Ep.59 Breaking Boundaries: The Beefy Boy's Rebellious Journey from Pub BBQ to Burger Champions

Buckle up for an electrifying conversation with Anthony Murphy, affectionately known as Murf, from The Beefy Boys. This episode promises to shake up your perspective with his bold philosophy on breaking the rules and questioning the status quo. Explore how his journey from backyard barbecues to becoming burger world champions is laced with tales of rebellion, confidence, and the power of a well-timed conversation. Murf's candid reflections on his school days reveal how a knack for talking can sometimes outweigh traditional paths, offering a fresh lens on confidence and overcoming imposter syndrome.

Get ready to be inspired by the incredible story of this bunch of friends, who turned their casual love for food into a thriving barbecue venture recognised on a global scale. From pop-up events in Hereford to making their mark at Grillstock in Bristol, The Beefy Boys' journey is a testament to teamwork, adaptability, and a sprinkle of good fortune. Their decision to embrace the high-traffic location of a permanent restaurant, despite local skepticism, turned into a story of revitalisation and community support. Hear how they navigated the tumultuous waters of the COVID-19 pandemic, transforming challenges into opportunities for growth.

Murf shares insights on balancing a bustling restaurant business with personal passions. His entrepreneurial journey from club promoter and musician to restaurateur highlights the unexpected responsibilities beyond cooking, and the importance of planning regular breaks to prevent burnout. The Beefy Boys' social media savvy, engaging community events, and prestigious burger awards paint a vivid picture of how food can foster connection and joy. With valuable lessons on confidence, creative problem-solving, and seizing opportunities, this conversation is a rallying call to stay bold, stay rebellious, and keep making mischief with us!

Follow The Beefy Boys here: https://thebeefyboys.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Creating a Rebel Spirit
• 8:56 From Backyard Barbecue to World Championships
• 20:01 Starting a Restaurant Against All Odds
• 28:37 Navigating Challenges and Embracing Growth
• 33:42 Adapting, Innovating, and Seizing Opportunities
• 45:49 Balancing Business and Personal Passions
• 54:30 Creating Fun and Connection Through Food
• 1:05:59 Social Media Presence and Business Success
• 1:09:57 Staying Bold and Rebellious

Transcript

Anthony Murphy: 0:00

And we would literally have 600, 700 people turn up every Thursday and there'd be a queue a mile down the road and at that point all the four of us were like man, we've got to quit our jobs. This is like. This is starting to become something.

Zoe Greenhalf: 0:15

Hey there, welcome, or welcome back to the Mischief Movement podcast. I'm Zoe, your guide on this journey to shake up the status quo and design a life that truly makes you feel alive. If you've ever felt disconnected, stuck on autopilot or trapped in a life that feels more like a treadmill than an adventure, you're in the right place. I know that change can feel scary, so let's turn down the fear and crank up the fierce as we transform your life from the inside out. Down the fear and crank up the fierce as we transform your life from the inside out. Whether it's solo episodes packed with actionable advice or interviews with some absolute badass human beings who've dared to defy the norm by living life their way, we're here to inspire, activate, empower and challenge you each week. My mission is simple to help you reawaken your rebel spirit, break free from mediocrity and design a life that's anything but dull. You only get one wildlife, so what are you planning to do with yours? If you're ready to stop settling, start living boldly and create a positive impact along the way, let's dive in and stir up some mischief together. Now buckle up and let's go stir up some mischief together. Now buckle up and let's go On.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:34

Today's episode of the Mischief Movement podcast, I'm joined by the one and only Anthony Murphy, also known as Murph, from the Beefy Boys, the award-winning burger legends with a rebellious edge. From Herefordshire, murph brings his infectious energy and love for bold flavours as we dive into their journey from a backyard barbecue crew to champions of the burger world. We talk mischief, hustle and how to create a brand that makes people stop and say I want a bite of that. It doesn't matter whether you want to start a pop-up, whether you're interested in opening a restaurant, whether you're a vegan who hates burgers, because I promise, as you'll find out here, this conversation is much less about how to serve up a great dish and much more about how to reawaken that rebellious spirit so you can live boldly, do what you love and create a positive impact along the way. Well, this week I am joined by one of the co-founders of the Beefy Boys. So, murph, it's lovely to have you with me. Thank you for joining me.

Anthony Murphy: 2:34

Thank you for having me on. Yeah, it's a pleasure.

Zoe Greenhalf: 2:37

Would you like to tell everybody what your mischief is?

Anthony Murphy: 2:41

I'd say my personal mischief is probably the belief that rules that I don't agree with don't apply to me or shouldn't ever be adhered to in any way, and it drives my wife mad because she loves to abide by the rules. And don't get me wrong, it's not like I go around breaking rules or laws or whatever indiscriminately. I don't. I'm not like that, and if I think something's justified, I will be like 100%. I understand that rule, but sometimes you know, when you hear a rule or you hear something and you think, well, what's that about? I don't agree, I will just completely ignore it. And I think that's probably been one of the things which has got me, has led to good things in my life, has led to bad things in my life. It can go both ways, but that's probably my mischief, I think.

Zoe Greenhalf: 3:36

Well, I think that's pretty awesome. Have you got any?

Anthony Murphy: 3:41

particular examples that you could share Probably loads. I can tell you where it kind of first emerged. It was when I was at school and it was a terrible lesson to learn. I realized I think about year three in secondary school I've realized I didn't have to do my homework anymore because I could talk my way out of it with all the teachers and and I quite quickly realized that I could. I was really good at blagging stuff and I did. I really enjoyed school and had lots of friends and stuff and I got pretty good grades in the end. But yeah, course I just wouldn't do it because I found out you didn't have to if you found a way of talking your way out of it or getting around it and in a way it was a terrible lesson to learn because I wouldn't advise it and I wouldn't tell my kids it you know, and if they told me that, I'd be like what are you doing?

Anthony Murphy: 4:30

that's ridiculous. You know you need to do your work, um, but to a certain extent it did make me realize, oh, hang on, you can do a lot in this world. And it made it made me realize that a lot of the time it didn't matter what you were saying, as long as you said it confidently. And what I find is that as long as you were confident in what you're saying, people would be like yeah, he's right, and I don't mean telling lies and that, because the one thing I am not and he's a liar, I don't ever lie.

Anthony Murphy: 5:00

I try and be as honest as I can all the time, but I find there was other ways of like, you know, getting around, not doing the homework and speaking to the teacher, and I just find I find that confidence was a real asset and if you were confident enough, people would would be yeah, he knows what he's on about. Um, yeah, well, I know so many people who suffer, you know, really badly from imposter syndrome and whenever I talk to them I'm like we all are imposters and I'm trying to make them realise literally everybody has that feeling of I'm an imposter and everyone's just pretending they know what's going on, because my belief is that the world is just absolute chaos and it's just, you know, all of us just trying to find our way throughout it, and it's like the whole world is like the illusion of sort of organisation on top of what is ultimately chaos.

Zoe Greenhalf: 5:55

Yeah, yeah, and have you always had that kind of confidence?

Anthony Murphy: 6:01

No, no, not really. I was very I guess I was quite quiet as a kid. Quite um lived a lot in my imagination, you know, did lots of drawing, um, loved films. I was never that sporty as a kid, um, I was always more into films and comics and stories and things that you could imagine, you know. So I spent a lot, a lot of time in my imagination as a kid and it was only maybe as I got into my teenage years that I realised, oh, hang on, you can blag a lot just by talking your way into things or out of things. So no, it wasn't something I had from all my life, just something I kind of learned.

Zoe Greenhalf: 6:42

I think I had from all my life, which is something I kind of learned, I think, but has this sense of, you know, being able to, to black things as you say, like have you brought, have you taken?

Anthony Murphy: 6:52

that forward since, yeah, yeah, well. So it kind of developed into at school, into into acting, and it kind of put me down that way because I was quite confident, you know, you know school pantos or whatever, um, and then I find that that was like a really, really handy tool. Almost everyone I know got into drama and acting. All that they've always gone on to do like really good things and and I think it's because and not necessarily in in that world of drama or theater, acting more like whatever they went off to do, they did well, because I think it does give people a really good grinding in just how to talk to people and how to go about it.

Zoe Greenhalf: 7:31

That's really interesting.

Anthony Murphy: 7:32

It gives you that confidence. Yeah, and now with a restaurant, if we ever have somebody applying for a front of house job or pretty much any job, if I see that they've done a bit of drama in there to me, I'm always like, oh wow, this person's going to have a bit of you know something about them. Yeah.

