It has in the past campaigned for the little group to get even smaller – by splitting itself into two stand-alone companies, restaurants and garages I doubt if such a break-up appeals to Gowrings. And while the group as a whole cheerfully motored ahead – profits have increased impressively since 1996 – it could comfortably ignore any siren calls from Guinness Peat, an aggressive financial group which has forced shake-ups at a number of companies.Gowrings and brewer Young & Co, another family-controlled group, have been among those able to resist its generally persuasive endeavours. However there are signs Gowrings now sees better prospects in burgers than cars. Although the car industry could be over the worst and devastated margins could be about to improve, I would not be surprised to see the group concentrate on its restaurants (it runs 38 Burger King outlets) and invite offers for its highly respected garages division. Certainly proceeds from a garages sale would provide the company with ammunition to expand its restaurant operations – a development I think the stock market would appreciate..

In 1997, after a career in entertainment, Simon Woodroffe, 48, founder and owner of YO! Sushi, opened his first conveyor belt sushi restaurant. In 2000 he won Group Restaurateur of the Year at the Catey Awards. Now, he aims to develop YO! into a lifestyle brand to rival Virgin and easyGroup

In 1997, after a career in entertainment, Simon Woodroffe, 48, founder and owner of YO! Sushi, opened his first conveyor belt sushi restaurant. In 2000 he won Group Restaurateur of the Year at the Catey Awards. Now, he aims to develop YO! into a lifestyle brand to rival Virgin and easyGroup
1 Is there a single event or person that gave you the impetus to succeed? YO! started in a Japanese restaurant in the West End. I was sitting with a Japanese guy called Mr Uehara and talking about my life and saying: “What am I going to do?” I wasn’t very successful – certainly in financial terms – at that stage, although I’d done lots of things.

He said: “What about sushi? What you should do is a conveyor belt sushi bar with girls in black PVC miniskirts.” Those four words – conveyor belt sushi bar – were the focus of my life for the next four years, but I did drop the PVC miniskirts idea!2What’s the first lesson that you learnt in business? There’s only one thing you have to do in this world in business to be very, very successful and that is not to run out of money, especially near wages day. If you don’t run out of cash you’ve always got the chance to be a big success, but if you run out of money you haven’t got a chance.3How important is your personal profile for your business? I think my personal profile has been enormously important in building YO! and I think a lot of what YO! stands for is about me as a human being, my personality and everything that I’ve been through. It’s been enormously important in building the business up to this point – three and half years in – but I think from now on it will play a part but it is much less important. What will be much more important is the executives within the organisation and how they run and manage the day-to-day business. My personality is the cream on the cake that can make it more exciting.4Who do you most admire in your industry? In the restaurant industry it’s undoubtedly Conran. He’s by far the closest to my heart because he comes from a design background rather than just a foodie background. I admire him in terms of boldness, design, thoroughness, detail and obsession with doing the best.

In the wider sense, I admire everybody from Ministry of Sound through to Wagamama and the guys who did Belgo Innovation just really excites me. I also admire Pizza Express for the way it’s run and I’m a big admirer of McDonald’s in terms of the systems and the standard that they manage to maintain.5If you didn’t run YO! Sushi which business would you like to run? I don’t think I really want to do anything that doesn’t start with YO! The great thing about YO! is that if we’re ever lucky enough to be a big retailer in all sorts of different ways, like Virgin is internationally, it would be to do with the fact that YO! goes with lots of things – YO!-tel, YO!-to-Go, YO!-ganic, Body YO! So, if I wasn’t doing YO! Sushi, I think there are hundreds of things I would love to do in retail and leisure. I wouldn’t want to take on running anybody else’s company, I want to run mine. With the exception of Virgin and Easy, I can’t see anybody who is trying to do what we are trying to do, which is to have a name that can go into lots of different market sectors from start up6If you went bankrupt tomorrow what would you do? If I went bankrupt very suddenly I might become an inspirational public speaker in the short term. I already do a lot of public speaking but I wouldn’t be surprised if I got paid to go out and tell my story about how I built this company over a period of time and then, perhaps, how I lost it – that would make a good story as well. But I think I’ve still got the energy to do it all over again – in one guise or another.7You once said that nobody in their right minds would open a restaurant, do you still stand by that? I said that in a Microsoft TV commercial and what I meant is that they are very high-risk businesses to open. We’ve got a proven concept, but even today when we open a restaurant we have to remember that you’ve only got to be in the wrong place and the best concept in the world doesn’t work.