Sporting Globe owner to double ‘recession-proof’ pub business

When the chips were down, literally, James Sinclair went to the US to source a key product for his sports bar and restaurant group, which now has plans to double in size.

James Sinclair heads a group that is about to open its 50th outlet this week, a Sporting Globe American-themed sports bar in Melbourne’s burgeoning northern suburb of Preston.

It was a frozen chip crisis that threatened the “recession-proof” status of James Sinclair’s fast-growing bar and restaurant ­business.

Sinclair, the founder and chief executive of Signature Hospitality, faced a quandary he was able to be solve thanks to his group’s international connections.

There would have been an outcry if Signature’s customers couldn’t have chips with their chicken parmigiana, with the group buying a whopping 1.2 million frozen chips annually, so when a frozen chip shortage hit Australia at the start of the year Sinclair swung into action.

“We bought in 200,000 kilos of chips from America via shipping container,” Sinclair tells The Australian.

“That’s one of the benefits of being part of a global network with the (US-founded) TGI Fridays business. We get line of sight to the supply chain globally and we’re able to source product ­accordingly.”

The 38-year-old pub baron heads a group that is about to open its 50th outlet this week, a Sporting Globe American-themed sports bar in Melbourne’s burgeoning northern suburb of Preston.

Signature has grown from its first Sporting Globe, which opened in Geelong a decade ago, after Sinclair had lived in the US and enjoyed the local sports bar scene and brought the concept home. The Preston Sporting Globe will be the 20th in Signature’s portfolio, which also has the Australian arm of TGI Friday and its 20 outlets as well as 10 larger-scale Varsity sites. Sinclair owns the majority of a group that has about $250m in annual revenue, with Flight Centre co-founder Geoff Harris and his family also holding a stake.

Signature Hospitality CEO James Sinclair at the TGI Fridays opening on Surfers Paradise in November last year. Picture: Richard Gosling

Sinclair has big expansion plans to keep growing, believing he can survive during a slowdown in consumer spending by appealing to the Australian love of a beer, a parma and sport and reach the 100 venue mark within five to seven years. “We feel really strongly our business model is pretty recession-proof and what we have found is that with the business of beer and sport, people will continue to go out rain, hail or shine,” he says.

“I think midweek or for non-event days then the industry in general is reporting that things are softening. But people are still going out on weekends or for major occasions, so venues and hospitality need to create an occasion. We’re really fortunate because our business model creates an occasion every weekend through the major games.”

The Sporting Globe outlets are more popular with younger males who drink beer – the entire group is among Carlton & United Breweries’ top 10 customers now, says Sinclair – and eat parmas. They watch the various football codes, racing on the weekends and American sports like basketball and football during the day, in venues that hold 300 to 800 patrons.

Signature bought the Australian operations of TGI in 2017.

It has since doubled in size to the 20 venues, with Sinclair overseeing its conversion into a smaller format for 150 to 200 patrons and cutting what were previously 78 menu items to 38 for a more female and family following.

Meanwhile, Signature is also expanding the Varsity chain of American college-themed “frat-style” bars in Perth it bought in August last year.

Varsity outlets are even bigger than the Sporting Globe sites and also have amusement and entertainment areas.

All three of Signature’s brands have been inspired by US-style dining and hospitality, an idea that Sinclair first tapped into when he was living in America in his early 20s and enjoying the beer, burgers and chicken wings at bars that broadcast sports matches every night.

Fans at the Sporting Globe bar at Robina to watch the Superbowl earlier this year. Picture Glenn Hampson

He joined his friend and Harris’s son Brad in opening their first Sporting Globe in Geelong in 2010, but admits it was slow going at first.

Sinclair even had to reportedly pay a local rugby club to come in to watch the Super Bowl to get some patrons through the door.

The pair opened the next Sporting Globe at Melbourne’s Fountain Gate three years later and the business has been growing ever since.

Sinclair had a major challenge during Covid lockdowns, though it did provide some key lessons.

“We were quite fortunate in that when we went into Covid we’d already developed our own app with our own digital ordering. So immediately we turned that on. Prior to that, takeaway was less than 1 per cent of our revenue. We couldn’t get back to 100 per cent but we got it to over 30 per cent in eight weeks.”

Having outlets in Western Australia and Queensland less affected by lockdowns than Victoria and NSW, also helped. But more importantly, Signature’s app now has a database of about 780,000 patrons and Sinclair says about 40 per cent of orders in venue are now taken via the technology.

Signature is also battling rising costs and a tight labour market, but Sinclair says he is confident the group can open about five to seven outlets annually, and would like to bring the Varsity concept to the east coast states and open more venues in NSW.

The group is also the first in the world to be allowed to franchise out TGI Fridays outlets, and Sinclair wants to find more partners – another challenge.

But he forecasts more pubs and venues will be franchised in the future, given the difficulties of going it alone in what is becoming a corporatised ­industry.

“It’s incredibly challenging if you are a mom and pop operator in the pub space,” he says. “If you look at the US, 30 to 40 per cent of restaurants are corporate now. “Out of 10,000 pubs in Australia the biggest corporate now only has about 3.5 per cent, but over the next decade and time to come we think it’ll head like the US and it’ll end up being well north of 10 per cent and more like 20-30 per cent corporatised.”