Business Ideas - Tried and Tested

In the first of a regular new series, Mark Taylor looks at ideas that could help boost your business.

Beat the Clock menu

Since taking over the Three Conies at Thorpe Mandeville, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, in February, licensees Sandy and Paul Turner have launched an innovative offer to entice customers to eat early in the evening.

From Monday to Friday, between 6pm and 9pm, there is a special two-course menu, the price of which goes up by the minute. This means that customers who order at 6pm pay £6, customers ordering at 7.15pm pay £7.15 and so on. If you don't order until 9pm, it will cost £9.

"People usually tend to eat between 8pm and 9pm, and there's always a rush about 8.30pm," says Sandy. "What we're trying to do is get people to come in earlier and perhaps stay longer afterwards. The idea came from our chef, Bob Marshall, who had done a similar promotion in a previous pub restaurant. We thought it was a great idea."

The Beat the Clock menu runs concurrently with the normal menu and features a choice of two soups, a curry or a casserole. "This week, we have Hawaiian Pork and Spiced Chicken Curry," says Sandy.

"Of course, it's fine if one person wants to order from the Beat the Clock menu and the other orders from our à la carte menu. As a business idea, it's working well and is proving popular with customers already."

Preserves and pickles to take away

There can't be many former Michelin-starred restaurant chefs making jams and chutneys in an English village pub, but for Alexander Venables, it has become an important part of the Tollgate Inn at Holt in Wiltshire, which he runs with partner Alison Ward-Baptiste.

Alison and Alexander use seasonal produce from locals in the Wiltshire area to make a selection of jams, chutneys, pickles and marmalades, all of which they sell in the bar. "People bring in whatever soft fruit or vegetables they grow and we use it and turn it into jams, marmalades and chutneys," explains Alison.

"When people get gluts of tomatoes we make our chilli jam; when they have a glut of rhubarb or beetroot, we make chutneys.

We do swaps, too: they supply us with the produce and we provide them with half a dozen jars and sell the rest.

"We make about 30 jars at a time and they don't take long to sell. We price them at £2.50 a jar and customers get 10p for every jar they bring back, so we're also recycling our jars."

The pub with its own village shop

The Shropshire village of Stottesdon lost its local shop 14 years ago, but that all changed when licensee Sandra Jefferies of the Fighting Cocks opened her own village shop next to the pub in June 2004.

One year on and the shop is doing a roaring trade, with people travelling from as far as Birmingham, 25 miles away, to buy the local produce on offer. "It's been very popular and takings have been constant," says Sandra, who is also the chef at the Fighting Cocks.

The shop occupies an old outbuilding next to the freehold pub and sells a wide selection of fresh local produce, as well as a number of ethically produced products (tinned soups and beans, soaps, candles, soft drinks) from Suma. Fruit and vegetables are either organic or "very local", as is the meat, all of which comes from local farms and butchers.

The shop also stocks locally smoked products, sausages and salamis from an award-winning local butcher, Shropshire cheeses, organic dairy products, local breads and the popular pies made by Sandra in the pub's kitchen. "The planners were very good," says Sandra. "We used local builders and we even used wood from local ash trees for the shop counter. "People travel from all around the area, use the pub and then come into the shop afterwards.

"We also get people who stay in local bed and breakfasts - they write about us in visitor books and we get a lot of new customers coming to the shop as a result."

The shop is open seven days a week, from 9am to 7pm (4pm on Sundays) and is taking about £400 on Saturdays alone. "We're only in the first year of trading, so it's early days, but it's something we hope to build on," says Sandra. "I've really enjoyed it and I'm glad I did it - we have become the hub of the village.