Tom Herbert leaves Stroud’s Long Table after eight years of food, community and change

Tom Herbert, the co-founder of The Long Table in Brimscombe, Stroud, is leaving the organisation after accepting redundancy.

Herbert, who helped launch the project in 2018, said he was “heartbroken” to be leaving the team and work he loves. His announcement brings an eight-year chapter to an end, but he said both Long Table venues would continue operating with their existing teams.

In a lengthy personal statement, Herbert looked back on the people, meals, difficult periods and community support that shaped the project. He said he was “so so so mightily astounded” by what had been built, including the lives touched, the food served and the relationships formed around the table.

From a barbecue in a warehouse to a restaurant project

The Long Table began on a February night in 2018, when a barbecue and a washing-up bowl were used in the Furniture Bank warehouse. Herbert said 81 people encouraged the idea, while friends and family lit candles and laid placemats carrying The Long Table manifesto.

Tables were pushed together until they stretched through the building “like a lumpy snake”. Herbert described that first gathering as the point at which “a restaurant for the future was born”.

He said the project grew from the vision he received on what he described as his loneliest day. Its approach combined food with hospitality, local produce and the ambition to create spaces where people could meet, feel welcome and find a sense of belonging.

More than 100,000 meals during Covid

One of the biggest moments in The Long Table’s history came during Covid, when the organisation delivered more than 100,000 meals. Herbert said that work also led to Emma Hurrell’s name appearing on the front of a Great Western Railway train.

The organisation later launched its Friends programme, allowing people to provide monthly support. Herbert said more than 400 neighbours responded, describing the backing as an important expression of local support.

The Long Table subsequently faced two evictions. After the first, members of the community helped the organisation move into Brimscombe Mill, a building Herbert said had stood derelict for three decades.

He recalled how people rolled up their sleeves to help bring the old mill back to life. The building’s difficult conditions became part of the story: Herbert said its thin, old roof made the space scorching in summer and bitterly cold in winter, but the kitchen continued to provide food and people continued to meet there.

The organisation also opened a second venue in Cirencester after partnering with the Diocese of Gloucester. Herbert said the response to the second eviction was so strong that it became a turning point, with the community campaign known as #FillTheMill continuing to echo around Brimscombe Mill.

Recognition matters less than belonging, Herbert says

The Long Table was recently named a finalist for Sustainable Restaurant of the Year at the National Restaurant Awards. It was also one of three finalists for Cotswold Life Restaurant of the Year.

Herbert said those awards were not the most important measure of the organisation’s work. He placed greater value on the stories of people who came through the doors, were welcomed, felt safe and found somewhere they could belong.

He said that hardly a week passed without a group arriving to eat at The Long Table and explore what might be possible in its own community. The organisation’s work has included sourcing from local farms, championing their produce and cooking it for people regardless of what they could afford.

Herbert paid tribute to past and present staff, describing them as big-hearted, hard-working and highly talented. He said the team had made The Long Table possible and had shown how a supportive workplace could help people grow and make difficult ambitions succeed.

He also thanked the Friends of The Long Table, the wider community, customers, friends and family. His thanks included those who supported the organisation through Covid and the two evictions, as well as everyone who had sat on a bench or pulled up a chair for a meal.

What happens next for The Long Table?

Herbert said he hoped The Long Table would continue to thrive under its current teams. He described the two venues as “in good hands, with brilliant teams to keep the cooking and the gathering going”.

He encouraged supporters to help sustain the project by becoming a Friend with a monthly gift, bringing colleagues, family or groups for lunch, or asking about hosting a gathering. The venues available for those activities are Brimscombe Mill in Stroud and the Old Department Store in Cirencester.

Herbert said he looked forward to returning to The Long Table as a customer, describing it as the restaurant that first came to him during his loneliest day.

Herbert plans a new food-led chapter

Although he is leaving the organisation, Herbert said his future would continue to involve bringing people together around food. He said he planned to spend time processing the change, including a trip to the cold Cornish sea, and would share deeper reflections through Substack and around campfires.

He described his work at The Long Table as the meeting point between 40 years of growing up above a bakery and the creativity and joy of cooking around the world. Those experiences, he said, taught him the importance of provenance, produce, people and family values.

Herbert compared what people had created at The Long Table to a sourdough starter: a living culture that can be shared and taken wherever it is needed. He said shared meals could help with reconciliation, unity and healing in divided places.

He said the next chapter had already begun through several gatherings: 14 people at a Partners in Purpose event, 30 at a lunch with Pippa Jones’s Common Good, and 200 people at a four-course feast in Old Town, Portland, Oregon. That event brought together some of the city’s most marginalised people for an evening of hope and renewal.

Herbert is now inviting anyone with a table, community or project that could benefit from bringing people together around food to contact him at [email protected]. He said he wanted to hear what change communities were hungry for and where a shared meal might be needed.