The Grateful for Hospitality Podcast features candid conversations with founders, operators, and experts shaping the sector. Practical insights, honest stories and ideas to make you think.
Listen to Episode 8.
JW Lees has just posted record revenue and profits in a market where, by the trade’s own reckoning, there is 12p of profit in a pint. William Lees-Jones, managing director of the seventh-generation Manchester brewery since 2003, tells Mason how a “big small company” got there: selling more than 110 pubs, promoting two-thirds of hires from within and investing in a brewery that still sits in the building it was founded in back in 1828. Listen for the Guinness boom, why AI will add hospitality jobs rather than cut them, the World Cup that didn’t deliver, why every Christmas beats the last and what a Mancunian prime minister means for the trade.
Episode summary
What does it take to set record profits in a market with 12p of profit in a pint? William Lees-Jones has run JW Lees since 2003: a seventh-generation family brewery founded in 1828 that now serves 40,000 meals a week across 133 pubs, 12 inns and hotels with 366 bedrooms and 1,600 colleagues. He tells Mason how “thinking small” got them there – selling more than 110 pubs to focus on the ones worth investing in, promoting two-thirds of hires from inside, keeping head office light and refusing to chase deals. Plus the real story of the Rain Bar, the Guinness boom, why AI will create hospitality jobs, and why Christmas is JW Lees’ cup final.
About the guest
William Lees-Jones is Managing Director of JW Lees, the seventh-generation family brewery and pub company founded in Manchester in 1828. He joined the business in 1994 from a London advertising agency, spent eight or nine months doing every job in the company and has led it as MD since 2003. Today JW Lees runs 133 pubs, 12 inns and hotels with 366 bedrooms, a tenanted estate and a brewery that is still in its original building, and has just posted record revenue and profits.
Key topics covered
- How a “big small company” sets record profits when there’s 12p of profit in a pint
- Why selling more than 110 pubs was the growth strategy, not the retreat
- The recruitment flywheel: two-thirds of hires from inside, people on the bench for new sites, head office kept light
- Bringing family into the business without rushing them in – the five-year rule and a son nobody knew was family
- What Christmas, Guinness and the World Cup really did to pub trade in 2026
- Why William believes AI will add hospitality jobs, not take them
- Tips, service charge and the skills passport: what would make hospitality a real career choice
- Selling a room versus selling a pint, and why inns are a higher level of running a pub
- Where JW Lees is buying next: boarded-up pubs the big groups walked away from
- What a Mancunian prime minister could mean for the trade
What we discussed
- [1] Mason sets up the episode: generational wealth, surviving the downturns and record results in 2026
- [2] Joining the family business in 1994: the five-year rule, nine months doing every job and a company that thought marketing was a waste of money
- [3] Stewards, not dealmakers: “where’s this pub going to be in 50 years’ time?” and the 40,000 meals a week that keep JW Lees honest
- [4] The Rain Bar story: buying an umbrella factory in the badlands in 1999, William’s dad counting footfall with a clicker, and a city where you couldn’t buy a pint of milk on a Sunday
- [5] Andy Burnham, Manchester’s growth and why the city is busier at midnight on a Friday than at midday
- [6] Record results: the “big small company” mindset, the brewery investment programme and the 200th anniversary in two years’ time
- [7] From 172 pubs to 133: selling more than 110 sites, 12 inns and hotels, and buying three to five pubs a year
- [8] The recruitment flywheel: two-thirds internal hires, people on the bench and a light head office
- [9] “People either stay for a year or they stay forever”: values fit, son Louis joining as an area manager, and three family members among 1,600 colleagues
- [10] Glass collector to general manager in under two years: why August and September are recruiting season
- [11] Seven shareholders, quick decisions and the inheritance tax black cloud
- [12] Working with family: unconditional love, 11 in the next generation, and the Succession question
- [13] Kindness, forgiveness and a 5,000-generation yeast: what hasn’t changed since 1828
