Bobby Carey launches Studio Ryecroft after Proof & Company closure

Former Proof & Company executives Bobby Carey and Tom Hogan have launched Studio Ryecroft, a new hospitality consulting firm. Eloise Feilden finds out what we can expect from the new venture.

Bobby Carey has had a whirlwind couple of months to say the least. In July, Proof & Company Spirits announced it would be ceasing operations, entering provisional liquidation after 13 years in operation.

Just days later, Carey announced that his role at the company’s consulting arm, Proof Creative, had come to an “unexpected close“.

“It came as quite a shock,” he told db in an interview last week. “Obviously we had left China a couple of years ago, but a lot of distributors were leaving China. In April, Australia went into administration, but we always thought that Singapore was quite bulletproof.”

Following the closure of Proof & Company’s Australian arm, Carey was busy dealing with his team in the country. “Most of the time I was dealing with keeping the team together, but there was never any outside indication that Singapore was struggling as it was,” he said. “We were all on the leadership team as well, and there didn’t seem to be that urgency coming across, and then it just kind of happened in a week.”

Despite efforts by the company to keep Carey in post, “under legal advice I couldn’t stay in Singapore and remain working for the company”.

While his time at Proof & Company has come to an end after more than six years, Carey has spent the last couple of months on an exciting new project.

Carey has teamed up with Tom Hogan, former regional general manager of Asia for Proof & Company, whose role also came to a close in July.

The pair have now launched Studio Ryecroft, a new consultancy firm in the F&B space.

Carey received employment passes for the business on Thursday (11 September) when we spoke, and he plans for the business to go to market this week.

Studio Ryecroft is Carey and Hogan’s “fresh start”.

“We’d always talked about what our vision would look like; how we would do things differently, how we would be 2.0, how we would be a breath of fresh air – something new and evolved. That’s what we’ve put together at Studio Ryecroft,” Carey said.

He described Hogan as “a good friend and a confidant”. He joked: “He was my – I hate saying this – but he was my mentor when I first started.”

Now the two are working side by side, bringing “aspects of what was great about Proof Creative, but it’s not a continuation, it’s the next chapter”.

Starting with just the two founders, Studio Ryecroft offers all of its clients “founder face-time” and “a much sharper founder-led experience”.

With Studio Ryecroft, Carey and Hogan are “not just focusing on bars anymore”. Instead, “we are focusing on branded experiences, culinary experiences and even going into guest-facing experiences. We do see the benefit of diversifying a little bit.”

Studio Ryecroft is already seeing success, with old and new clients reaching out. “Our books are almost full already in terms of work for the next few months,” he said.

Carey has been careful not to “pigeonhole” the business by focusing on one particular region, and instead Studio Ryecroft already has an international client base spanning China, Singapore, the US and the Middle East.

“Some of the first projects that came to us were outside of Singapore,” he said. And the duo’s international backgrounds – Hogan is from the US and Carey is Irish and Australian – make it easier to work abroad. “We can actually literally work anywhere in the world at this stage because of our visa and passport situation.”

This is nothing new for Carey. “We’ve always worked globally. Airport lounge and a laptop was my office for a long time, and I don’t see that changing,” he said.

With Studio Ryecroft, Carey’s main aim is to “bring concept into culture”. He explained: “We don’t want to do flash in the pan-style spaces, we want to create something that becomes part of the lexicon of that city, of that country.”

Longevity is the primary focus. Carey criticised bars which put too much effort into winning awards, neglecting loyal customers in focusing too heavily on “guest shifts coming in, or judges or industry”.

“Some of the best bars I’ve worked in have been neighbourhood bars, because there’s a huge sense of community,” Carey said.

And this is a feeling Carey and Hogan want to replicate with their projects. “We want to retain these much longer term projects with partners so that we can really help them grow and fine tune any issues that come up super quickly.”

So far, the response has been better than Carey expected. “I’ve seen so many of my friends who have set up companies, and I’ve always been like, I can never do that and take that big leap,” he said. Now he’s started thinking differently: “Why didn’t I do something myself a long time ago?”

Related news

Trinity Hill taps into rising demand for white wines in Asia

Caviar chicken nuggets and postpartum mocktails: 2025's top trending Google searches

Marco Corallo: 'Saikindō is truly the pinnacle of my career so far'