This is what we’ve all been waiting for, huh? The big announcement. But first, I think we should start with a big happy birthday to The Warren. Ten years. It’s amazing to see so many familiar faces in this room, ten years on from the young, 30-year-old spring chicken running around trying to open a restaurant.
Before I get to the big announcement, this is my way of coaxing you into listening to me waffle for a little bit. It’s nearly a year since The Warren went into hibernation, and a lot of you were here for the hibernation party. It was actually meant to be a closing party, but we changed it to a hibernation party because, deep down, I didn’t really want to close it.
The last year hasn’t been quite as relaxing as I’d hoped. There’s been a lot of uncertainty about the future of this building and the business. What on earth do we do with everything stuck in here? Do I sell it? Do I reopen it? And how exactly do you relax when you’ve still got copious amounts of bills to pay? After about seven months of not really doing much with The Warren, I decided becoming a gardener was a good idea. And honestly, I bloody loved gardening. It was the middle of a heatwave, I got myself a nice new hat, I had clients with beautiful gardens overlooking the sea, and I was getting to know people, helping people and working outdoors. It was wonderful.
I genuinely thought, this is quite a nice, simple life. It was exactly the sort of thing my counsellor had been trying to tell me for years. Take away the stress. Take away the striving. Take away the pressure. I started talking to my mother about putting a caravan in a field somewhere. Sell the house. Sell the restaurant. Sell all of these things. Cut, cut, cut. Strip everything back.
Then it started getting very close to D-Day. What are you actually going to do, Deri? The Warren is for sale. Are you going to sell it? Are you going to open it? I wasn’t making the decision. I was just bouncing around between everyone. Then I got a message from my brother saying, “Bro, how can I support you?” And I thought: help me make a plan.
So we talked, and the plan was to sell. Just call it a day and help me get it done. Selling felt daunting. Opening felt daunting. Everything felt daunting. But he basically said, whatever you decide to do, I’ll support you. So we went down the selling route. And within about five days of working together, we were having a wonderful time. Then came the inevitable question: “What about reopening?” And he was basically like, “Yeah. Whatever you want to do. I’m in.” Well, that was easy.
We started bouncing ideas around. If The Warren reopened, what could it actually be? I wanted it to be this, I wanted it to be that, I wanted community involved, I wanted it to work differently, and I wanted to learn from everything that had happened before. My brother listened and listened until eventually something resembling a plan started forming. I’m quite good at saying I’m going to do something and immediately charging towards it, before changing my mind and running off to do something else. Executing a calm, linear plan? Less so. Fortunately, my brother has somehow managed to support me through all of that. Closing. Opening. This idea. That idea. Another idea.
So, to anyone on The Warren mailing list, I apologise for how confusing some of those emails have been. One minute I’m doing this, one minute I’m doing that, one minute I’m asking you for something completely different. And yet, somehow, here we are at The Warren’s 10th anniversary.
We decided to give it a go, but this was never really a grand reopening plan. It was a test. An experiment. A pilot. Whatever word you want to use. We wanted to find out whether there was actually an appetite for doing something with The Warren again. And I think there is. We sold out this anniversary party, and that was a huge confidence boost because, for months, people had been telling me they missed this place.
Every time someone said it, it was actually quite painful to hear. But I needed to hear it. I needed to hear people’s truth. I needed to believe that people genuinely cared about this place, rather than it just being something nice you say when you bump into someone in the street. “Oh, I like your jumper.” “Oh, I miss The Warren.” I needed to know you actually meant it. And apparently you did.
So we made the experiment official. We put a website out asking the community to step forward. We were looking for directors, sponsors, volunteers, people who wanted to help us work out what The Warren could become. The response was a mixed bag. Lots of people were incredibly positive. Some were understandably confused about what on earth this guy was doing and why he seemed to be asking people to come and open his restaurant for him. One comment was essentially, “Bloody hell, mate. Just fucking flog it.” Fair enough. But I decided to listen to the 99.9% of people who were supporting me through what was actually a really difficult decision.
We decided to spin the dice and ask for volunteers, and I genuinely didn’t know whether anyone would come. Who’s going to turn up and help Deri Reed reopen his restaurant? But people did. Five or six people came to the first volunteer day, and those of you who were there will remember that I spent about the first ten minutes crying in front of everyone. I had to process what it meant to be back in this space. For nine months this building had been haunting me. Every time I walked through the doors, my head would immediately go, “Do something, do something, do something,” followed very quickly by, “I don’t want to do it. It’s too much.” Pressure, stress, burnout, whatever words you want to put on it.
So coming back in here and sitting in front of a group of people saying, “Are we actually going to do this?” was incredibly challenging. But after those ten minutes, something changed. Boom. I was back. I started bouncing around again because suddenly there were other people in the building who also believed there might be something here worth saving. Then, week after week, people kept turning up. New faces appeared, commitments started forming, someone stepped forward interested in becoming a director, and momentum started building.
