We take senior UK hospitality leaders into markets where something interesting is happening beneath the surface - not simply to spot the next food trend, but to understand the businesses, people, property and operating models behind it.

And Charlotte gave us plenty to think about.

It is a city growing with confidence: ambitious development, capital coming in, a strong corporate economy and a hospitality market increasingly comfortable backing distinctive concepts. More importantly, we saw operators approaching growth with confidence - but with a noticeably mature understanding of the systems, capital and operating discipline required to deliver it.

Three brands particularly stayed with me: Maman, Hawkers Asian Street Food and Barcelona Wine Bar.

Very different businesses. But they shared some striking characteristics.

Absolute clarity of proposition. Stand-out creative and design. Singular energy. Obsessive attention to the guest. Passionate leadership. Attention to the smallest details - combined with bold ambition.

And crucially, these aren't clever concepts hoping one day to become serious businesses.

They are increasingly sophisticated organisations with the systems, people and scale-up capability sitting behind the creativity.

 

Maman: build a world, not just a café

Spending time with co-founder Ben Sormonte reinforced just how deliberately Maman has built something bigger than coffee, pastries and brunch.

Starting in New York in 2014, Maman has developed into a multi-format café, bakery, retail, catering and events business, with more than 50 locations across the US and Canada.

But the clever part isn't the number.

It's how recognisable the brand remains while allowing individual sites to have personality.

The flowers. The china. The typography. The food. The smell. The retail. The tone of voice. The way the room makes you feel.

None of it is accidental.

Maman demonstrates the commercial power of creating a complete brand world - distinctive enough for guests to recognise instantly and flexible enough to inhabit very different locations.

There is real UK potential here. Not necessarily by copying the aesthetic, but by understanding the discipline behind it: when every detail reinforces the proposition, brand becomes an operating asset rather than a marketing layer.

 

Hawkers: energy is part of the business model

Then there is Hawkers Asian Street Food.

Co-founder and CEO Kaleb Harrell combines obvious entrepreneurial energy with a strikingly pragmatic view of what it takes to scale.

Hawkers takes the food and spirit of Southeast Asian street markets and translates it into highly energetic, design-led restaurants. But again, what impressed us was what sits behind the theatre.

What struck me was the maturity behind the growth story. Kaleb was refreshingly candid about what it takes to scale: getting the operation right before chasing the next opening, recognising that customers pick up on the tiniest details, and being as selective about investment partners as you are about sites.

That combination of creative confidence and operational maturity feels highly relevant to the UK right now. Hawkers understands that emotional engagement with the guest isn't optional.

Energy drives behaviour.

It influences drinks spend, repeat visits, recommendation and the willingness to choose the brand again - all ultimately commercial outcomes.

Design, music, service style, food and people are all working together to produce an emotional response. That is much harder to replicate than a menu - and therefore far more defensible.

 

Barcelona Wine Bar: hospitality as competitive advantage

Perhaps the most deceptively sophisticated of the three was Barcelona Wine Bar.

CEO Adam Halberg talks about hospitality with extraordinary clarity.

Barcelona has grown to more than 20 restaurants across the US, yet deliberately resists cookie-cutter replication. Kitchens have autonomy. Buildings retain their personality. Restaurants are designed around their neighbourhoods rather than forced into an identical template.

But underneath that individuality is an obsessive understanding of the guest experience.

Lighting matters. Music matters. How people look and feel sitting at the bar matters. The generosity of the team matters.

The philosophy is simple: give the guest something they weren't quite expecting - sometimes a taste, sometimes a gesture, sometimes simply a moment.

In an industry understandably preoccupied with labour productivity and technology, that struck a chord. Efficiency matters enormously.

But the experience still has to be worth leaving home for.

Barcelona is a useful reminder that human hospitality itself can be trained and scaled - without making it feel engineered.

 

And then there was Charlotte itself

The other big Atlantic Club lesson wasn't a restaurant at all.

It was place.

The Design District showed what happens when property is conceived around how people actually want to spend time. Old industrial buildings, new hospitality, outdoor space and walkability come together to create somewhere you want to wander around - rather than somewhere you simply arrive, transact and leave.

Then Commonwealth in Plaza Midwood, where historic buildings sit alongside new offices, homes and a deliberately curated collection of destination hospitality brands.

This wasn't hospitality being added at the end to fill the ground floor.

Hospitality was part of the value-creation strategy.

That feels particularly relevant to the UK as developers, operators and investors wrestle with city centres, mixed-use schemes and changing patterns of work, retail and leisure.

The best operators need the right places.

Increasingly, the best places need the right operators.

 

So what comes back across the Atlantic?

Not everything.

US economics are different. Labour is different. Property is different. Consumers are different.

The purpose of these trips is never to come home with a suitcase full of concepts to copy.

It is to find transferable thinking.

And Charlotte offered plenty:

Be clearer. Be more distinctive. Sweat the details. Treat design as commercial. Protect the human experience. Give talented operators room to operate. Choose property and capital partners carefully. Build systems before scale demands them. 

And don't allow the pursuit of efficiency to squeeze the energy out of the business.

Perhaps most striking was the confidence around growth - something that can feel in short supply in the UK after several years dominated by cost inflation, labour pressure and margin protection.

These were leaders who understood the difficulty of scaling hospitality - but were still ambitious about doing it. Not growth at any cost. 

Not expansion for the headline.

Disciplined, proposition-led growth with confidence behind it.

For me, that may have been Charlotte's most valuable lesson of all. The best operators we met weren't choosing between creativity and commercial discipline. They understood that, increasingly, one is what makes the other valuable.

Next stop Phoenix. 18 - 21 May 2027. 

Christine Martin 

Co Founder, Atlantic Club