FOCUS: Breathing life into an old Gorey gem

Friday 03 June 2022

Taking inspiration from 'Escape to the Chateau', Iselin and Matthew Jones were looking at moving the family to France or even further afield. Having recently left his family hospitality business, Matthew didn't want to go back... That is, unless the Moorings came up.

“I left the family business, and we were planning to go to Norway but there were all sorts of other plans too,” Matthew explained.

"We were wondering what the hell to do. I didn’t want to go back into hospitality, but driving down [to Gorey] one morning, I said that the only thing that would make me go back was if The Moorings came up.

"I thought it would never happen, and then two weeks later I was out with my sister and brother-in-law, and I received this text which said: ‘The Moorings is up. Would you be interested?’”

Pictured: The Moorings is located on Gorey Pier. 

Gorey has a hold over Matthew.

It’s where the family business, Jersey Pottery, began before it became JP Restaurants and moved to town.

He missed the area and, after 18-months of protracted negotiations, they signed the lease, and the work that would transform the hotel began. The exterior has stayed much the same, but the interior has been completely revamped. The idea is that visitors familiar with how it was will recognise what it has become.

“There was no way we were going to change the name, and in the back of our minds we knew we had to keep some familiarity so when people walk in, they’d know that it’s still The Moorings,” Matthew explained. 

Pictured: Iselin focussed on the attention to detail

A lot of the features were retained while others that had been hidden behind modern panelling were revealed during the refurbishment. It was Iselin’s brief to create the new look.

“What we wanted to do was make sure that the people who have been going here for twenty or thirty years were still walking through the doors and recognising it. We peeled a lot of it back, even around the window frames it felt quite dark. It may look totally different now, but the feeling is still the same.”

The plan was to open the restaurant first, and think about the rooms later and while the work concentrated on the ground floor last summer, Iselin continued to work as an on-screen journalist at ITV Channel.

But juggling that, the hotel refurbishment and two children was beginning to take its toll. 

Pictured: Iselin and Matthew Jones focussed on the restaurant before work began on the rooms. 

“After a long day at Channel I just needed five minutes to sit down and think about nothing when I got home, but there was so much to do. It was getting to the point where I had to say now is the time to go, and I’ve got to be fully in this. I lasted to the end of September, so it was close to the wire, but we were living on my Channel income and that was the only money coming in while we were doing this.”

“I’ve been in hospitality and know that side,” said Matthew. “But on the operational side Iselin’s attention to detail from having been a journalist and studying law, she could look after all the finer points that are not my strong point at all. So, we saw that as a fantastic match. We’re not stepping on each other's toes day-to-day which in any organisation is very helpful.”

With the restaurant open in October, the family moved in for three months. That allowed them to get to know the business inside out, but there was also a more practical reason. Greeting the guests and seating them in the restaurant allowed them to take it in turns to rush upstairs to put the children to bed before returning downstairs to mix espresso martinis.

As their staff numbers grew, they were able to step back, and moved back home after Christmas and New Year.  

Pictured: The married couple had a lot to do in the very beginning.

Most of the core team of 15 are local, but like most other businesses in hospitality, recruiting enough people has been a struggle. 

“As a new business, every time we found someone we wanted to employ, if they didn’t have their five years, we had to put in a new registered permit application,” said Iselin. “For a while all I was doing was putting in these permit applications and you either got them approved or you didn’t, and you just had to try and balance it out.

“We got to the point in January when we had to look at how we were going into the summer season. There were no more local staff coming through the doors. They just don’t exist. We had seven units of staff accommodation sitting empty so we went back to Population and said that as we had seven rooms, could we have seven seasonal permits. They said yes, so we are now going down the route of getting seasonal staff.”

Pictured: It was becoming increasingly difficult for the Jones' to find staff. 

But that is taking time and delays in getting visas approved has meant some missing the start of the season. But Matthew, whose ties to hospitality go back decades, has concerns about what those who choose to come here experience. It’s something he’s hoping the island will get better at doing.

“A few of our guys have said that they don’t feel that welcome. I think it’s really important that if we are going to attract people to work here, they should feel welcome. Of course, they are here to earn money, but then let’s put our arms around them and say ‘welcome.’ We’re in hospitality after all.”

Part of being in business is being able to take a risk when necessary. I was curious about why they decided to go ahead, when covid is still lingering, the price of just about everything has shot up and hotels are leaving the industry. 

“We wanted to come up with a unique product,” explained Matthew. “One tour operator asked me what similar hotels to ours there were in Jersey. I don’t think there is one. We’re going for this idea that this is a restaurant with rooms. For us the whole thing is about an experience.”

Pictured: One of the double rooms overlooking Gorey beach

Iselin continued, "It’s based on the Scandinavian hygge (pronounced heeg-yer) concept which describes an emotion. Effectively, the emotion is walking in somewhere and it envelopes you and gives you a big hug. Opening in the winter as we did, we had roaring fires which made it cosy and warm. It’s really important because this place needs to be year-round. Our vision was very clear from the beginning.”

With the scent from the salmon smoker lingering in the air, to the historic prints and photos on the walls, the hotel has a boutique feel to it, but they are quick to point out that it’s not a boutique hotel. By that, they mean that there may be things missing which you might expect in a ‘boutique’ hotel, in the strictest sense of the word. They do hold yoga classes for local residents and guests (which are very popular, by the way) but they are not going after the spa market. However, that’s not stopped them catching the attention of Mr and Mrs Smith - the first Jersey hotel to do so. 

“It opens a different market and for us, the Mr and Mrs Smith target group is perfect and exactly right for where we wanted to go,” said Iselin who happened to be out when founder and CEO Tamara Lohan popped in for a visit. “They’ve got 1.3 million members, mainly the UK but also America and Australia. We were getting a little bit nervous because Mr and Mrs Smith is very boutique, very high-end and when we spoke to them, I said, ‘I just want you to know that we’re a restaurant with rooms. We’re not a boutique hotel.’ If you brand yourself as one, I always worry that people will have a certain expectation that we’re not going to live up to.”

Pictured: The Moorings is surrounded by beautiful scenic views including Corey castle. 

Plenty of occupations demand long hours, but hospitality can also throw in shifts that require you to work when everyone else has either finished for the day, or are out enjoying themselves at the weekend. It is a change to what Iselin has known, but that’s not put her off. 

“Lots of people have asked how I have found it. There are elements that are really hard, but journalism is all about people and so is this. But there is also the interest of seeing things from behind the scenes. I’ve been reporting on hospitality for years and years, and you think you know what the issues are. But I have gained a newfound respect for this industry, and that’s despite having a husband who's been in the industry all his life. It’s been the steepest learning curve you can imagine, but I do love it.”

Working together has its advantages, especially when one of them wants to offload about something. Iselin says she’s the more balanced one but that they complement each other as colleagues and business owners.

“It’s something you might not have with a normal work colleague. It can go one of two ways, you could absolutely hate working together or love it,” Matthew smiles. “I could not be happier with my co-director.”

“That’s lucky isn’t it,” Iselin laughs. “But it’s the same for me as well.”

This article first featured in Connect Magazine, which you can read in full HERE. Find all previous editions of Connect HERE.