Eventually my brother said, quite reasonably, “You actually need to do something. You can’t just keep getting people to volunteer without having a plan.” Customers were saying something similar: “We’re happy to support you, mate, but you need to give us something we can actually buy.” Fair point. So we thought: Sunday lunches. And naturally I said, “I’ll just cook them. It’s fine.”
I had medium enthusiasm about the prospect of becoming the chef again. We went down that road for a couple of days before one of The Warren’s new directors noticed something important. When I announced that I was going back into the kitchen, I wasn’t doing it in my usual bouncy, enthusiastic Deri Reed way. It was more: this is something I can do, this is probably something I should do. And that is very different.
I love cooking. Cooking is how I started this place. But the weight that comes with being the person carrying the kitchen, the business, the team and everything else is enormous. I thought, it’s only one day a week. But even one day puts that weight straight back onto my shoulders. We realised pretty quickly that it wasn’t a good idea, so we cancelled the Sunday lunches. Sorry again to everyone who booked.
Then we had another volunteer day. Two chefs looking for work turned up. They came along to Glasbren and helped me cook. We got to know each other, they got to know me, and we danced around each other for three or four days. Somewhere in those conversations, something became very clear to me: I need a team. It cannot be me doing all of this again. That, I think, is one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the last ten years. The Warren cannot rely on one person carrying the whole thing.
Luckily, my directors are fairly easy to convince when I arrive with another crazy idea. “Great. Hire her.” Done. Let’s do it.
So, here’s the big announcement. The Sunday lunches are back, and it’s not going to be me alone in the kitchen. But it’s not just Sunday lunches. Because then I thought, how on earth are we going to make this work by opening one day a week? People want more than that. I want more than that. I want more for this building, and I want more for the team we’re building around it.
So we offered the wonderful Tracy a four-day-a-week role. She’ll help lead our Thursday volunteer days, and then we’re going to open Friday nights, Saturday nights and Sunday lunches. Which means that, from next Sunday, The Warren is officially back. Those of you whose Sunday lunch bookings we cancelled: you’re back on. The menu is live, the website is live, and you can book. Sunday lunch is going back to something much closer to how The Warren used to do it, with an à la carte menu and normal table bookings. Then we’ll continue with our Thursday volunteer days, with a little more structure, followed by Friday nights, Saturday nights and Sunday lunches for the foreseeable future.
Please be patient with us. We are genuinely building this from scratch again, with a new team and a different way of working. Tracy and I are still figuring out exactly what Friday and Saturday nights will look like. We want to find something manageable that lets us build this properly rather than charging straight back into the same old patterns. Personally, I’m thinking natural wine bar with food. Heck yes. I’ve just got to convince Tracy.
There are a lot of people I need to thank. Over the last few months, local businesses have stepped forward and donated their time and services to help us get this building open again. Electricians, extraction cleaning, fire extinguishers, boiler checks, gas checks. You wouldn’t believe how many things have to happen just to tick all the boxes required to safely open these doors. So thank you to every business that helped us get here.
And then, true to my heart, the volunteers. Honestly, without the volunteers, this would not be happening. You came into a building that had been sitting dormant and helped bring it back to life. You cleaned, shifted, scrubbed, organised, fixed, planned, listened, offered ideas and, most importantly, you kept showing up. Thank you.
And thank you to everyone who has hung on through all of my decisions, indecisions, announcements, cancellations and announcements of cancellations. Thank you for being patient. Thank you for still caring.
I probably should thank my brother, Berian, too, for sending me that very simple message: “Hey bro, how can I help you?” It turns out quite a lot can come from a question like that. Thank you to Alex Cook for the fantastic food tonight. Thank you to Tracy, who I want you all to properly meet because you’re going to be eating quite a lot of her food soon. And thank you to Meleri behind the bar. There is probably nobody who knows The Warren quite as well as Meleri, and having her here supporting this next chapter made tonight infinitely less stressful.
I could go on all night thanking people. Actually, one more: my therapist, Jules. For about five years I went to therapy saying, “Running the restaurant is so stressful. This is stressful. That is stressful.” And she spent years helping me work out how to step away from all of that stress. Three months ago, I decided to take a break from therapy. I’ve got my first session back next week, and I cannot wait to tell her what I’ve done and see what she thinks about that.
Finally, there’s something quite lovely about who is performing tonight. Emily, from Louise and the Feathers, was actually here ten years ago playing at our open mic nights. Now she’s got ten years of performing behind her, music on Spotify, a band, the whole thing. And somehow, ten years later, we’re all back in this room together.
The Warren has changed. I’ve changed. And whatever happens next, I don’t want to recreate the last ten years. I want us to take everything we’ve learned from them and build something better. Something that doesn’t rely on one person carrying everything. Something with a team around it. Something people can contribute to, work in, eat in, drink in and feel part of.
This is still an experiment. But you showed up. So we’re going to give it a go.
Thank you.
And, most importantly: book a table at The Warren.