one video recipe per day for the lockdown period and get people re-interested in cooking.
I told the team: we are all just going to sit here, drink every open bottle and hatch a plan. So we sat there till 2 AM, getting drunk and pondering the impossible!
A simple plan. Yet, as he starts to explain, the 26-year old self-taught restaurateur bursts to life and starts talking at a pace that matches that of his comet career towards social media stardom. “People suddenly had time to cook again. We totally rekindled their interest in food. We supplied the recipes and told them where to shop and it all sort of blew up around us. At the same time, I channeled a lot of energy into media appearances as a sort of spokesperson for the restaurant industry. I went on TV, to the newspapers and everywhere else, and I was quite vocal about my dissatisfaction with the handling of the situation.”
Several months months, 50,000 subscribers, 8 million views and a very welcome partial reopening of society later, the gamble and branding efforts seemed to have paid off. “During the months of October and November, we quite simply doubled our revenue at Feed Bistro, “Jacob continues in his signature speed-talking way. “People kept pouring in. 60-70% of them were followers who had enjoyed cooking along with us on Youtube. Most of them expected to experience some of the things we cooked on the channel, from modernized junk food to some of our more outrageous creations like Wagyu Wellington. We have, along with our guests, managed to establish a sort of fuck off attitude towards Corona and just steam-rolled on. We refuse to let this crisis bring us down.”
We are working like mad, but having fun all the while and the entire crew was dancing through our time period to date.
This “fuck off steamrolling” attitude has, for example, involved arranging a beautifully outrageous series of events like ten-course wagyu, caviar and foie gras dinners that despite the strange times were a major hit with guests. The dinners were sold exclusively through a Facebook foodie community. Last time around, they sold 47 menus at DKK 1600 each - in three hours. An amazing feat in a supposed time of crisis and a feat fueled by endless dedication and fighter spirit from the Feed Bistro crew.
Innovate, evolve and dance your way through service
“We are constantly trying to break records and evolve. Even in times of hardship,” Jacob attempts to explain the reason behind the success. “Others would take success as a sign to slow down and maintain a sort of status quo. We push on and it has completely blown up around us. We are working like mad, but having fun all the while and the entire crew was dancing through service during our busiest period to date.”
And they have been given a reason to dance. To their boss, Jacob Jørgsholm, hard work and happiness in working hard is equally important. “We have some pretty hefty bonus agreements in place to reward people for working as hard as they do. If I make a lot of money, I want my employees to make more money as well,” he says as if it were the most natural thing in the world for restaurateurs to reward their staff with bonuses. “They spent a lot of time down here, often more than they do with their families. My head of kitchen and front of house, for example, work at least 50 hours a week. They deserve motivation and recognition for their efforts”
In reality, solid bonuses are far from the norm in the restaurant business. Yet to Jacob, someone for whom hard work seems reward enough in itself, it is an integral part of maintaining and appreciating the support system of dedicated employees even a person of his work ethics could not do without.
Strength, dedication and 100 hour weeks
“I am a total workaholic, driven by passion. I work perhaps 90 to 100 hours some weeks. You have to pour your heart into what you are doing and just crack on,” he explains. - “I never was very good in school. So I had to work my way up. I started catering in 9th grade. From the time I was 14 till I was 18, I catered to large parties every second week. By the time I had finished high school, I traveled abroad and promised myself not to return without a business plan for the future,” he sums up his career at lightning speed. “I returned two years later after working my way up from dishwasher to running a restaurant of my own. When I did, it was to build and open Feed Bistro with my wife-to-be that I met on my travels.For the first two years, it was just me and my wife. We worked our asses off and did not make a penny.”
People have lost their life’s work. Others have laid off staff and experimented with takeaway.
I am proud to have kept my cool and made the right decisions for myself and my staff.
“I myself have now been going full speed for five and a half years. It has been tough. There have been times when I have been skin and bone. But it has been worth it. And now we finally have a great staff at hand,” he says with no uncertain amount of pride before his tone turns a little somber. “It pains me to see others who have fought and not been as lucky as us with their marketing efforts. People have lost their life’s work. Others have laid off staff and experimented unsuccessfully with takeaway, I am proud to have kept my cool and made the right decisions for myself and my staff.”
“We are a staff of 12 now, all of them strong characters and close relations. They carry me and I strive to support them. To see everybody give it their all - and sometimes more than that - in these challenging times while still having fun and dancing through their shifts. It is incredibly rewarding. What we did during lockdown was a huge gamble. It paid off for everybody and we came out stronger on the other side. We know now that whatever else may come in this pandemic, we are ready to tackle it - and we will come out even stronger.”
Looking at these words in 2021. Months after the interview original interview, they seem strangely poetic. Not two weeks after talking with Jakob, a second Corona lockdown hit the entire country of Denmark and held it in a crippling vice grip for over four months. And what did Jacob do? He returned to Youtube, pushed out another 50+ videos and smashed just about every record for views and likes in the process.
