'I couldn't blow all my savings on a beach in Ecuador, I wanted to put my money to use'

This chef ended up in the food game via a degree in English literature and a trip to South America.

By Jack Crotty Owner, Rocket Man

FOOD HAS ALWAYS been in my blood. My mother was involved in different restaurants throughout my early years so I was well aware of how a food business ticked.

I would be in stoking the fires at 7am before strolling up to school and back in again after lunch to clean mussels. According to my folks, I had decided very young that I would have my own restaurant, but I have no idea what exactly I had planned.

Throughout school I played with different ideas, from surgeon to psychologist, but somewhere along the way I believed a degree in English literature was broad enough for me.

Mostly I wanted to go to college while I could, and this way I was doing something useful. Of course I took a part-time job working in a restaurant, and it wasn’t long before my commitments there started to trump my commitments to school.

After finishing my degree, I went straight into full-time work in a kitchen. Here I got a taste for what full-time really meant – and I liked it. Unlike many of my friends, work really suited me. I was proud to say ‘chef’ when people asked me what I did.

After spending a year working there I had saved enough and took myself to South America in the hopes of bringing home some ideas I could form into my first venture.

Travelling through South America on my own at the age of 20 was experience enough in itself, and all I could really say about that time was that I did everything that was presented to me. I matured completely in those six months and what I ended up bringing home was focus.

I made the decision that rather than wasting every penny I had lasting as long as I could on beaches in Ecuador doing next to nothing, I would actually put the money I had saved to good use. So I decided to do a course at Darina Allen’s cookery school in Ballymaloe.

I went into the course with no clear plan to come out and set up a specific type of restaurant or some kind of a food business, but three weeks into the course I knew exactly what I wanted to do – make good-quality fast food more readily available.

_00T2338 Jack Crotty
Source: Rocket Man

Rough ideas

I had the rough idea of what I wanted to get from the Ballymaloe course going in. I never really liked the straightforward restaurant concept that involves silver service and waiting. I thought, ‘Why can’t people just go somewhere and pay for really good food at affordable prices?’

As much as I have a huge appreciation for sourcing locally and growing your own food, I loved fast-food systems – but not particularly the food itself. So I was looking at ways of making really good-quality food at fast food prices and getting it to people quickly.

Honestly, the business didn’t come from an amazing eureka moment. I remember the name for the business, Rocket Man, came to me on a toilet break from one of the classes. The rest of the concept then came together over the last few weeks of the course.

I actually remember painting the Rocket Man logo on a blackboard in maybe the third-last week of the course, doing a menu, borrowing a gazebo from Darina Allen and going up to do a farmers market that weekend.

Spent savings

When I finished the Ballymaloe course, my mum came on board to be my business partner and for a year or so I didn’t take a penny from the company, so I still had to work.

I had blown all my savings on the Ballymaloe course and traveling, so I took a job in a late-night café where I was the only chef in the kitchen – which meant I had complete autonomy over the menu.

So on Thursday, Friday and Saturday I was doing 100 plates a night, writing the menu and sourcing all the ingredients, while also doing the farmers’ markets for Rocket Man on those days as well. I burned out massively during those few months and there are some pictures of me from back then in which I look like I’m about to collapse.

_00T2246
Source: Rocket Man

When Rocket Man was doing well enough that I could afford to nab a few onions and butternut squash from the order to feed myself, I knew it was time to leave the other job and go full-time.

It was a big moment for me because I could finally say I was self-employed. It might not have meant much to others, but for me personally it meant Rocket Man was actually my living now. I was able to put 100% of my focus on the business and things started moving much faster.

Since then, Rocket Man has expanded beyond the markets to two bricks-and-mortar stores – but we’re still present at the local farmers markets and also do other types of events.

Refining the idea

As I said, the idea basically came from a desire to make vegetarian food more available – not just for vegetarians, but for everyone. I’ve found veggie options are always a second-hand thought on a menu.

Restaurants tend to write a menu and they are really excited about it and then someone just before they go to print says, “Oh crap, we haven’t put a veggie option in”, and they just try and think of some cheap and easy thing to tack on.

I also went down the vegetarian route with Rocket Man because it made sense. I wanted to make something that was going to be a franchise, and it was going to be harder to do that and promise good-quality meat. That’s because if you start scaling up, the margins get very tight and the supply gets really difficult.

When launching, I was also very conscious of getting away from this idea of meat eaters refusing to eat vegetarian food. So, since we started, I have made a clear effort never to use the word ‘vegetarian’ in anything we do. We don’t cook for vegetarians, we cook for anyone who wants to eat good food. It just happens to be plant-based most of the time.

Rocket man 1
Source: Rocket Man

Breaking point

I couldn’t describe anything that has happened as a real low point in the business. I’ve been very fortunate to get a good team around me and an amazing business partner in my mother. Also, I never really took a big risk because we never got loans, so there was never that nervous edge attached to paying them back.

What the business has gone through, however, are breaking points. We really had trouble getting finance for the business when we needed it, so it meant we had to create an idea that could be kick-started with nearly nothing.

However, that just taught me that growing organically is no doubt the best way to start – especially with the type of business I was growing.

Jack Crotty is the owner of Rocket Man salad and falafel bars in Cork city. This article was written in conversation with Killian Woods as part of a series on unlikely entrepreneurs.

If you want to share your opinion, advice or story, email opinion@fora.ie.