Words: Philip Ozorio

Connaught Kitchens celebrated a ‘Third of a Century’ anniversary – just over 33 years as an independent kitchen specialist! – with a party in June 2024. This now makes us one of the oldest established businesses in Connaught Village.

We wanted to say a big thank you to our Connaught Kitchens Team, as well as past clients, shop neighbours, suppliers, family and friends.  Another reason was to showcase our recently refurbished showroom.  It helps that I have a background in hospitality with experience in throwing parties. 

Some years ago we had a themed event at Connaught Kitchens called the ‘Ice Party’ when we turned our basement showroom into an ice cavern using a dry ice machine and special lighting so this time we thought we should base the theme on “1991”– the year we opened the showroom.  

Just before opening Connaught Kitchens all those years ago, I attended a free seminar on VAT where I met three members of the Ministry of Sound, which gave us an idea for our party theme: ‘Club 1991’.  

The challenge would be to turn the showroom into a club at 6pm in mid-summer. I realised that we would have to black-out the entire showroom, so we found rolls of blackout on Amazon which we stapled to the window frames.

There was a problem with the front door because every time it opened it would let light in. We got around this by finding a 3m x 3m black garden gazebo and attached this to the front door creating a pre- entrance. Our local carpet shop also gave us a red carpet, and two doormen were employed to ‘meet and greet’.  When the first guests arrived at 6pm we even made them queue outside for about 15 minutes to recreate a real club atmosphere.

For past parties we had canapes and finger food from demos. However, cooking demos take up a lot of space and hinder circulation so to try something different we asked our local Iranian restaurant Colbeh if they could do the catering.  The food ended up being delicious, and as a bonus, there was no washing up!  

 The Connaught Kitchens team came up with a playlist of 1991 music – grunge to start, then club later on. We also had a separate karaoke machine to act as a public address, and club lights (including a glitter ball). We even got VIPs like Julian Clary – a former client of ours – to record visual messages.

It’s always a good idea to have a ‘free business card raffle’.  Our suppliers contributed prizes, and we also had a separate draw and prize from the 45 Google reviews. It’s good to have more than a few prizes so we added an few bottles of bubbly too.

The big problem with events is getting attendance, and the worst-case scenario is to have fewer guests than hosts. Our ideal target figure was 100 people.   We’d achieved this number when we had the ‘Ice Party’ but good attendance is always a worry when throwing a party. So you have to invite double the number you are aiming for. It’s surprising who may RSVP who say YES pull out at the last minute.  

If you invite friends and relations, they can form a core of partygoers as they are most likely to attend and not let you down.  Inviting your suppliers doubles as a good way of building relationships and we have around 20 suppliers who all like a party.  

Local shop keepers and estate agents enjoy a good party and we have several near us.   The vicar and his team came from the local church, and local past clients usually support these events too. Key clients made up of interior designers, architects, surveyors and property developers can soon help get the numbers up.

Getting the word out is also important. When we had a party some years ago to launch an Italian furniture brand called Ferretti we took out an advert for the event, did not proof it and the advertiser left the “I” off the header so we ended up with Ferrett Kitchens!

In the end, Club 1991 was a success, and we had a great party! One small hiccup was the smoke machine which we could not control, which filled the room with dense, acrid smoke so we had to set this aside.   Another was the first TV did not work, but we were lucky that we had a spare day to change this. As a result, my best advice is to try and set up a good day in advance.