Zoe Greenhalf: 7:48

Oh, that's really interesting.

Anthony Murphy: 7:51

I mean the other thing that really taught me getting into that whole world of sort of you know plays and stuff that we did when I was at school because we did a lot of youth theatre stuff and the youth theatre we did, we had a really amazing lady called Estelle who, uh, taught me so much, who was our like sort of leader on that. She took the whole thing really seriously. So if there was a play there's only one excuse sorry for not turning up, and it was like death. That was literally it. You know you could be ill as you want, but you had to turn up to get the show going on. And that instilled a really strong sort of work ethic in me and all the people who were there and even like Christian, who's one of the other beefy boys, he like used to do all that stuff with me and, um, yeah, it does put you in that mindset like the show must go on and there's so many transferable skills from that world that you can take into whatever you know career you get into.

Zoe Greenhalf: 8:36

Oh, I love that. So, um, we've mentioned a couple of times the beefy boys, but for anybody who doesn't know, what is it?

Anthony Murphy: 8:47

So our tagline is it's a drunken barbecue. That's really got out of hand. So it was about 12, 13 years ago. Dan, who's a very close friend of mine we've sort of known each other since we were like sort of late teens. He was having a barbecue and for his partner at the time, so he called me up he's always known, I was a big fan of food and he gave me a call and said look, I'm having a barbecue.

Anthony Murphy: 9:11

Do you want to give me a hand cooking it? And I said yeah, man, but you know, if we're going to do it, let's not do a rubbish British barbecue, because at the time British barbecues were in terrible, you know. So, yeah, I said yeah, if we're going to do it, let's do a proper, like you know, man versus food, diners, drivers and dives sort of barbecue. Because that was all on tv at the time and we'd be watching it. So we were like all right. So me and him watched a load of that and we downloaded, you know, got some stuff off the internet, bought a couple of cookbooks and we made a load of stuff for our friends and all of our friends like, guys, this is brilliant, you should do something with it. And we're like, oh, you know, maybe whatever. So then we'd have a couple more barbecues and I think we started, um, looking at oh, maybe should we look at, maybe doing a little pop-up sort of thing. So I think dan's dad had a this old like barbecue that had been next to his shed for like 10 years and just out in the rain and it was covered in rust, and so that was all we had because we didn't have any money to invest into. So we got that.

Anthony Murphy: 10:03

Yeah, spoke to a couple of pubs in hereford and on a monday or tuesday night when they weren't busy, we set up a little barbecue in there. We'd do some burgers and we'd literally sell like five burgers, ten burgers. We, you know, even if I don't even think we break even half the time, you know be just a couple of our mates there. So we just did that and this is, like you know, for a month, a couple of months or whatever, and it'd just be sporadic here and there.

Anthony Murphy: 10:25

And then we're doing one of the barbecues around Dan's house and a friend of ours called Christian uh, who we'd known for years as well, had been working for the BBC as a runner and he'd been to this barbecue festival in Bristol called Grillstock and he said, guys, you should enter it. Um, and we, I was a bit like, oh well, it sounds great. So what it was at this festival called grill stock, they had all these barbecue teams uh, competing and there were people who've been doing it for years and you have to present your best ribs, your best brisket, your best pulled pork, all that sort of stuff. I mean. One of the teams was from america and these people have been doing it for years and so I said, look, it looks great, but we've only been doing this for a couple of months yeah you know, you know, we don't really know what we're doing, so let's just have a couple of years learning our craft and then we'll enter.

Anthony Murphy: 11:08

And then, uh, dan had a bottle of wine and he was like, yeah, let's just do it. So he entered us straight away. So next time we saw him, dan was like I've entered us. I was like oh my god yeah.

Anthony Murphy: 11:17

So, christian, come along at this point, my friend lee, who at the time I was running a nightclub with so at the time I was a DJ Lee was a DJ, we were both in a band together, okay, and we ran a nightclub. We've been doing that from the age of 18. So, rewinding a little bit, me and Lee started running a club. I started running a club when I was 17. I hired a club for my 17th birthday, told them it was my 18th.

Anthony Murphy: 11:43

There we go, blagging it again 18th and um, so there we go, blagging it again. Yeah, yeah, so exactly. So I told him it was my, I told him it was my 18th. It was my 17th. I was at art college and I started. I was like I said to everyone I said, well, I've got to fund this party, there's bands and that. So I need to charge people to come. So, like, I started, charged everyone like two quid or something to come to this party and I packed it out and it was like this nightclub was dead most nights and it was Tuesday night. It was like I think we'd had like 300 people in there, made like 600 quid, and I was like 17. I was like this is, I thought it was a millionaire. And then the guy, the guy who ran the club, was like, oh, do you want to start promoting nights here? And me and him eventually just started running the club together. So you know, we were running this sort of nightclub when I was sort of 17,. So I wasn't even old enough to be in there and I was like running nights, running this hip hop night there and stuff, anyway.

Anthony Murphy: 12:33

So fast forward years later, and so we had this barbecue thing we were going to go off to grill. So I thought, yeah, okay, we'll get Lee involved, because Dan's best friends with Lee as well. So it's myself, lee, dan and Christian and we barbecue for a couple of months. We end up going to this thing in Bristol Now, because we're from Hereford, we knew obviously Hereford's surrounded by amazing beef. So we thought, right, we're going to enter the competition. We need to make sure our burger is amazing because we're from Hereford and we're representing our county. So we spent ages getting the burger just right, and we didn't want to do anything fancy. We just wanted to make a real good, amazing, good quality cheeseburger.

Anthony Murphy: 13:08

And when we got to the competition, people were sending up mad burgers. They were sending, like, a burger with a pineapple in it or one with a lobster coming out of it, and we were like, oh God, we've gone too simple here. We've just done a cheeseburger. So we made this cheeseburger, we sent it up. And cheeseburger. So we made this cheeseburger, we sent it up, and then they announced the winners and we won. And uh, we were over the moon. We couldn't. We couldn't believe it. Like, oh, we've won. And I think it was. We won by quite a bit, because we scored like 600 points. I think the next guys scored like 400, 450, some of that. So we, so we did really really well, a long way yeah, yeah, and everybody's really impressed with the burger.

Anthony Murphy: 13:40

and then when they, after they announced the, they were like, oh, and the winner of the best burger category now gets entered into the World Burger Championships in Las Vegas Did you know about that.

Anthony Murphy: 13:51

No, no, no, not at all. We were like what? And so we were like, okay, so like, and this was like I don't know, this was like in the summer. And they were like, oh yeah, you've got to go to las vegas now in november and compete represent the uk at the world burger championships. And we were like what? So, um, so yeah. So we were like, oh, brilliant, this would be a chance for like four lads to, you know, go and have a free holiday in las vegas, come last in a burger competition and come home. So, um, the only catch was we had to raise the money. Uh, they, they wouldn't pay for us to get there. They were.

Anthony Murphy: 14:24

When we got there, it was all going to be looked after, but we had to get to las vegas. We tried to set up like a kick, kickstarter sort of fund or whatever to be like donate this money to go debate, and everyone was kind of a bit like I'm not paying for these four young lads to go over to las vegas and have a, have a jolly. You know when I could be donating money to charity or to an actual worthy cause. So we didn't really raise any money. So then we went round speaking to local businesses and luckily we spoke to Y Valley Brewery who were lovely about it and we said, look, we really want to go and I wouldn't be sat here talking to you now if it wasn't for those guys. So Y Valley Brewery is like a local brewery in Hereford and we like a local brewery in Hereford and we spoke to them about it and they said that we'll stump up the money to to get you over there. Just can you include, uh, a bit of our drink in some videos when you're over there? Or like in one of your recipes, like yeah, yeah, of course, whatever you want. So they gave us the money and so we got over to Las Vegas and it was, it was mad and it was like they'd literally they'd shut off like the main strip in Las Vegas, uh, and they had.

Anthony Murphy: 15:22

It was filmed for american tv. They got all like outdoor kitchens and stuff and there's like 50 of the best like restaurants and chefs in america. There's this four lads from hereford just like what are we doing here? What? How are we here, you know? And um, and we weren't allowed to take anything.

Anthony Murphy: 15:36

So back back in the uk, obviously we had like really good meat from a good local butcher called neil powell, great buns that we would get got baked locally, uh, but we couldn't take any of it with us because they're really tight and what you can take to america. We even tried speaking to jesse norman, who's our local mp, to see whether we could get a diplomatic parcel on the plane to get us over there. There's no chance. We just couldn't make it work so we had to find everything out there. So we thought, right, let's just try and find beef which is as close to hereford beef as we can. So it had to be grass-fed, dry aged. So we've got to try and find some grass fed cows.

