Introducing… Social Bird

It’s always a pleasure to speak to someone who is clearly excited about a project and takes pride in what they’ve achieved - and such is the case with Tony McPhee, Social Bird’s manager and driving force. Tony has a long background in Newcastle hospitality, which made him the ideal candidate for the role.

“My early career was spent in the casino industry and then I moved into hospitality in 2018 at Shark Club in Newcastle as general manager,” he explains. “From there, I went to As You Like It in Jesmond and I’ve also worked in Tyneside Cinema where I used to run all the hospitality.

"Then the opportunity came along for Social Bird and it's just something that I’m really associated with," he continues. "I’ve worked in that kind of restaurant-within-a-hotel setting, where you’re looking to make it a more independent, stand-alone venue, even though you’re going to be providing a lot of the food and beverage services to the hotel. It’s something that I experienced when I was at Shark Club which is inside Newcastle's Sandman Signature Hotel. I liked the whole ethos behind Social Bird - there's a lot of high energy. It was a project that I was really quite excited about right from the start and that’s what turned my head and made me want to get on board.”

Tony has some exciting and forward-thinking ideas about the role Social Bird can play in the city, as something more than another hotel restaurant.

“The ethos is encapsulated in the name of Social Bird: it’s a social environment for guests at the hotel but more broadly, we want it to be a staple within the community, providing somewhere people can come and experience our spaces any time of the kind of the day or night," says Tony. 

"That’s the social element of it. I’m really into that sort of a face-to-face customer interaction, which is a dying art in hospitality if I’m being honest," he adds. "People don't really know how to talk to each other these days, we're all so busy with our heads in our devices - virtual communication rather than literal communication. And so that was that was a nice refreshing change we wanted to pursue.”

And of course, the other part of the restaurant's name is a reference to its chicken-focused cuisine but Tony is emphatic about the way Social Bird differs from venues with similar chicken-heavy menus.

“It's not just about doing chicken the way you’d find it in any high street branded restaurant chain. It's very much taking the ethos of utilising the whole bird," Tony explains. "We use a poultry farm in in North Yorkshire called Soames Poultry Farm - we buy the birds in whole and our chefs do all the prep work. All the birds are brined to tenderise the meat which keeps it nice and succulent. They do all the butchering, and on our menu you get things from chicken bone broth all the way through to the full roast bird and pretty much everything in between. The meat is treated with a lot of care and respect and attention and you can really taste the difference when it hits the plate. That's what we're all about - that kind of quality.”

Social Bird's menu really is packed with an array of chicken dishes – from tenders to burgers, wings to whole roast birds – but there are plenty of appealing vegetarian dishes, sides and snacks too, as well as a breakfast menu and a deli counter, which is one of Tony’s key ingredients.

“We want to be a social hub for the community, to welcome people into our spaces. There's no expectation that you need to come in and buy a three course meal,” Tony explains. “If you want to come in and use our space for co-working, that’s great. Or it’s for people that are having a quick bite, a lunch on the go, or if they maybe missed breakfast and they want to grab something on the way out the door and get themselves a nice freshly-brewed coffee, a sandwich, a nice piece of cake. Again, it’s all made in-house and we really do champion the quality of the produce that we put out.”

Sustainability and working with local businesses are also key parts of the Social Bird mission, as Tony explains.

“We use Tynemouth Coffee Company for our coffee, we use Hadrian’s Border Brewery, we use Pure Knead Bakery. We are part of the community and we want to champion that, reward other parts of the community and support other local businesses as well. That’s very much part of the ethos of our business.”

The co-working space is a big part of what Social Bird is about, a relaxed environment that’s available with WIFI and unlimited tea or coffee and a sandwich or quiche and a sweet treat for £20 per day (10am – 4pm, Monday to Friday), with a £5 upgrade to a burger. And the atmosphere of the whole of Social Bird is designed to be along similar lines.

“We’ve got a nice, modern, very clean feel to the decor. We want people to feel relaxed and have that social vibe," says Tony. "The music is all very chilled out and relaxed. We want people to feel happy moving between the various spaces, whether that's moving from the lounge into the bar for drinks, or maybe from the bar to the dining room for some dinner, and vice versa. That’s the kind of vibe we want - flexible and free flowing throughout.”

So far, things are going very well for Social Bird and Tony is clearly very pleased with the reception.

“Our official opening day was 5th April and we've had a couple of launch events since then. It's been really greatly received, the customer feedback has been absolutely, overwhelmingly positive," he says. "The quality of the project has been recognised, the quality of the service, the level of service and the attentiveness of the team. We would always like to get busier, but that's the nature of the business and we know that hospitality is a challenge across the whole industry at the minute. But we couldn’t have asked for anything better."

As is tradition in our interviews with restaurants, we finished by asking Tony to recommend something any first time visitor to Social Bird should try.

“We specialise in chicken but there’s a lot of variety within that on the menu. I would absolutely recommend the chicken schnitzel, our famous schnitzel," he enthuses. "It comes in three different varieties with a variety of toppings. We do a vegetarian and vegan alternative to the chicken schnitzel too, so there’s something there for everyone!”

Social Bird is located within Hotel Indigo at 2-8 Fenkle Street and is open from 6.30am to midnight on weekdays and from 7am at the weekend. Find out more at www.socialbird.uk.