PAUL: Ryan, you’re famously innovative, whether that’s deciding to remove ice, fresh fruit and shakers to flip the way cocktails were served at White Lyan when you opened in 2013, through to reinventing what the hotel bar could look like, first at Dandelyan, then Lyanesse, Silver Lyan, Super Lyan and most recently at Seed Library.
Innovation is expensive though, and with bars and restaurants facing well documented challenges with their bottom lines at the moment, should it really be our focus?
RYAN: Margins have always been thin, but I think it’s as tough now as it’s ever been in my 20-plus years in the trade. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently because we started on the back of a recession; that’s when Lyan really kicked off and we started doing things differently. At a time when other people were stripping back and doing things in a safe way, we purposefully anchored ourselves to innovation.
It was chaotic, and we were running on fumes and excitement for those first years, but we found ways to build that into a business model, make it sustainable, but also fun. We gave the innovative chaos various taglines [famously “heaps mad shit” PM] and it became part of our marketing, part of our recruitment, part of our retention. We staunchly defended it, and that’s the reason we have people that have stayed with us since those first days; because we’ve given them creative growth and an opportunity for them to be in charge of their excitement.
RYAN: The reasons for us to go out and socialise are varied. We want experiences. Some of those might be comfort and familiarity, but at the same time, we hate monotony; we need excitement. We need to be able to have that breadth of experience, so that’s why I’ve always been very proud of the fact that the classics are the foundation of everything we do, so if you want a Negroni, an Old Fashioned, whatever, the team are going to make a great version. At the same time, we’re not going to alienate wine drinkers. We want the bars to be democratic spaces, but with a sense of excitement. I think that’s allowed us to weather some of the storms, by offering a balance of giving people what they want, whilst moving them slightly out of their comfort zone and giving them something a little different, specialist and luxurious. I think there’s a danger that if we homogenise and try to be all things to all people, we lose authenticity and “safe” becomes “confused”. You dilute what you stand for, which becomes difficult for you team, your audience and ultimately your business as well.
PAUL: I love that – don’t confuse having “something for everybody” (stocking the same products as everyone else) with making your product accessible to everybody. It’s something you do really well, making high concept accessible, like “tots n shots” at Silver Lyan in Washington DC, with your take on Tater Tots and Lemon Drops. At once both very familiar to your US audience, whilst also being equally mad enough to be distinctly Lyan!
PAUL: What would you suggest to bartenders looking to innovate then? Where do you find that inspiration?
RYAN: You have to represent yourself. What is your unique view of the world? Don’t look at what other people are doing and copy that as it won’t be authentic. Why would you emulate what someone else is doing when you have a different space, a different palate and a different audience? Ask yourself what challenge you’re trying to solve. I’m very appreciative of having both scientific and artistic backgrounds, and in both of those, it’s about how to frame the brief or hypothesis and how to interpret it. Your interpretation will be exciting for people, and in difficult landscapes and difficult times, people need excitement. And make it fun; guests are here to have fun!
PAUL: You’ve had some stand-out drinks that have, for want of a better phrase, gone viral. Is that the goal with innovation?
RYAN: I think a lot of people are searching for it to get sales and awareness, but you need to be careful of the negative impacts too. It goes back to the heart of what we're saying before about being homogenised. If you’re being flooded with one type of customer wanting one cocktail, it’s like the drink equivalent of playing Smells Like Teen Spirit over and over. You need to retain that balance. We had this at Silver Lyan with a drink called the Project Apollo. We just ended up making so many of them we had to have a debate about whether to keep it on or not. In the end, Alex made the call to change it. It wasn’t helping us push the conversation forward. You can get fearful of changing something that’s familiar and doing well, but you need to think about it longer term and in a wider sense. You have to keep innovating to keep things fresh.
