Festive double header sets pub tills jingling

Trade reaps big rewards from Christmas falling on a Sunday

by Ewan Turney and The PMA Team

Licensees and operators reported a bumper festive trading period thanks to new licensing hours, strong food sales - and Christ-mas falling on a Sunday.

The way the calendar fell meant that pubs effectively enjoyed a 'double Christmas Eve' as workers celebrated finishing work on the Friday followed by Christmas Eve on the Saturday.

'It was a spectacular double header,' said St Austell marketing director Jeremy Mitchell. 'We had to put door supervisors on for the Saturday as people were just piling in.'

Barracuda Group recorded a strong performance with like-for-like sales up 5.2% in the three weeks to 31 December. 'If you have a quality operation people build up a trust in you and this is the time of year when they traditionally reward you with parties and get-togethers,' said chief executive Mark McQuater. 'The week leading in to Christmas was immensely strong.'

Steve Richards, chief executive of the newly-private Novus, formerly Urbium, said the West End of London was extremely buoyant over the Christmas fortnight. 'We had double-digit like-for-like sales growth overall,' he said. 'Trade in the West End has come back dramatically since the summer.' Novus' flagship site in London's Haymarket, Tiger Tiger, broke its weekly sales record, with Christmas week turnover in excess of £500,000 - it was £470,000 for the same week last year.

James Crawfurd-Porter, boss of the 57-strong tenanted Tadcaster Pub Company, said: 'On the face of it, it appears to have been a pretty good Christmas. My gut feeling is that we are a bit up on last year - somewhere between 2% and 3%.'

Managed operator Spirit said trading had been better than expected. Commercial director Andrew Knight said: 'We did well with positive like-for-likes although it all came very late.

'We did better than we forecast. There was an even spread between local pubs and food pubs - both did well.'

Peter Brook, chief executive of the Tattershall Castle Group, which has a mixture of high street and suburban sites, said: 'Overall, trading was not too bad and in line with expectations. Liquor trading was particularly good with a smallish benefit from longer hours. As for pre-dictions of doom and gloom, problems did not materialise.'

Licensees reflected the general trends seen by companies. David Smithwick, of the Langtrys in Stone, Staffordshire, recorded a sales increase of 12% on last year. 'Although the overall volume of people was down, those that came out were actually spending more money and the atmosphere was great,' he said. 'There were very little in the way of incidents of disorder.'

However, the cold weather between Christmas and New Year hit some. Four inches of snow in Norfolk meant trade was 'very average' for David Watts, of the King's Head in Letheringsett. David Heyes, licensee at the Gardsdale Inn in Brandlesholme and the Brown Cow, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, estimated that trade was down 3% to 4% on last year.