Firstly, for people that don’t know much about your business, what do Suede do? What do you specialise in?
We specialise in producing the best hand stretched sough dough stone baked pizza in the city within a creative retro inspired environment, complete with 5ft teenage mutant ninja turtles and a cassette tape wall.
Where did the idea for Suede come from and how long have you been around for?
The Suede concept has been around for 2 years, but our pizza connection is a family one and goes way back, our head chef Flavio has over 30 years pizzaolio experience running his own restaurant in Italy and Suede business partner Antonio’s family own an Italian food production company specialising in high quality triple wheat dough, the same dough that makes our artisan pizza so light, tasty and Morerish.
Can you tell us a little bit more about your background before you opened Suede? How did the you get to the point of opening a new bar?
We (James and Antonio) have been good friends for around 12 years and used to live together in our early twenties. I also run a small chain of smoothie bars Called shaake and a clothing label called Some kind of nature, and Antonio DJ’s at and runs successful club nights across the UK. We decided to combine our creative forces and passion for food and change the pizza game in our own city forever.
What lessons have you learnt from your business's journey so far? And what would be your advice to anyone starting out or looking to get into business?
If it’s a pizza restaurant our advice would move on and don’t bother in Nottingham ;)
On a serious note, we would advise people to stop dreaming and talking about starting your own business and just go for it, because you will only regret not attempting it.
You are based on Heathcoat Street, which has had a new paving and road improvements over the past year, firstly what do you think to the improvements? And secondly can you tell us what drew you to base your business there and what people can expect when they visit?
We knew about the road improvements quite some time before they started and this had some relation in choosing our location, the new paving and large potted trees have really improved the aesthetics of the street and our new outdoor seating area is a real sun trap (when it decides to appear) and has also improved our visual presence on the street. Our customers can expect a truly independent business ran by people who care with staff who love what we do and this shows in our excellent customer service, Suede offers a unique environment with creative content including live music and our weekly movie and quiz night each and every Sunday.
You’ve won an award for best small bar in Nottingham Bar Awards, congratulations! How do you feel about that? What did it feel like to be voted for as one of the best bars in the city?
We feel privileged and thankful, the award really wasn’t expected and hadn’t been a goal of ours, we have believed in our concept from day one and have worked hard to develop our location at the wrong end of Hockley with very limited passing trade, so its great to be recognised and just goes to show you with a limited budget some creativity and belief in your concept you can make your business thrive.
>span class="s1">We are very happy to be part of the guide and the Creative Quarter itself, we feel we represent the CQ as an independent home grown business working hard to develop this part of the city
What would you like to see happen in Nottingham city centre to help the visitor economy grow?
We would like to see more support for small businesses and initiatives to highlight the less travelled parts of the city centre, Nottingham has a huge amount to offer beyond the square, clumber street and the large chains.
Finally, what are your ambitions for Suede? Where you like the Bar to be in five years for example, if everything went to plan?
If everything goes to plan, we will sell out and cash in at the very nearest opportunity and reminisce about how credible we once were from our mansion rooftop hot tubs.
