This week, we’re joined by Only Scrans — one of the UK’s biggest and most engaged food creators, with more than 1.5 million followers and one of the most unusual career stories we’ve encountered. Jonny has toured the world as a guitarist, helped build LADbible’s audience past 100 million, launched FoodBible, worked with some of Britain’s biggest celebrities, built his own agencies and turned Only Scrans into a major food platform. Most recently, he has taken the ultimate step from commenting on hospitality to living it, opening his own sports bar and discovering exactly how difficult it is to make money from bricks and mortar.
Jonny reveals why he spent £40,000 of his own money filming a huge long-form YouTube series across America, Canada and Mexico, visiting historic restaurants, Texas barbecue institutions and some of the world’s greatest taco spots. He explains why he refused to compromise the films with intrusive sponsorship demands, why he believes creators must be prepared to invest in themselves and how YouTube videos can suddenly return from the dead and collect another 100,000 views. He also takes us inside the obsessive world of retention graphs, thumbnails, titles and trial reels — while sharing the less glamorous reality of eating at 20 restaurants in a matter of days, including a disastrous final day in Mexico City after weeks of grasshoppers, tripe tacos and relentless filming.
We also get into Jonny’s belief that food influencers should have to pass a test before they are allowed to review restaurants. He explains why somebody tasting their first-ever scallop has no business immediately declaring it a ten out of ten, calls out creators who deliberately attack brilliant independent restaurants to manufacture millions of views and comes to the defence of Bleecker after watching it receive a baffling six-out-of-ten review. At the same time, he acknowledges the extraordinary impact creators such as Eating With Tod can have on small businesses, explains why TopJaw’s combination of beautiful filmmaking and a divisive presenter works so well, and gives his verdict on the recent “shawarma wars” consuming the online food world.
Jonny is equally candid about opening his sports bar, GO. The venue turned over £1 million in its first year, but he explains why that impressive figure looks very different once the money has gone back out again — leaving a profit of roughly ten per cent and nothing yet taken by Jonny personally. He recounts discovering chaotic wiring hidden above the ceiling, air-conditioning containing an illegal refrigerant and renovation costs that more than doubled almost overnight. Despite the financial pressure, he describes the extraordinary feeling of watching supporters stand on tables during England games, the pride of creating memories for customers and his ambition to expand the business rather than simply take the money.
Finally, Jonny takes us back to his previous life in major-label rock band Blitz Kids. He reveals how the band could appear glamorous from the outside while its members were living on riders, drinking from morning until night and earning almost nothing, leaving him with memories of touring Helsinki, Stockholm and the rest of the world that he can barely recall. He speaks openly about alcohol, reaching a dark point and eventually becoming sober in his late thirties — before realising that he genuinely did still love food and football without the drinking attached. We then hear how he walked away from the band while living in his mum’s attic, joined LADbible as its eighth or ninth employee after an interview involving FIFA and several beers, created a viral livestream by melting ice lollies on a roof, used audience data to inform campaigns involving Craig David, and later found himself writing viral social posts for Georgia Toffolo. An extraordinary conversation about food, risk, addiction, creativity, hospitality and understanding what makes the internet click.
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