Anthony Murphy: 16:09

And we're in vegas in the middle of a desert with like nothing but casinos and stuff. So we end up finding this really high-end butcher and to get like the meat that we needed, it cost to make 12 burgers, cost us like 270 just to make 12 burgers because, like, because of the quality of the meat we needed to get, wow, couldn't find a decent baker. We tried and then, luckily, we went to. Have you ever been to Las Vegas? Have you ever been?

Anthony Murphy: 16:35

Not yet I thought I would hate it, because at the time I was very and I'm still a little bit like, oh, anti-capitalist, all this sort of stuff. I got there and it's amazing. It is like it's Disneyland for adults. It's phenomenal, it's so much fun. Yeah, you got to go at least once. So, yeah, so, gordon Ramsay there. He literally has about 20 restaurants in Las Vegas. He's got like a steak restaurant, a fine dining restaurant, and one of them is a place called Burger.

Anthony Murphy: 17:03

So we thought we'd go and try this gordon ramsay burger before the competition. It was really good and the bun was really really good, and so we couldn't find a decent baker. So we thought, right, let's just go to gordon ramsay's restaurant, go in and try and blag our way to get some of their buns. So we went in and we were like can we see gordon? And they're like gordon's not here. What are you on about? Of course he's not here. It doesn't work. We're like all right, okay, can we speak to the head chef? And the head chef was one of the ladies that had won um, hell's Kitchen, um, so we sent her on TV. Yeah, no, yeah, cause you know when they win and they get to manage one of his restaurants. Yeah, yeah.

Zoe Greenhalf: 17:48

And and we're doing a competition, and she's like, yeah, no worries, so she gave us these buns, then the buns we actually end up using the competition, so we got these gordon ramsay buns. Oh my god, that's such a like. Like just even thinking to go and do that blows my mind. You're like god, you're so enterprising, that's brilliant and wow to find a chef. That was actually really like nice and wanted to help like when I was.

Anthony Murphy: 18:02

Well, the thing was before that, when we were there because, right so, y Valley Brawler, we wanted to make a video documentary of you guys being there and we were like, okay, but we were adamant. We're like, look, we're going to come last, so this is going to be like the worst video ever. It'll be like we're just going to no-transcript, going to want to watch this. So let's try and put a story behind it and let's try and do loads of exciting things. So before we went, we would call places up and we'd say, and we'd be put on a poshest accent we're like hello there.

Anthony Murphy: 18:42

Uh, my name is Anthony Murphy and I'm calling from the BBC and we were like I feel so bad because these Americans be like, oh hi, hi, how's it going? And we'd like talk to them. And we'd be like, oh, we're coming over. So when we got over there, we'd managed to set up all these things. So we got like, because we had no money, so we had like we managed to hire the, the. You know segways, you know the segways yeah yeah, yeah, we told.

Anthony Murphy: 19:02

We told him we were making a documentary about burgers and I think we I don't think we lied we kind of like made insinuated it was the bbc we didn't actually clarify with. So they gave us all this stuff and we had a camera crew with us. We had this guy called ed who came with us to film it, so it looked official. He's like well, as we're filming, we're from the group you know, we're british and we just got so much free stuff. So we were giving these segues and like going around las vegas in them.

Anthony Murphy: 19:24

We ended up going out into the desert and like firing loads of machine guns and stuff with these guys, because we told them we were doing it for a documentary. So we were like literally in the middle of the las vegas desert with like uzis and ak-47s. It was absolutely bonkers. Yeah. Then we did the competition and um, and we came second in the world, um, just like that, and we made more noise and went madder than the guy who won Because we had no idea we did not think for one minute that we would do a tour, and so when we came second in the world, we went mental.

Anthony Murphy: 19:58

We were absolutely ballistic.

Zoe Greenhalf: 19:59

Oh my God, that's amazing.

Anthony Murphy: 20:01

It was mad and it was because financially I'd always been awful and, um, even though me and lee ran the nightclub, we never made any money and like we were always in debt and like literally we was honestly it was it was we had to do other jobs on the side to to to keep the nightclub going. It was a labor of love because we both love music and we used lots of live music and djs and it was really providing a really good. Um, it was a labour of love because we both love music and we used lots of live music and DJs and it was really providing a really good. It was a good thing for the community and at the time we used to argue like this should be funded, because we were giving like local bands places to play and DJs and it was a real hub for like artistic people. Like you know, ellie Goulding used to come there and play because obviously she was from here before, obviously before she was famous and all that sort of stuff, and loads of guys went on to work in the music industry, used to be in that sort of world, but we never made any money and then and so financially it always been a worry for me like, what am I going to do? We got no way of making a living.

Anthony Murphy: 20:55

And, interestingly, I remember walking away after become second. None of us could believe it. We're all in shock and I can't remember thinking, oh, everything's going to be all right now because, no matter what, I can always say, oh yeah, we got the second best burger in the world and I thought that there's always going to be a way to monetize that, to make some form of living off it. And I remember having a real as I walked away. We were walking away from the stage after they announced it it was the Las Vegas Strip and I was like, oh yeah, no, it's going to be all right now because I've got this, we've got this to, you know, to work with um it was mad.

Anthony Murphy: 21:29

So then when we got back to the uk, we did like our first pop-up at the barrels, which is one of the y valley's pubs, and we literally had this old, broken barbecue and we were used to like 10 of our mates turning up and so obviously we come second in the world. We've been posting about it on facebook so, and there's been huge amounts of likes, you know, thousands of people liking it and sharing it and it's mad.

Zoe Greenhalf: 21:48

It's really lovely to see while we were over there you know what everybody loves a good underdog story, don't they?

Anthony Murphy: 21:54

yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. So many people rooting for us. And so when we got back, we did our first pop-up and, literally like just getting ready, we look up it's 12 o'clock and there's literally like 300 people like just turned up and in the queue like going down the pub. Oh my god, and we can only cook one burger at a time on this barbecue, so it's a three. There's a three hour wait for a burger, oh my god, yeah. So we, so we took all the money that we had made from that. We were like, right, let's reinvest it, so let's buy another barbecue, yeah, and so we kept on doing that and every time we whatever money. We said we didn't really take money from it, we would just buy more stuff to do it quicker or to do more. And within about six months we were doing every thursday, a place called the left bank in hereford and we would literally have 600 700 people turn up every thursday and there'd be a queue a mile down the road and and at that point we all all the four of us were like man, we've got to quit our jobs. This is like this is starting to become something. So we did and we quit our jobs and started doing it full-time and we had an opportunity to open a restaurant.

Anthony Murphy: 23:00

There was a. There was a development in Hereford where they'd rebuilt on the old cattle market in Hereford and it got a load of flack from the locals, like we don't want it, blah, blah, blah. You'll reckon our city and that. So they had all that sort of bad press and it's turned out it's been a great thing for the city. It's actually really rejuvenated, it's been really good. But there was one unit on the end that nobody wanted and it was a little sort of awkward unit over two floors and basically the landlord, who's a big company called British land, I think they felt we're getting a lot of flack from the locals here. This is just big chains. You know, it was like your Frankie and Benny's and your Wagamama's and all that sort of stuff. So they came to us and they said well, you know, you guys, we've seen your pop-ups. Would you like to have a look at this unit? And we were like yeah, yeah, 100.

Anthony Murphy: 23:51

So we went and looked at it and we had so many people saying to us don't, don't what you're doing, you can't go there. That's a big like retail place. You're next to a cinema. The rent's going to be ridiculous. You'll be shut after a couple of months. Go down at your independent, go down the back alley, go on the outskirts of town.

Anthony Murphy: 24:02

And we were very arrogant and just, we were like, no, we're gonna do that. Because we were like, look, there's a reason why companies like wagamamas and things pay to go next to a cinema, because it's the footfall. We spoke at a brief conversation with the bank and they were like, yeah, yeah, we'll lend you the money. We had no idea how much it would cost to do a restaurant. We thought, well, how much would it be? We plucked a figure out of thin air and thought, yeah, that sounds like that's what it would cost to do a restaurant. We thought, well, how much would it be? We plucked a figure out of thin air and, yeah, that sounds like that's what it would cost. Turns out it cost costed four times what we said it was gonna cost to do.

