What if everyone had access to great food and people to eat it with? w/ Tom Herbert

💡 Episode Summary

In this inspiring and heartfelt episode, Jamie and David sit down with Tom Herbert, fifth-generation baker, author, and social entrepreneur behind The Long Table — a pioneering community restaurant built around the question:

“What if everyone in our community had access to great food and people to eat it with?”

Tom shares his personal and professional journey — from growing up in a family bakery and co-hosting the TV series The Fabulous Baker Brothers, to stepping away from his business to start a movement focused on radical hospitality, social connection, and meaningful community.

Together, they explore creativity, leadership, burnout, faith, and the tension between purpose and practicality. This episode is a soulful look at how what we love can serve what the world needs.

🔑 Key Themes & Takeaways

1. The Origins of The Long Table

• A restaurant built around community, dignity, and shared meals.
• “Pay as you can” dining as an act of trust, inclusion, and regeneration.
• Reimagining hospitality as a space for belonging rather than exclusivity.

2. From Baker to Changemaker

• Tom’s journey from Hobbs House Bakery and The Fabulous Baker Brothers to social enterprise.
• How dyslexia, creativity, and curiosity shaped his leadership.
• The moment of transition: leaving family legacy to pursue a deeper calling.

3. Leading with Openness

• The challenge of building something bigger than yourself.
• Holding vision lightly so others can color it in.
• Leadership as “soft front, strong back” — strength with vulnerability.

4. Balancing Purpose and Practicality

• How The Long Table sustains itself as a social enterprise.
• “Clear is kind” — being transparent about costs and value.
• Growing “at the speed of trust” and staying agile in community work.

5. The Power of Food to Heal and Connect

• Meals as moments of deep humanity and shared story.
• From loneliness to belonging — food as social glue.
• “If you have more than enough, build longer tables, not higher walls.”

🧭 Tom’s Invitation

Tom encourages listeners to:

• Eat with someone new. Invite others to your table.
• Visit The Long Table in the Cotswolds and experience it firsthand.
• Support the movement by becoming a Friend of The Long Table or hosting a Longest Table event in your own community.

📖 Featured Quote

“How might what I love be in service of what is needed?” – Tom Herbert

📚 Mentioned in this Episode

• The Long Table – thelongtableonline.com
• Do Wild Baking (Do Book Co.) – by Tom Herbert
• The Grace Network – supporting social enterprise in the Cotswolds
• 
  

🕊️ Closing Reflection

Tom ends the episode reading from Do: Wild Baking, a poetic invitation to gather, cook, and reconnect with the wild and with one another:

“It’s satisfying and I breathe out. I catch the eye of the others and we begin to talk more freely. It feels good to be known… We know what it is to be truly alive.”