Been there, doing that

Using his Mandarin and knowledge of sound systems, he spent much of his time planning shows for big performers such as Shaggy and Whitney Houston.

"Basically, when the Americans and Chinese started fighting with each other - I'd be the guy that stepped in and sorted it," he says.

In the 10 years since then, he went on to open the Milun School of Traditional Kungfu, acted as an Educator for the British Council in Beijing, and helped an overseas Carbon Trading Fund find clients in China, before stumbling into the restaurant business where he's since found his success.

Yorke's first stumble into the restaurant business came in 2004 following a request to help operate Hutong Pizza, a Western-style pizza restaurant in Beijing's Houhai bar area from his Chinese wife's childhood friend.

He spent the next year working for "almost nothing" and dedicating most of his time to get the operation running smoothly.

"It was definitely what I would call a learning experience," he says.

It was while working at Hutong Pizza Yorke began discovering the vast challenges faced by any budding entrepreneur looking to tread in China's expanding business scene.

"In England if you want to set up a business, you can go online with one pound and an address and you can set up a business In China there's a lot more hoop-jumping involved," he says.

Yorke, who speaks Mandarin, says that even with knowledge of the language navigating the bureaucratic waters of setting up a new business and maintaining an old one can be complex.

"It gets easier as you get used to it, but I still spend more than half my time dealing with the various books and documents required just to be able to open the doors," he says. "And at the end of the year, you get to start the whole process again."

In addition to maintaining proper licenses and documentation, he says finding good English-speaking staff in China's service industry is an unceasing endeavor.

"If you can crack the HR thing, it makes everything easier. You never crack it - but in terms of making it easier you have to be constantly proactive in looking. We have an employee that spends her whole day searching the Internet, making phone calls and finding people to interview," he says.

While there are companies willing to help sort employee and documentation issues for a reasonable price, Yorke says other than an accountant he chooses to do most of it himself.

The true test of his China business-acumen came in 2006 when he opened the Vineyard Caf in Wudaoying Hutong, one of Beijing's trademark residential alleys from imperial times, near the city's largest Buddhist temple.

At that time the gray-washed walls of the ancient street were barren, empty of almost any other businesses. The only occupants were occasional closet-sized mom and pop cigarette shops intermingled with dull red residency doors in dire need of a new coat of paint.

Before Yorke opened the Vineyard Caf, Wudaoying was one of the capital's most dated residential areas - and looked it.

"It was really a rundown grungy place, there was nothing," he says.

Something about the tattered street charmed Yorke and he and his wife made the decision to grab a crumbling hutong courtyard nestled in the center of the alley.

It was a move that would catalyze the street's now roaring success, though at that time Yorke didn't know it.

China's army of business entrepreneurs took note of Yorke's choice to fuse Western culture into one of Beijing's most ancient areas and, soon, coffee shops and boutiques began cropping up along the once ramshackle alleyway.

In the half decade since Yorke opened the Vineyard Caf, Wudaoying Hutong has flourished into one of Beijing's most cultured streets, merging bohemian boutiques with the city's oldest residents.

"My idea was just to find a cool place where I could hang out and eat food that I would normally cook at home," he says.

"Actually, all I really wanted was a decent English breakfast. I had no clue that hundreds of other people would want the same."

Apparently they did.

The restaurant has since won several awards for its Sunday morning brunch and is one of Beijing's main contenders for best English breakfast, still Yorke's favorite item on the menu.

"That's the way to do it. If you're going to go with a business, you want to make a place that applies to yourself," he says.