Jean genius up for seconds in restaurant game

Fraser Mackay, the former denim king of Cockburn Street, is one of the team helping steer aspiring Edinburgh-based restaurant business Maison Bleue on to the European stage, attempting in the process to establish a new brand in the restaurant game.

It’s essentially Mr Mackay’s second stab with the business that was the brainchild of Dean Gassabi, the Algerian-born chef and former franchisee of the hugely successful Pierre Victoire chain.

One of the four Maison Bleue directors, Mr Mackay is quick to point out he’s very much the "junior" hand in the 70-seater dining enterprise which has proved a hit in Scotland’s capital city since it opened in Victoria Street in November 2000.

But with three decades in the rag trade under his belt, experience, a cool head and an enquiring insight into the viability of future opportunity are the assets Mr Mackay brings to Maison Bleue’s push for a bigger presence.

That, as well as the IT skills of fellow director Gary Still and Mr Gassabi and his wife Joanne’s input, should merge to form a formidable force which aims to see Maison Bleue outlets open their doors in cities such as London and Paris, as well as emerging international destinations including Riga, in Latvia, and the Czech capital Prague.

"Dean had been developing his plans for Maison Bleue. He sees it as a potential brand in the restaurant game," says Mr Mackay.

"He thought about expanding on a local basis but felt that rather than duplicate the offering here it would be better to move into fresh territory. It’s his belief that some of the new communities in Europe, where there’s growing disposable income, are ready for western-style living."

Stage one of that expansion is, however, as local as it gets - next door, in fact. Maison Bleue’s first target is the disused former Robert Cresser brush shop, where the aim is to incorporate the 130-year-old presence and heritage of one of Edinburgh’s landmark shops by using the premises as a museum/reception for an expanded restaurant business.

Mr Mackay is glad of the easy-does-it growth strategy, aware that a hasty desire to prove you can mix with the bigger boys can prove fatal. He should know better than most, given that it was an ambitious "error of judgement" that brought his 30-year reign in the rag trade to a close.

In the early 70s, having dropped the idea of a life in London buying TV airtime for a few blue chip companies with ad agency Young & Rubicam, the self-confessed hippy headed for Ibiza to "chill out" for a spell.

"It was fairly high-powered, working with a few blue chip companies, but I decided to drop out and go to Ibiza," explains Mr Mackay.

Returning to Edinburgh four months later, 26 years old and at a loose end, he got together with a cousin and started to sell bric-a-brac from a stall in the former fruit market in Edinburgh’s Cockburn Street.

"We were selling things like second-hand music and other bits and pieces. It was my first introduction to business," he recalls.

In his time in London, while out shopping, Mr Mackay says he noticed people starting to wear jeans more. "I thought then denim was going to be big," he says.

So it proved. By 1973, Mr Mackay had opened his first shop, the Great Western Trading Company, on Cockburn Street. Despite being "really just a table, a screen to change behind and a rail of jeans" made to look like a scene from a Wagon Wheels advert, the shop gained cult status with the Capital’s denim aficionados.

"Immediately it took off and I suppose it was the birth of Cockburn Street as a fashion centre," says Mr Mackay.

From a 4-a-week stall, he went on to own nine stores on Edinburgh’s answer to London’s Carnaby Street, selling fashion to both the masses and celebs such as the Bay City Rollers. Other shops included Hot Licks, First Base, Suffragette, Orphan Annie and Jean City. Eventually, he expanded to other major Scots towns and cities with a total of 15 outlets.

But rising competition from department stores forced him to scale down his operation and, in order to keep pace with a growing clamour for designer clothing and keep the business progressing, his outlets were rebranded under the Hoi Polloi banner.

The business was successful for a while. But with the arrival of rival Scottish fashionwear group USC, the curtain began to come down.

"We got blown out the water in Edinburgh by USC. They were the new face of fashion. They kicked our butts and made life very difficult," Mr Mackay says.

They also carried a sophisticated corporate image that Hoi Polloi couldn’t compete with.

"We just wanted to plant a flag on Princes Street, but we didn’t have the business acumen to create a corporate brand. Instead we achieved what we did on raw ambition and a bit of opportunism," he explains.

Mr Mackay says he should have brought in some solid outside business expertise in the early days. "If we’d done that we might have established ourselves as a serious high street player," he states.

The death knell for the business came in November 2000, two years after "begging" to get a place in the prestigious Buchanan Galleries in Glasgow.

After successfully securing a place in the new shopping Mecca, no favours were granted by the centre’s owners. "We were paying full-whack rent from the start. We also had to pay a deposit equivalent to one quarter’s rent in case we ran away," recalls Mr Mackay.

Although shopaholics descended on the Galleries over its opening weeks, when trade slowed to normal levels the figures weren’t good enough. Mr Mackay says: "We were looking to do 1 million turnover in the first year. We did 600,000. In the second year it was only 500,000. We needed to get out but we couldn’t assign the lease to anyone else.

"It was two years of hell. We knew as soon as we went through the doors at the Buchanan Galleries that it was never going to be all it was cracked up to be."

Hoi Polloi went bust in November 2000, the same month that Dean Gassabi - who had previously been a manager in one of Mr Mackay’s shops - returned from Algeria to launch Maison Bleue.

"After returning to start the business, he asked me to stand alongside him," Mr Mackay says.

Originally, Mr Mackay came in with the sole intention of investing in the business, but was immediately made a director, lending support and years of retail experience to the project.

He stayed until February 2002 before leaving to pursue another opportunity. But having retained his directorship of Maison Bleue and being unfulfilled by his choice, he returned to the fold.

Returning was "the right opportunity at the right time", he says.

"I listened to Dean’s plans for the business and they sounded pretty convincing."

Mr Mackay adds: "When I first started in business I didn’t have a clue."

He says he learned about business "at the school of hard knocks".

It is Mr Mackay’s view that the basic Pierre Victoire concept was a winner, despite its final messy collapse.

"Pierre Victoire was a very bright character who really knew the restaurant game. What eventually happened to the business does not detract from the core idea. Dean’s the same, he’s picked up the baton again and in a more controlled manner Maison Bleue can achieve what Pierre Victoire was trying to achieve."