- [14] Lager, BrewDog and opening the lab to Greater Manchester’s craft brewers
- [15] Relaunching Boddingtons Cask Bitter with Budweiser Brewing Group
- [16] The Guinness phenomenon: splitting the G, the Devonshire in Soho and a second wave of Irish pubs
- [17] MD in 2003 versus 2026: ruthless focus, the rise of pub food, and how online travel agents turned bedrooms into a winner
- [18] Selling a room versus selling a pint: every touchpoint matters, broadband up a mountain, and fans who want room nine
- [19] Where JW Lees is buying: Glossop, Poynton, a Whitbread hotel in North Wales, and saving pubs that were going to be flats
- [20] Cautious until the Budget: 12p profit in a pint, minimum wage, business rates, the hotel tax and VAT
- [21] AI in hospitality: more jobs not fewer, AI slop, rubbish robot trays and why people want to get out of the house
- [22] 120 in, 120 out every month: who stays, and why Friday and Saturday nights save you money
- [23] Making hospitality a career: living above the shop, honesty on tips and service charge, and the skills passport
- [24] The World Cup verdict: great for sports bars, a shocker for pub restaurants, and England v Mexico shown in 10 pubs in the middle of the night
- [25] Christmas is the cup final: two-thirds of pubs already sold out, same menu at nearly double the price, and losing money in October, November, January and February
- [26] Real fires, the decorations competition and keeping momentum when January falls off a cliff
- [27] Harder than COVID? Diesel at £2 a litre, energy bought forward two years, and tenants working longer for less
- [28] What Andy Burnham as PM could do for hospitality and the high street
- [29] The next 10 years: boring, steady, incremental growth, and why JW Lees kept brewing when Fuller’s and Young’s stopped
- [30] What William is most grateful for
Key quotes
“We like to think ourselves as a big small company. So we always think small. We always think, have we got the right pub? Have we got the right people running it? Have we got the right product? Is the pricing right? Is the promotion right?”
– William Lees-Jones
“One thing that we notice is that people either stay for a year or they stay forever.”
– William Lees-Jones
“I think AI will actually increase jobs, not decrease jobs because I think it’ll make a lot of the boring, repetitive tasks quite easy.”
– William Lees-Jones
“Christmas is always great. Every Christmas we do better. And I think that the Great British public are not very good at cooking. They don’t like washing up.”
– William Lees-Jones
Key takeaways
Think small, even when you’re big. Run every site through the five questions JW Lees asks: right pub, right people, right product, right price, right promotion. If a site fails them, be willing to sell it. JW Lees sold more than 110 pubs on the way to record profits.
Build the bench before you need it. Aim for two-thirds of hires from inside and keep head office light. That’s what lets you open a new site the week it comes up without adding overhead, and it’s where the “stay a year or stay forever” people come from.
Plan the peaks like a project, not a reaction. Christmas is the cup final that pays for a loss-making October, November, January and February. Nail bookings early (two-thirds of JW Lees pubs are already sold out on Christmas Day), decide walk-ins versus tickets for New Year’s Eve now, and never wait until the day before a big match to decide whether to open late.
Buy unloved, spend on the refurb. The opportunities are boarded-up sites the big groups have walked away from. JW Lees is spending more on refurbishing its new Glossop and Poynton pubs than it paid for them, and the first is already trading beyond expectations.
Sell the career, not the shift. Living above the shop with no commute or rent, Mondays and Tuesdays off, saving money by working weekends, and a general manager’s job inside two years. Put that in front of August and September’s graduates, be honest about how tips and service charge work, and make training portable so it follows people around.
Keywords
Grateful Hospitality Podcast, Grateful net, episode 8, William Lees-Jones, JW Lees, Manchester, brewery, pubs, inns, hotels, family business, hospitality, recruitment, retention, internal promotion, careers, progression, training, skills passport, tips, service charge, tronc, Christmas trading, Guinness, AI in hospitality, business rates, minimum wage, leadership, culture