Anthony Murphy: 24:32

but we're like, yeah, it'll cost that, it costs that, yeah. So we're like, go and ask the bank can we borrow that? Bank's like yeah, fine, brilliant. So we go and we sign. We're like, yeah, let's do it. So we get the lease and we're in september, and we're gonna get the lease and we September and we're going to get the keys in November. And then we're going to try and open like January the 1st, just after Christmas it was the day after boxing day. We're going to do like a soft launch day or whatever. So we get it. We've got the keys Brilliant. We bring the banker. Can we get the money? Bank's like no. And so it turns out the guy at the bank that was. He said I'm from Hereford, I live here, I know that this is going to work. I've been to your pop-ups, I've seen how busy they are, because he'd looked at our books and he was like you guys are taking more in that one day a week than a lot of pubs in Hereford are taking in the entire week.

Zoe Greenhalf: 25:13

Wow.

Anthony Murphy: 25:13

Yeah, I know. But then he said he'd have to then send it off to London, to wherever, to get this signed. And they looked at our CV of like DJ DJ, ex-runner for the BBC, and Christian was also working as a pig farmer, and then Danny was a gas engineer. And they were like you guys can't run a restaurant. You don't know how to run a restaurant. We had our business plan and they were like you're never going to take what you're saying you're going to take on here. It's a no.

Anthony Murphy: 25:40

So literally we'd signed the lease, we had the keys or whatever we were going to open and we're like we've got no money, we can't do it. We've got a designer in. Then we got the whammy of well, it's not going to cost this, it's going to cost four times what you thought. And then we were all like right. So then we all had to go and speak to our partners and be like we're going to have homeless. But luckily they were all very, very accepting of that and we spoke to all our friends, all our family, and we rang people up. We could, we borrowed like a thousand pound here, 500 pound there, um.

Anthony Murphy: 26:15

So then that was nerve-wracking in itself to think. Well, actually, we owe all these people we know and love a lot of money. Now, um, and then the the remainder. Luckily, kate, who's married to lee, wanted to be for his, and kate, who'd been helping us with the pop-ups because she, she's the only one of us that does have a hospitality background. She's lee's wife and she was born in she's. Her parents owned a hotel, so she grew up running a hotel, basically okay so she should be a good, only someone knows what they're doing.

Anthony Murphy: 26:42

She, she was she was the only one that knew what we did, but she took care of the front of house stuff, which was great. She meant we didn't have to worry about it.

Anthony Murphy: 26:49

She knew what she was doing, she could take care of the waiters and the waitresses and we would just take care of the burgers, which is all we knew what to do. But luckily her uncle knew some people in London who had pots of money that would lend it for, you know, a short period of time and then you'd have to pay it back. So we managed to get the funds together, open the restaurant and, lucky enough, in the moment we opened it there was a queue out the door, and that's even true today, like sort of almost 10 years, nine years later, there's still a queue every day. Uh, now and now the restaurant we've doubled. It is extended into the building next door started off just 80 covers, the hereford one. It's 220 covers now. Um, and now we've got one in shrewsbury, one in cheltenham and we've just put an offering on a fourth one.

Zoe Greenhalf: 27:31

We've got a food truck and we've got a book coming out and we've got yeah, so so it's just kind of all sort of spiraled up it's all just gone out of control, like this whole thing of las vegas completely went to your heads and turned your lives upside down for the better yeah, yeah, definitely it is.

Anthony Murphy: 27:50

Yeah, it's a completely life-changing moment and we do talk about it a bit like the butterfly. I don't know if you ever seen the concept the butterfly effect but it is interesting when you look back at your life and there's certain things where you're like if we hadn't done that one thing, then this wouldn't happen and this wouldn't happen. And it is like everything starts off like as a tiny little. It's like a snowball going down a hill. Do you know what I mean? It's like yeah for sure.

Anthony Murphy: 28:16

Literally, if Dan had rang me up and said, do you want this barbecue? I'd be like, nah, I'm busy. Or do we to the grill? Stock competition, or like we decided not to go to vegas, or or you know, there's so many variables. You just we change one of those things. Our lives would be completely different to where they are now it's like a good old boy band.

Zoe Greenhalf: 28:37

You know, being in a group, you've all actually got to be singing off the same song sheet at the end of the day. You know, when you talk about having to raise funds from your family and friends and partners and everything, it would only have taken one of them to say I'm out, this is not happening, and maybe things would have looked different so, yeah, I've never thought about that, but it's surprising none of us did actually, because, as much fun as it is and it is a lot of fun there's been some real dark times, do you know?

Anthony Murphy: 29:04

I mean real times where, like, life was low. I mean, when we first opened the restaurant, I mean I don't know what we were thinking. We had this really weird belief, I don't know why. You know, there's a concept called group think. You know, when you're in a group and, yeah, you get a stupid idea, but you're all behind it, so nobody really questions it. And the stupidest, the stupidest idea we ever had was we were under the impression when we opened the restaurant that we would just work because it was seven days a week. It was open. So we thought, yeah, well, we'll just work from, like you know, nine in the morning until it shuts every day, right, and like that was our plan. And then we got about three months into that and we were like, all on, like, on the edge of a nervous breakdown. We'd all lost about two or three stone in weight. It was a horrible, horrible existence. We were working about like a hundred, like 20, 130 hours a week.

Anthony Murphy: 29:55

I would, I would get up at like I would get up in the morning and my wife joe would be asleep. I would get back at home and my wife joe would be asleep. I know, I know, yeah, and I would not get to see her, do you know? And I would like and the thing which depressed me the most, I used to go park in this car parking space and I'd put like a day's parking in it, right, and every day I would like I'd go, I'd go to work, pay for my day's parking, work all day, get home at like midnight, go to sleep, be back at work, and my parking would still be valid from the day before. I hadn't even been. I've been. You know, the rest I'd had, it was within 24 hours and I was back to work, and so we did. We did that for three months.

Anthony Murphy: 30:37

Then we got to the point where, like this is this is unsustainable, and so then we had to really start actually thinking about it like a business, where it's like we need more people and we had some great staff from the start and we, some of those guys are still with us now and we couldn't have done it without them and, um, and to be honest, as it's grown as a business, you realize that you know when it's one thing and it's just you and you're just there in the kitchen with it, you can, you, you know you can be in control of a lot of it as it gets bigger. You have to rely on people and you can't do it without people and you can't do it without good people. Um, so that's the one thing, and we are very, very fortunate that we do have lots of amazing people within the company that have allowed us to grow it to where it is now. So now we've got like 200 odd employees. Now she's mad wow that is amazing

Zoe Greenhalf: 31:25

and you know kudos to you guys for keeping it all together, even through the. You know the dark moments, but I mean it sounds like you've had quite a fair amount of obstacles along the way, but you didn't succumb to them. You found creative ways to get around them.

Anthony Murphy: 31:42

I'd say that is definitely one of the things that I think one of our greatest strengths I think always has been we've always been able to turn anything really negative into a positive, and I think covid was probably the biggest example of that. So I remember, because I'm quite into politics and the news, so like I was like really aware of what was going on with covid well, where before the guys were, because I was watching what was happening in italy yeah, I was seeing this stuff and I remember, and I think a lot of people were like, what's he on about?

Anthony Murphy: 32:13

I was like, look, things are gonna get a bit crap. I remember like early march, so I was thinking they need to like close the borders or something, because I was seeing what was happening around the world, like in china and italy. I was like this is gonna come here, and obviously it did. It was a terrifying time to run a business, because at the time we only had one restaurant, so I think we had about 50 employees at the time and you've got rent to pay, you've got your employees to pay, you've got all your bills coming in. And then, literally I remember Boris Johnson going on TV and it was before they'd even uttered anything like that. I was like, yeah, maybe don't go out. And he was like, well, hang on. Yeah, I agree, probably people shouldn't go out, but we rely on people going out. And I remember that night we had like a hundred bookings just cancelled do you know what I mean? And all this sort of stuff, and it was a really horrible sort of time. So luckily, the whole furlough thing happened.

Anthony Murphy: 33:03

We went into lockdown to lockdown and I remember after about sort of maybe 10 weeks of lockdown. We were all getting a bit sort of itchy and a bit like oh, so many, we want to do something. And obviously covid was terrifying when it first hit in the lockdown, but then, as things gradually got on, it was like okay, well, it is obviously scary and horrible and terrible, but maybe it's not quite as scary as we thought. Perhaps can we look at opening again. And then the government started releasing guidelines on how you can do it and like, yeah, we started speaking to some of the staff and everyone was getting a bit bored by then. They were like look, why I wouldn't mind coming back and doing something.

