Entrepreneurs: The Piano Works boss who is getting Londoners singing

The 69-year-old worked in scrap metal, pattern cutting ladies’ clothing, and buying and selling timber before, aged 21, becoming a waiter at a Brighton burger joint that was owned by “a bunch of aristocrats from Chelsea”.

They included Richard Bridgeman, the Earl of Bradford and restaurateur who Lorrimer worked for for 10 years, opening restaurants including The Caviar Bar, and Covent Garden pies restaurant Porters.

“I learnt the business with Richard,” says Lorrimer, but after a decade he quit and went on to open his own eateries, including Tiger Lil’s, with branches in Clapham, on the King’s Road, and in Islington. “It did well. The best moment in my career was opening the first Tiger Lil’s in Clapham and seeing its queues in its first week. The second best was selling the group five years later with enough to buy a yacht to sail around the world.”

The millionaire lifestyle felt stale, though: “I climbed the walls. I didn’t have anything to do, I didn’t have any status, and I craved it all.”

So Lorrimer returned to London and, in 2004, opened jazz joint the Charlotte Street Blues Bar “where we had the best open mic nights”. He says: “One time a familiar-looking sax player got on stage, and it was Gerry Rafferty.” Then there was Brazilian bar Guanabara.

It was after selling the latter in 2012 to Maxwell’s Restaurant Group (“for 10 times earnings”, though he won’t give a figure) that Lorrimer flew to Chicago and was inspired to open “a piano bar where people would come just to have fun and let their hair down whilst listening to some of the country’s best musical talent”.

There’s a lot of that talent: Lorrimer employs 65 musicians every week, with a £1.2 million annual wage bill. Almost three quarters of the audience are women, and most are aged 25-35: on an average night you can expect to hear Don’t Stop Me Now, Purple Rain, and “Stevie Wonder’s Superstition, every, single, night”, laughs Lorrimer.

Alongside the music, there’s millennials-friendly food and drink (vegan “fishless fingers”, sliders, halloumi skewers, tostadas).

Now Lorrimer, who lives in Bloomsbury, “a five-minute, equidistant motorbike ride between the Farringdon and Leicester Square Piano Works, which is why I chose the sites”, is looking to branch out. He plans more venues in the City as well as in Liverpool, Leeds and Glasgow.

“Eventually I’ll approach venture capital or private equity for expansion, but not yet,” he says.

Lorrimer funded the first venue with £550,000 via the Enterprise Investment Scheme and £300,000 of bank debt; the second was paid for via cashflow plus a £750,000 loan from Santander “who have been a pleasure to work with”.

The Piano Works is thriving while other London nightlife institutions falter. Why so? “People are very discriminating about nights out,” Lorrimer responds. “They don’t want to stand on sticky floors, get warm beer or bad service. They’re much more critical, and willing to use social media to share their views.

“They don’t want to have their social standing determined by a power-hungry door picker. And clubs are no longer a place used for meeting new partners who they’ll now meet online, it’s big groups of friends with expendable income who want to have a very good time. That feeling you get from singing along to a song, and 400 people in the room doing the same? It’s amazing.”

Founded: 2015

Staff: 130 staff in two venues plus 65 musicians. “We are probably the largest employer of independent musicians in the country.”

Turnover: £9m

Business idol: “Rich Melman, founder of Lettuce Entertain You in Chicago. He now owns more than 80 restaurants around the US.”