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00:23 Hello, I'm Brad. I'm the owner and head chef of Croxton's in South Sea.
00:28 Brilliant. And obviously you've been nominated for an award. Could you tell me a little bit about that please?
00:34 We've been nominated for the Casual Dining Award for Muddy Stilettos.
00:39 And a few other restaurants have been nominated.
00:43 So if you don't mind telling me a little bit about how you guys started.
00:47 So there's four of us. We all started back in 2018. So we're six years old next month.
00:54 Just got together a group of friends and got the business open.
00:58 Used to be a co-op and post office and then we ripped everything out and then rebuilt it.
01:05 And all of the owners live in Portsmouth, live in South Sea, love South Sea and love Portsmouth.
01:12 And what kind of made you want to start this? Do you guys have backgrounds?
01:17 A few of us have hospitality backgrounds. One of the other owners is a massive foodie, eats in all the best restaurants.
01:24 And eats a lot. He's a plasterer by trade to be fair. But he obviously works hard and eats a lot.
01:31 And then a graphic designer is one of the owners as well. He sorted all that out.
01:36 So he designed the whole interior. He works for a local company as well in Portsmouth.
01:42 Then we started doing community projects. So we started the Rung Club.
01:47 And in Christmas we fed the domestic violence ladies charity in Portsmouth.
01:56 And we fed about 60 of those Christmas dinners. And we do a lot of stuff for the community.
02:03 And I mean how does it feel, obviously you said that you're coming up to your sixth anniversary.
02:07 How does that feel to have been here six years?
02:10 It's amazing. To start off with it was a bit of a struggle. Obviously with John Lewis, Debenhams closing.
02:15 But now year on year we've just got stronger. This is definitely our strongest year since being open.
02:20 We just had an end of year last week and we've had a record year.
02:24 Day trade's not amazing because of John Lewis, Debenhams. But once that gets regenerated the area will be good.
02:31 It's all about our evening trade here. And weekends obviously.
02:36 And if you could pick one thing off the menu, your go to choice, what would it be?
02:41 My go to choice. We do a lot of small plates to be fair. I like picking from other dishes.
02:47 So maybe the honey pork belly which is really good. Salt and pepper mushrooms.
02:55 Jerk prawns are really good. So I'd go small plates.
02:59 And what would you say makes you different from all the other places?
03:06 We've got super friendly staff. Our interior's pretty cool.
03:11 We used to be order at the bar service but since Covid we changed to completely table service.
03:17 We found we have a better connection with our customers.
03:20 And we do loads of collabs with local businesses. So we had a wrap a go in here last month for a wine night.
03:26 We've done stuff with Hobo Hotlets which is a hot sauce designed in Portsmouth.
03:32 Done stuff with Crack Burgers, they're based in Portsmouth.
03:36 We just do loads of collabs. And all of our beer we shop local.
03:41 So all the breweries are Portsmouth, Gosforth, South Sea.
03:47 We try and use as many local suppliers as possible.
03:50 Brilliant.
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