Anthony Murphy: 33:38

And so, remember, we went down to work, me and the four lads and we went down. Then it's the middle of lockdown and everything and we had a mask on. We had to stay, like you know, far apart. And we're like right, can we knock our kitchen down and rebuild it with all of us two meters apart. And so we worked a way of doing it and we managed to get be the first place to open in hereford and so we opened as a takeaway. Like all our waiters and waitresses. We're like look, come back, can you draw those of you can drive, we'll get you off, uh, furlough, we'll get you coming back and you can come and drive so taking some takeaways out, whatever, and we'll get the kitchen back up and go. And so that's what we did. So we we reopened and we thought, right, we'll open up as a takeaway and just see how it goes. And it went absolutely ballistic. It was like we were taking just as much money as when we were open as a restaurant, because by that point.

Zoe Greenhalf: 34:26

Everybody's sick of living on pot noodles and actually wants a bit of normality and to treat themselves.

Anthony Murphy: 34:33

That was it. No, it was exactly it. Everyone was so sick of being stuck at home. I think they thought, right, let's go and get a Beefy Boys and let's order something to do. And we managed.

Anthony Murphy: 34:42

And I think the fact because we were independent independent because it was four of us who just mates and we could just make decisions like that we were able to open really quickly, whereas the big chains like nando's and wagon members they were still scratching their heads like two months later, you know, about what they should do, and whereas we just did it. Um. So, yeah, we opened as a take and it was absolutely flying and and it was actually lovely as well, because we got open kitchens in our restaurant, which is great so you can see the customers, they can see in the kitchen, see what you're doing, it's lovely. But obviously you always have to, um, behave and you have to listen to music that you know that's acceptable in a restaurant, stuff.

Anthony Murphy: 35:16

When we were in what we call covid kitchen, we weren't able to do what we want, so we were like fun days would be, like right, what should we listen to today? Let's listen to all the bond themes in, you know, in a row, or like we actually listen to all of the now albums from now. Now one all the way up to in in order.

Anthony Murphy: 35:33

Yeah, and it's a great thing to do, is it's really like that was really good fun? Or we'd play like big games, like you know. We'd shout across the kitchen to each other, we'd try and like name all 50 odd american states and we'd try and do it while we were working. It's so much fun it was. It was lovely.

Anthony Murphy: 35:48

Um, and then, uh, we and we kind of used a lot of the opportunities that came from covid. We sort of leant into it because obviously it was a terrible thing that happened, but loads of restaurants were shutting. A load of the chain restaurants took it as an excuse to be like, all right, well, let's not bother reopening that place now we shut it. So frankie benny's next door to us in hereford that shut down. Uh, there was a zizzy's restaurant in shrewsbury that shut down and we heard that they've gone and then so we managed to find out who the landlord was. We spoke to them and I think the landlord was a private landlord and I think was really worried that it was the end of the world. Nobody was going to rent his restaurant. So we're like we put in a real low offer and we snapped our hand off. So we got a and we got a restaurant in in shrewsbury really cheap to open.

Anthony Murphy: 36:33

You know when we came out the pandemic we spoke to one we spoke to a landlord in hereford because when we started coming out of the pandemic and they're like, right, you can sit people in your restaurants, everyone had to sit, you know, like two meters apart, whatever, right. So we realized we're only going to sit 20 people in our restaurants. We're like, look, if we open them, can only sit 20 people. We're going to go bust, but there's an empty restaurant next door. Can we just knock a hole in the wall and sit people in there? And the landlord was like, yeah, all right, yeah, do it. So we did so we knocked a hole into this giant frankie and benny's next door and we just let people sit in there. Um, and so that way we could actually start, you know, operating and start starting selling, uh, what we needed to, um.

Anthony Murphy: 37:10

And then I don't know if you remember, but that that christmas the government brought in the tier system. Do you remember? Tier one, tier two, tier three, yeah, yeah, if you saw that. So basically, depending on the amount of covid infections, you would go into different tiers and those tiers would have different levels of social distancing and restrictions yeah, there were.

Anthony Murphy: 37:28

There were two places in the UK that were tier one, which basically meant, yeah, you're fine, and I think it's because Hereford's so small. So it was the Isle of Wight and Hereford were the two places in the UK at Christmas tier one. Now all that happened was everywhere within about two hours of radius of Hereford came to Hereford to do their Christmas shopping. Right, it was like Piccadilly Circus. There had never seen so many people there, right. And we realized at that point wow, we can fill this entire restaurant because you know we were doing it.

Anthony Murphy: 37:59

Literally everybody got Covid within a week and we had to shut down, oh god. But after that we realized, man, we might want to keep this restaurant. So when we started coming out of the pandemic and opening back up, we realized, oh, hang on, we can fill this one next door. So we struck a deal with the landlord and we ended up keeping it. But that was just one way that we really learned hang on, when you get these challenges like lean into it, find what you can do. And we realized, just, everybody was panicking all the landlords so you could get amazing sort of deals if you needed them. So yeah.

Anthony Murphy: 38:30

I think, any negative opportunity. The first thing you should think is right. How do I make this a positive one?

Zoe Greenhalf: 38:35

Yeah, and do you find that you know, being sort of a group of you, you are good at coming up with these kinds of solutions, or is it like one person has an idea and has to get all the others on board because they're not quite sure, or you sort of very much along the same?

Anthony Murphy: 38:50

short lines I think generally we're all, we're all pretty cavalier really, um, and sometimes there will be like some like, oh, hang on, should we do that because? But we do, we are quite good at talking it through, um, and there's sometimes there's ideas that you know, not everyone does get behind so you can't do them. But generally we've all got quite a cavalier attitude and if we can see, you know, if we're like, well, there's an 80 percent chance anything over 50, so it's 60 percent chance it's gonna, we're probably all gonna get behind it and and do it and um, yeah, and we have, you know, we've made stupid decisions and done wrong who's the wildest out of you guys?

Anthony Murphy: 39:26

um, I'm probably the most impulsive and, yeah, that's probably me. I think I'm probably the most impulsive. Lee's probably the most cautious. Dan is pretty like chilled with stuff and if you know, if you can convince me a good idea, I'll be like, yeah, let's do it. Christians, I guess, quite usually wants to get some sort of detail on it and stuff. I'm very, very much like once I've got an idea, I just be like yeah, but once I know it's a good idea, I'm like right, we're doing this. Boom, let's go. Do you know what I mean?

Zoe Greenhalf: 39:56

And.

Anthony Murphy: 39:57

I like to move quite quickly with ideas. While I'm still excited by them, I often find if you let an idea dwell too long, you'll go beyond the point of being interested in it anymore, and then you just won't get finished. You'll be.

Zoe Greenhalf: 40:10

Yeah, so you lose the momentum, don't you?

Anthony Murphy: 40:12

Yeah, that's it. And, like you know, and sometimes you have a great idea and so you spend ages on it Like, oh, I don't you fall out of love hands up and be like, look, that was wrong, I've changed my mind. I want to go with this. But what I can't stand is indecisiveness, and it's like if you've made that decision, you've made it. Stop second guessing, just go and do it. Oh, that was a stupid decision. Make sure you put your hands up and be like, yes, that was wrong.

Zoe Greenhalf: 40:54

Yeah, I think that's far better than making a decision and then questioning it constantly and then not doing it. Do you know? I mean, I think that's probably also quite linked to the fact what you're saying before about being pretty confident. It's like well, if I'm going to decide on something like what is there to second guess?

Anthony Murphy: 41:05

yeah, yeah, exactly yeah, definitely, and I think you've always got to try and balance that out, and I try to try, you know, obviously always try to be self-aware as much as I can, and I think one of the worst thing I always try and make sure is none of us are as sound as we think we are.

Anthony Murphy: 41:24

Do you know what I mean? I think everyone's always the hero in their own story, but one thing I always try and think is like well, there's probably lots of people that think that I'm right. You know twat, for want of a better word and I think if you're going to be confident with ideas and confident when making decisions, you also need to be very upfront about admitting when you're wrong. And it's fine to be brutally honest, but you've got to be brutally honest both ways. You've got to be brutally honest yet you'll tell somebody when something isn't good, but you've got to be brutally honest when they do something that is really good. So if you're quick to criticize people, you have to be quick to praise people as well, do you know?

Zoe Greenhalf: 41:59

I mean, you've got to do it both ways do you bring that sort of into your work culture as well? Because, um, I don't know what roles you will have within the business, but, by the sounds of it, the fact that you've still got staff there who started at the beginning and you told me, that you're surrounded by really great people. It gives me the impression that you must have kind of instilled a really nice work culture there as well I'd like to think so.

