WHO WE ARE
Lemon Fox is led by Sarah Fox, whose unique combination of front line experience as a hospitality operator and in-depth knowledge of developing Food and Beverage strategies on the landlord side, forms the basis for what we do. Alongside Sarah is an extensive network of trusted associates who can help with property search, development, design and build, marketing and PR. They are all experts in their field, have worked with Sarah for many years and proven that they are both excellent at what they do and wonderful people to be around. After all, hospitality is a team sport and you need to have the best people on your team.
ABOUT SARAH
Sarah has worked for 25 years in the Hospitality Industry, starting life on ‘wash-up’ in a restaurant kitchen and working her way up through various exciting roles: Operations and Property Director of Costa Coffee during its early expansion with Whitbread; Franchise and Training Director working in the casual dining sector for Yum Brands (then Pepsico) in Southern Europe; running an estate of 200 pubs; working on ‘turnarounds’, and jointly founding, operating and selling her own 8 strong restaurant group, Santa fe restaurants. Over this time Sarah has forged and consolidated strong links and deep friendships within the industry.
A seasoned veteran at this point, Sarah took on a different challenge where she was able to use these many relationships and her extensive restaurant experience to help formulate and implement the food and beverage strategy for Hammerson Plc. As a major property owner and manager, Hammerson has developed some of the most prestigious retail shopping malls in the UK and France. Firstly as a consultant and then as a full time employee, her last 10 years have been in this role as a ‘poacher turned gamekeeper.’
The core of Sarah’s work entailed creating and delivering the food and beverage strategy on several high profile projects. These included the recent restaurant and leisure development in West Quay, Southampton and the earlier conversion of the food court on the upper level of the West Quay shopping centre; the Wintergarden leisure and restaurant project in Silverburn, Glasgow; the restaurant hub in St Peter’s Square in HighCross, Leicester; the extension to the food offer in Grand Central, Birmingham and Bullring’s cluster of restaurants opposite the landmark St Martin’s church. In her home town of Reading, she has worked steadily over several years on refreshing the tenant mix on Oracle’s Riverside, which co-incidentally was home to the most successful of her Sante fe restaurants. Her last project at Hammerson was to advise on the long term leisure strategy for London’s Brent Cross shopping centre.
Much of the development work above has added value to the Assets as well as increased footfall, a fundamental ingredient for the success of both retailers and leisure operators alike. Working with existing tenants within the schemes, she has been able to improve on-going relationships, introduce and advise new concepts, negotiate support for struggling operators and improve tenant mix to ensure long term sustainability of the overall food and leisure offer.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT US
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I have worked with Sarah for many years. She is an absolute professional and has the unique experience of having seen restaurant operations from the perspective of both the tenant and the landlord. She understands the importance of tenant mix, operations, brand identity and most importantly, that for a development to succeed, a tenant needs to be able to trade profitability. I have no hesitation of recommending her skills and look forward to working with her again.
I have known Sarah for over 30 years and I can honestly say she is one of the nicest and one of the most talented women I know. She has extensive knowledge of the restaurant and bar industry, from working with very large multi site operators to setting up a brand new restaurant concept from scratch, and I think her hands on expertise would be invaluable to both small and large restaurant businesses alike.
From business start-up to running large branded groups, I know she has earned well deserved respect within the industry. She has also worked with a major Landlord for the past 10 years which has given her a unique ( and very valuable) insight into the relationship between Landlord and retail operator and an ability to negotiate a beneficial outcome for both parties.
As specialists in restaurant and leisure leasing, we have found working with Sarah invaluable. Her market knowledge and strong operator relationships means she offers new perspectives and useful contacts.
Her knowledge and relationships have led to our heightened understanding of the operators’ needs, thereby ensuring BGP recognise tenants’ priorities and decision making processes, when selecting new sites. This “ insider” view has better equipped us to advise our clients.
Sarah is always clear in the communication of her objectives on her schemes, and she inspires our teams to work hard to meet those objectives.
Whilst managing a team is a key skill, she is not afraid to get her hands dirty and throws herself into a project with enthusiasm, inspiring respect and loyalty from the wider team.
I have known Sarah for many years and have had the pleasure of working with her in several businesses. She has a wide experience in senior catering operational roles with major restaurant companies in the UK and internationally. We also worked together in a restaurant start-up venture Sante Fe which we expanded and sold.
In recent years, she has been managing the catering portfolio at Hammerson. She has been a tough and pragmatic landlord and I am pleased to say that all of the developments in which we have participated have been successful.
In my dealings with Sarah over the past few years, I have found her to be straightforward and open as a Landlord and always willing to give freely of her experience regarding restaurant concepts and their modus operandi.
From an investment point of view, Sarah’s support and advice have always been sound and she is a pleasure to work with.
Sarah has deep insight into the hospitality industry, great relationships and is a pleasure to work with. She has made a significant positive impact on Hammerson’s F&B business over recent years.
