From John O'Groats to our restaurants!

We may all be feeling the effects of lockdown (the good the bad and the ugly) but our Managing Director, Ian Leigh, is only feeling good.

It's been a truly challenging time, not just for the nation but for the world, and our family near and far have come together to support each other.

For Christmas Ian bought himself an exercise bike, mainly for fitness reasons, and on 1st January started his new years resolution! Ian got into the saddle for the first time in a long time and decided to cycle the distance from John O'Groats to Land's End via each of our 18 restaurants, starting big right!

Read on to find out about Ian's trip so far.

"Cycling from John O'Groats to Land's End, for real, is something I've always wanted to do. Throughout the pandemic this hasn't been possible so I took the liberty of doing it virtually and 'stopping off' at each of our wonderful restaurants along the way. The shortest distance by road (avoiding motorways of course) is 1,484 miles and I've taken each step so far at different rate. My first stint to Aberdeen wasn't a tremendous run rate but I decided to do a few miles of high intensity each day rather than a long drawn out session and I felt really good for it. Every time I arrive virtually at one of our sites I've posted up a mini-profile of our Business Manager there and a few pics of the site itself. As I've been going, you'll have seen we've got great sites and what an absolutely top class group of managers we have within Thai Leisure Group! In Aberdeen we have two sites, Chaophraya and Thaikhun, and again, an amazing set of teams. As soon as I can, I'll be visiting each site for real and I can't wait to meet everyone again. Our colleagues have been just incredible - throughout all the uncertainty and difficulty they have remained amazingly positive and through this we remain strong. We've been truly living by our company values and one of the main cornerstones of our amazing family-owned business is Samakee, meaning Togetherness.🙏 Although I have embarked on this (virtual) journey myself, we're in this as a team.

I've now hit over the 500 mile mark on my virtual (plus some bits in reality) bike ride and this is a third of my total distance. I'm now past Chaophraya Newcastle which I visited in person on April 12th for the reopening of our beautiful terrace on the rooftop of Eldon Square as well as Chaophraya Leeds, Thaikhun Manchester and Yee Rah in Liverpool. It has been a long time coming and we can't wait to get back to business as we know it. Chaophraya Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle are now open for alfresco dining as well as Thaikhun Bath, Cambridge, Manchester and Southampton and Yee Rah and we are hoping and praying it keeps nice and dry for all of you to enjoy! Thank you to all our customers, our suppliers and my absolutely fantastic colleagues who have hung in there and continue to stand by us as we slowly return back to some kind of normality.

I will keep you updated with my whereabouts and post news from my next (real) visit!"

Well done Khun Ian - we can't wait to hear about the next pit stops! To keep in the loop with Ian's trip, you can follow him on LinkedIn here.