Anthony Murphy: 42:26

I'd like to think so. Um, I mean, it's hard work. It is hard work. Hospitality is especially the guys in the kitchen and front of house is really really hard as well, for different reasons. Um, and I do, we have got lots of staff that have been with us. You know, you've got some people who've been with the only job they've ever had. They came with us when they were 17 and they're, you know, in their mid to late 20s now.

Anthony Murphy: 42:52

So I do like to think we do have create a nice working environment, and there's times when you get things wrong, you know, I mean as a boss, and there's times where you make the wrong decisions or times when you haven't trained people enough or you haven't been there to support them enough. We try and do as much as we can for people, especially helping people with their mental health, uh, getting people counseling. Um, we had a very. There was a very close friend of ours that worked with a series of school friend of ours as well and sadly, um, he, he did, um, he did take his, take his own, and that was quite early on. That was like maybe two or three years into us being open, and it had a huge impact on us. So we've always been very hot since on making sure that we're there for people do you know what I mean? And we provide the help that we can.

Anthony Murphy: 43:47

So, yeah, I do like to think that we do do that as employers. But at the same time, you know, we've grown as a business so much Like our turnover is 10 times what it was like four years ago and with that, you know just, it's the increase in people, the amount of work, the amount of stuff going on, and so there's always stuff, the way we're learning. At the same time, do you know what I mean? How to do this? None of us have ever we've never had to run a business like this. We've never run a restaurant, we've never run a number of restaurants. You know, running one's hard enough, but now we're running three, potentially four, hopefully more. So you know, I think we do treat our staff well, but I'd say there's definitely times when we've made mistakes, not so much treating anyone badly, but things where, well, perhaps in hindsight we could have been done more or we could have. You know, but you only learn that through doing it.

Zoe Greenhalf: 44:44

Yeah for sure. And I think going from one well, going from pop-up barbecues to having four restaurants, I mean all credit to you guys, but that must have been so much work, and now it's bigger than probably you ever imagined.

Anthony Murphy: 45:05

Yeah, you ever imagined?

Zoe Greenhalf: 45:06

yeah, do you find that you can still achieve some sort of I hate using the word balance, but you know there's a big uh push towards people's well-being these days? And do you guys, as founders and co-creators of the of the restaurants, find that because you've built everything around it, it's very all-consuming? Or have you found ways to kind of carve out that time for yourselves and make sure that there's still space for your, your lives outside the restaurants?

Anthony Murphy: 45:41

yeah, um, yes and no, uh to that. I mean it is, it is all-consuming, that is the only way to describe it. And I think I sort of had to make peace with that about three or four years ago, because I mean, if you came and spent, if you saw us, like on the week, you know, if I get like a day off, my phone is always going. There's always a problem, there's always a thing, whatever. So it's very hard to get complete detachment from it. I made my peace out that we'll end the day it's our fault, it's our business and it's not that we're.

Anthony Murphy: 46:13

If I was an employee, I think it would really grate me because I would not be able to escape it. But it's our thing that we've grown and I just have to make peace with the fact that, yes, I won't get any peace from it. Um, but we have managed to now at times find times for ourselves to have that time. But it kind of comes in waves. So it's like when you open a restaurant, you're that's it, you're done for like you've got six months where you're just going to be because it's not only are you opening a new one, you've got the others to run at the same time and and they don't go away, and the problems that they bring don't go away. And then you've got to open another one. And opening a restaurant is like. For anyone who's ever done it out there, they will know how hard it is.

Anthony Murphy: 46:53

It's just so hard because it's not because you get into doing a restaurant. We get into restaurants because I think, oh, yeah, I like cooking a burger and I'm quite good at cooking a burger. But it's like, okay, yeah, you're good at cooking a burger, but now are you good at writing risk assessments, are you good at doing?

Zoe Greenhalf: 47:06

that because you're not actually doing the no, the cooking the burgers now are you yeah?

Anthony Murphy: 47:11

it's like are you good at writing a hasap? Oh, how's your hr? And so I just want to cook a burger. That's literally what I wanted to do, and sometimes, like I turn to the guys down, it's like what we're doing to some having to do something, you know, which is not what we signed up for, and be like man. All I wanted to do was do myself a burger. I mean, I'm sat in mountains of sort of like filling in forms, so you know a bit out of hand, doesn't it really?

Anthony Murphy: 47:32

it's quite ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but. But we have got into a place now where, yeah, it is pretty intense, like looking at me just speaking to my wife now as our next week I'm gonna have to work seven days out of seven. The week after I'm gonna have to work six.

Anthony Murphy: 47:47

What I find is always have a holiday booked right and something told me that a couple of years ago and I cannot express how actually that is so life-changing. And it doesn't even have to be a good holiday, even if you're going to, you know, bangor or like wherever, it does not matter, as long as you know, especially if you've got a family or partner or whatever you know. Just have some time booked where it's like okay, I know things are terrible now, but in a couple of months I'm going to be, I've got a week off or two weeks off and I'm going to be going and doing something nice. So I always try and make sure that I've got a holiday booked and it doesn't and it and it works, even if it's 12 months.

Anthony Murphy: 48:26

You know you've got it and you know you've got it coming, and I find that really helps you get through some of the horrible times, I think, as anybody that runs their own sort of business. A lot of the time it's when you have a load of terrible things happen at once, do you know what I mean? And sometimes, if it gets real bad, I will come home and say to Joseph, I've just got to lie in a dark room. And if it gets real bad, I will come home and say to Joseph, I've just got to lie in a dark room and I literally will not sleep. I will just lie in a dark room until it's like sort of exercised from me, and then I'll sort of be alright yeah that only happens like three or four times a year.

Zoe Greenhalf: 49:00

Maybe that I have to go and do that well, if you weren't running your own restaurants and stuff, what do you think you'd be doing instead?

Anthony Murphy: 49:12

well, I know what I would love to do is, I don't know. I think what I was doing sort of like to make a living when we were doing the uh club was, uh, we were in a band and, uh, we were lucky enough me and another lad called Sam, we wrote all the music and, because we rap, but we were producers in the band as well, so we did a lot of music that did quite well with publishing. So, uh, we had a lot of songs that are on like tv or on, um, uh, like on a film or in adverts and stuff. So, yeah, it was cool, it was really cool.

Anthony Murphy: 49:41

It was like not really a sustainable way to live, because it would be like it would all of a sudden you get a check and it'd be like I got 2000 pain. You wouldn't know about it. Do you know what I mean? And so, and, and when we were doing the band, a lot of that royalty stuff we got signed to fat boy slim's publishing label but none of that money came in until after we'd finished doing the band. Because we were like, because we toured the band for about three years, um, it was great, we were on radio one and we got up and down the country in a tour bus and loads of fun. I had an amazing time, amazing lifestyle to leave.

Zoe Greenhalf: 50:10

I feel like that's a whole other podcast episode on its own.

Anthony Murphy: 50:13

Yeah, probably, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zoe Greenhalf: 50:15

Amazing years, Amazing yeah yeah, yeah.

Anthony Murphy: 50:17

So Lee was like the DJ in the band and yeah, it was great to be on the radio and things, but it was really unsustainable and we didn't really make any money. And then we kind of got sick of it after three years because it felt like it was going nowhere. But then, as soon as we kind of started winding it down, then we started getting these royalty checks. We were like, oh no, we're actually making money doing this. And then that allowed me to put a deposit down in my first house and then I started doing lots of music, teaching, working with young people, and I did that.

Anthony Murphy: 50:48

I did that parallel to the beefy boys for a long time. I didn't want to give it up and I only actually gave it up about a year ago, a year and a half ago, just because I just did not have the time anymore. But I did it more because it was more rewarding. I was working with young people, some of them who hadn't had the best chances in life or the best backgrounds yeah and it's such a rewarding job and work with some just such talented young kids, do you know?

Anthony Murphy: 51:11

I mean, there was times when you see it was annoying more than anything. You meet this like 14 year old kid that's got like more talent than you'll ever have and it's like oh no, but really inspiring. You know some of them as well, like absolutely amazing kids that we work with. So I think if I wasn't doing the beefy boys, I'd probably be doing that still. Um, you know, if I wasn't as busy as I was now, I'd do that because it was, yeah, really really rewarding. But what I would have loved to have done is, uh, and I get to do a bit of it with the beefy boys. So is um is direct, right and direct like film sort of video stuff, and it's a big part of the beefy boys is our video content.

Zoe Greenhalf: 51:50

I've seen some of it and I was going to ask you about that because it's really good and it's very humorous. I think it does bring out your brand sort of personality, so I was wondering who was responsible for that.

Anthony Murphy: 52:02

I thank you, that's me and lee um, we would love to do more of it. So, um, yeah, we love doing the video content. We're both like massive film fans because we've got our own podcast as well that we do more of an excuse because obviously, as you get older, it gets harder to hang around. So myself, lee uh Tarby, one of our friends, and Alan, one of our friends, for years, we've got like an 80s movie podcast that we do uh sort of every week um, give me the name it name.

Anthony Murphy: 52:28

It's called VHS Showdown and it's basically about 80s movies. But yeah, we love films and you know the room I'm in now I've got all my sort of film memorabilia on my Ghostbusters, proton pack, oh wow, all my sort of like. I've got a whole wall of memorabilia stuff on there. So we've always been big into films and yeah, so probably the most successful beefy boys film thing we've done is our christmas trailer from last year where, if anyone's out there listening, go and go on youtube and have a look for the beefy boys christmas advert. We did a spoof of john lewis and it kind of went viral, um, but yeah, really proud of it is that the one that featured, joe, no, I yes.

Anthony Murphy: 53:06

Yes, yeah, Joe's in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zoe Greenhalf: 53:08

Okay, I did see that one.

Anthony Murphy: 53:10

Yeah, yeah, brilliant. We're very proud of that. And yeah, we do love our video stuff and I think, as the business grows, we're hoping that we can get more people in place to help with us with more of the day-to-day stuff. So perhaps me and him really I love food, obviously, but the marketing side of it is what me and he really love doing. Yeah, and probably plays to your sort of creative strengths as well. Yeah, totally, totally.

Anthony Murphy: 53:38

I think so many creative people like whether it's through music or art or film end up getting into food, and I think there's a real connection between the two, because obviously, food is about being creative. Um, you know, yeah, it's all about creativity. It's about making something out of nothing, and it's exactly the same whether you're making a bit of music or whether you're drawing or you're making a film, or you're making a bowl of pasta or whatever, or making a burger you're making something from nothing. And then the other side of it as well is, I think, you know, fundamentally, usually people, creative people or people who make food you tend to want to please people, you want to make people happy, you want to make. I mean, that's why you're doing it. And so I like making food because you know it's a way of like enjoying nice food and then also making other people happy to be like oh, eat this nice thing. You know.

Zoe Greenhalf: 54:23

Yeah, yeah, I did a podcast with a guy who's a chocolatier and he does a lot of chocolate parties, ollie. He's called Ollie Dunn and he was saying exactly the same thing. Like, chocolate for him is his vehicle for creating connection with people, and it sounds like that's a kind of similar, similar way of thinking I think so yeah, and I used yeah.

Anthony Murphy: 54:46

It is that thing just wanting to bring some some happiness uh to people because life, you know there's so much horrible stuff that happens in the world that it's like, well, why add to that? You know you can just if you in some small way you can make people happy through food or through music, or add to that, you know you can, just if you in some small way you can make people happy through food or through music or through whatever, then you know this seems a real worthwhile thing to do.

Zoe Greenhalf: 55:08

You know yeah, absolutely in fact. Um, one of the videos that I was watching of you guys uh, involved having a load of scouts around and you were like going through the burger making with them and I was like I love that because you, it just strikes me as wanting to really look after your local community and you know yeah, yeah nurturing thing that you're talking about with your young students is also present in what you're doing now yeah, yeah, yeah, no, definitely, because we've always wanted to make sure, because we were an independent restaurant we are, even though we got like four whatever.

Anthony Murphy: 55:44

Um, we've always we wanted to do what chains don't do or what you know. When they do do, it's kind of corporate and a bit icky and a bit so we wanted to get involved with the local community whenever we can, and also we love doing things for kids because kids are fundamentally hilarious do you know what I mean? And so we did, um, during lockdown actually another video which is quite a funny one to watch we got kids to design burgers. So, because we knew the kids would be at home bored, we set out a challenge all your kids at home design some burgers, um, and send them in and we'll pick the best one and win the competition. And we had such amazing, amazing. And you know kids aren't constrained by the boringness of a little mundaneness of reality that we are. You know kids will do their brains can go wherever.

Anthony Murphy: 56:26

So some of the burgers that we were getting saying, oh my god, these are, these are insane, these are like absolutely mad. So we're like let's make them and let's eat them, right? So we did a whole thing where we made these kids burgers exactly as they had drawn them and there was mental ones. There was like one kid wanted everything deep fried the lettuce, the bun, deep, deep fried, everything. So we did it and we ate them all. And um, yeah, there was. There was one kid's burger had, like bless her, she had like chocolate sauce in it, she had gherkins in it, olives, it was like she put like the worst things she could imagine going together into his burger and we had to eat it and, like lee, it actually made him sick. Were there any burgers?

Zoe Greenhalf: 57:08

that actually made the menu at the end of the day.

Anthony Murphy: 57:10

You were like oh my god, it's actually really good yeah, yeah, but that was it.

Anthony Murphy: 57:14

We said we've picked one and put it on the menu. There was one which was in a donut that was actually quite nice with ketchup, and then there was another one that was and this was mad, and it was it was a whole camembert, like you imagine, a whole camembert baked, baked put in a burger, but of course it was delicious. Incredibly unhealthy, um, but yeah, there was some. There were some that were right, but there was some that were absolutely mental, but that that was good, fun and hopefully, and the kids really enjoyed it as well, do you mean?

Zoe Greenhalf: 57:43

and that's really good yeah, I think I mean it's just another example of how you guys bring fun to what you do, and I think that's one of the things you know. Obviously, it's about the food, but I think a lot of your appeal as a brand is also this sense of fun, and that's what you convey through your videos and and when you're sort of getting involved with the community and bringing people into your sort of world in a way, um, yeah, it's just really fun to watch. And now you're bringing that into, uh, your own cookbook, aren't you?

Anthony Murphy: 58:16

yes, yeah, yeah, so, um. So we had a really mad year last year, like 2023 was just so nuts for us, us opening Cheltenham, and so that was mad, so, and we had to film all that and not talk about it. Um, so, until it was, until it came out, um, and then we won the national burger awards, so we never entered it. Uh, we'd done world championships but never entered the UK ones. And we entered it and we won. We did the double, the only people to ever have done it. We won burger of the year and burger chef of the year in one go and that was mad. Congratulations, thank you very much. Um.

Anthony Murphy: 59:06

And then we got on saturday kitchen as well, um, and then tom kerrichan came out and we wanted to do a book for ages and we'd because my thing's always just go and do it yourself, right, just go and don't wait for people, just go and do it. So my wife's a graphic designer. She does all the graphics. We've got a great photographer called pete who does amazing photos for us, and I was like, well, let's just, let's just make like 12 pages from from a book, as if we were going to make a cookbook. So we just made 12 pages. Right, how exactly we would do it, would do it and I then just sent them off. Sent them off to all these publishers and no, maybe a little bit. Obviously, the thing went on TV with Tom Kerridge and then they were all like, oh, can we have a meeting now? Met loads of them and there's a couple of them that really got it and understood it and one, specifically the one we went with, who's Quadril, completely understood that they love the pitch, they love the pages we've done and they said they very rarely ever do this. But they said we love it so much. We'll just let you do your thing. Get your wife to design it, get your photographer you write it. We'll give you an editor to work with, um who will help you with the. You know, make sure the spelling and make sure it's all right and you don't go too off piece and you keep it on track. But you guys have complete creative control. Because they loved what the pit and they understood and they said they hardly ever do that and I was amazing.

Anthony Murphy: 1:00:21

So at the time it was like September, it was coming near the end of August that Tom Kerritching was on. I think we signed the book deal by the beginning of September. And I thought, oh, I'm going to have, like you know, six months to put this, you know, magnus opus, together. And they were like I only got six weeks because we need it out by christmas this year and, like I know, it has to go to print in march. So like oh, uh, okay, and um, so luckily the guys, like the rest of the beefy boys I sort of rang and was like right, go write this book, the only way I can do it is if this is all I have to do for six weeks. And the guys were like that's fine, and they're like we'll look after everything. You go and do that. So I couldn't have done it without him. Um, so basically I then got six weeks to go and I was at home and I just like literally writing cooking burgers, burgers, burgers.

Anthony Murphy: 1:01:11

I would eat burgers all day and it sounds great, but it's terrible. Like when I finished writing the book, I just ate salad for like a month. Um, yeah, because things. Obviously I've got all these recipes, but a lot of the recipes are like you know, this is how to make it for 100 people or 200 people. Now I've got to show you a recipe of three or four.

Anthony Murphy: 1:01:28

It's very different and come up with new ones so yeah, dug down six weeks, got it done and then joe designed it. She's done an amazing job. It looks incredible. We got an illustrator called russell who we went to school with, who he's done videos for the idols, the band, and he's done um stuff for h&m, and that it's an amazing illustrator. He does all our drawings. He's done loads of stuff for it and the books just come out way better than we even thought it would.

Anthony Murphy: 1:01:53

It's so colorful and we wanted to make it a bit rebellious. So it's like the whole thing is we are, we like our style with it to be a little bit punky in a way. Yeah, um, so it's got this bright colors and a bit sort of diy and it's a bit, yeah, it's sort of rough around the edges because we find some people get a bit pretentious with burgers and we're like, oh, come on, it's a burger, do you know? I mean it wants to be dirty and ridiculous, and so the book is dirty and ridiculous and it's a lot and all the photos like just sheer burger porn, do you know? I mean it's like dripping with cheese and sauce and it's all like disgusting, and but it's what we wanted, you know, um, and so we're really, really pleased with it, but anyway, it's going to be in waterstones and it's being released in the uk, the us and australia.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:02:33

Um yeah, I'm really really excited, uh, about it coming that's, that's phenomenal, and I just the thing I love about that is, again, you haven't read a book before. You have the idea and you're just like I'm going to create a few pages and send them off like what's the worst that can happen.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:02:50

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly which is the same sort of mentality of well, we won um this barbecue burger competition. Why don't we just give a restaurant a go? And it's probably that attitude that has really kind of got you where you are, but it's brilliant.

Anthony Murphy: 1:03:09

You just got to do it because so many people put barriers in the way, exactly, and there's lots of parallels a little bit with the band that we did, because with that we would just record things to whatever level. We could literally microphone attached to a computer, and it was all rough and so but we would just do it and put it out there. Not really, I think anybody. No matter what it is you're doing, don't, don't put barriers that are going to stop you from doing it. Just do it to whatever level you can right. So if you want to do whatever and you know it's not the finished product, it's not going to be as great as you wish it would be, and it's going to be a bit rougher on the edges, it doesn't matter, just do it. It's more important you get it out there because your next one will be like five percent better and the next one will be like five percent better than that.

Anthony Murphy: 1:03:49

And then and whatever you release now, or whether it's food or music or a product you've made or a pop-up you're doing, it's not going to be what it is going to be in five years. It's the beginning of it. So just go and do it, because so many people that I know or speak to they've got idea I want to do this but I can't do it because I haven't got that. Now I just feel like just shut up, just do it, just do it, and it will be a bit rubbish and but it doesn't matter because you've started and you've started that journey and every time you do it will get better and better and better and better till it turns out to be what you want to be. And I think too many people worry about having the finished thing you know straight away, and so it's not going to be.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:04:23

Do you think you could write another book after this one and just call it, you know, like Life According to Beefy Boys, with all these sort of lessons in, because I think you've got a lot to say about this.

Anthony Murphy: 1:04:34

Oh, maybe.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:04:39

Your punk rebellious style would be an amazing book, as like a bit of a piece of life manifesto.

Anthony Murphy: 1:04:43

Well, the book's a bit like that, because it's a book about burgers, but it also charts our story in it as well. So it talks about how, because I think our story is kind of what's interesting about us really, and so it kind of like it does follow that, and so I tried to write it as a bit of like if you are somebody who's interested in starting a food pop-up, I've got a bit of advice in there about how to do it. I say stuff like that just go and blame it, because the first pop-up we did we would have broken so many laws, not knowingly but we were just like, oh, let's go and start a food business, didn't do any research into what we actually had to do, all the qualifications we would need to do it, but it started us on the journey, you know, to find an out, um. So yeah, I think there's a bit of that in the book already. Really, maybe and yeah, we'd love to do another one I think obviously have to be food related, um, but yeah, we'll see amazing.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:05:34

Well, listen, um, I have really enjoyed getting to know you and getting to know the brand. I can't wait to come to the UK in the summer and see if I get up to one of your restaurants. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, let us know I really want to experience one of these burgers for myself.

Anthony Murphy: 1:05:49

Yeah, do it, yeah, yeah. And obviously we've got the restaurants where we're at loads of food festivals and things like that. So, yeah, whenever you're over, drop me an email and yeah, lovely to see you that would be amazing.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:05:59

Where can people find you on the socials?

Anthony Murphy: 1:06:02

oh god, we're on all of them. So we're on Instagram, youtube, facebook. It's always the beefy boys if you go on there. We're on the TikTok, as I like to. I like to pretend I don't understand it, to be honest, but we are on TikTok as well.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:06:17

You don't understand it, but I bet you're doing it.

Anthony Murphy: 1:06:19

You are, yeah yeah, no, we're doing it, we're doing it, but it's like, it's interesting because, like me and lee, because, like we're both like in our sort of early 40s now, because we've been doing it for quite a while, um, so we are, you know, obviously, we know we've grown up with youtube and facebook, and it's just, we know that, but it is, it's interesting how, something like tiktok, I'm starting to feel like my mother in the fact I look at it like what is this? I'd have no clue what's going on here. And so actually, we've got um lee, he's got, uh, two nieces that are like sort of 18. We just got them to do the tiktok and they're doing a far better job than me and him do, because it's all about these trending things that we just don't comprehend.

Anthony Murphy: 1:06:56

And yeah, yeah, yeah, get young people to do it. They're way better. Well, and then, obviously, we've got the restaurant. So there's many, lots of places people can catch us, and we do diy boxes, sort of nationwide ones, that we can sort of send out as well amazing, oh amazing.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:07:09

So I can have a go myself then when I'm back yeah, oh, yeah, yeah yes, so yeah just jump online.

Anthony Murphy: 1:07:14

We'll send you all the stuff you need to make it all brilliant.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:07:17

I look forward to seeing the book come out and thank you and the next restaurants or the next project, because I feel like whatever you turn your hands to um, it's going to be cool. So I'll wait. I'll wait to see what happens next yeah, definitely me too.

Anthony Murphy: 1:07:33

But yeah, yeah, keep an eye out. I'm sure we've got some got some things overly bubbling away. So, yeah, thank you for having us on.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:07:38

So it's been really fun welcome cool it was a long one this week, but I hope you'll agree, absolutely worth it, for just the sheer amount of value in this episode. Here we go, then, with my little rebellious recap. So number one confidence is the difference between people buying into what you're saying or doing or not doing it. So show up with as much belief in your message as you possibly can. Two so many people suffer from what is called imposter syndrome, so try to remember that it's not just you. We're all just trying to figure out our way through a total world of chaos.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:08:14

Three when you're up against the clock or out of your depth in a problem, think creatively. Don't be afraid to ask for help from unlikely people, because they may just surprise you and lend a hand. Learn to ask for what you want. Four believe in your crazy idea and back it with all your might so that, even when you're getting no's left, right and centre, you don't let them stop you. Five if you're getting your head down and going all in on your big dream, don't overlook the need to rest before you burn out. Six surround yourself with good people. Start with those people who will champion you and your ideas, but as soon as you're on your way. Invest in the help that's going to keep you afloat.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:08:56

Seven find the ways to add fun to your struggles. Add music, bring people together, create new products, services or offerings. Eight within every challenge there is a gift or an opportunity to learn something, so lean into it and work out what you can do to turn things around. Nine if you get an idea and it excites you, move quickly and don't dwell on it too long. Otherwise you'll lose interest and never finish it. Ten book the holiday.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:09:25

Don't wait for the right time to fit in a break. Book the time of first and fit life around it so you have that moment to look forward to. Eleven don't wait for someone else to get your idea going. Take the bull by the horns and just do it. And number twelve don't put barriers up. They're going to stop you from whatever it is you want to do. Just do it at whatever level you can. It's more important to get your idea out there than get it perfect. That's a wrap on another episode of the mischief movement podcast. If today's content stirred something in you, let's keep in touch on instagram or connect with me on linkedin. You can even click the link in the show notes to sign up to my mischief mail newsletter, where you'll get exclusive insights on upcoming episodes and your chance to submit questions to future guests. But shh, don't tell anyone, it's our secret. For more info on ways to work with me and some fun free resources, check out the website themischiefmovementcom. Until next time, stay bold, stay rebellious and, of course, keep making mischief. You.