Home-grown foodie leads the pack

Paul McCrystal tells Ewan Turney how a passion for home-made British food and quality real ales helped him increase turnover by 25% year on year at the Pack Saddle in Mapledurham, Berkshire

How I got here

I used to be an engineer but I have been a passionate foodie since I was knee-high. I was running my own business and things were quiet so I went and did an advanced chef's diploma course. We learnt the hard way, so if you wanted puff pastry, you made it. That has stood me in good stead and is the philosophy we follow here. I worked as a chef at the Bottle and Glass in Binfield for a while. The Pack Saddle was my local and when it came up, I approached Wadworth. It needed some TLC but was a cracking pub in a great location with bags of potential. I've been here two and half years now and sales have grown every year.

My refurbishment

Since we have been here, we have set about trying to tidy the place up. When we arrived you needed a 4x4 to get in the rear car park because of the potholes, the paddock was full of weeds and the front was downright tatty. We worked with Wadworth to lift the standards by painting, landscaping the garden, adding a terrace, changing the furniture and generally making it spotless. If you want people to recommend your pub to others, first impressions count. When people recommend a place it is in effect recommending their own standards so it is not going to happen if your pub is filthy.

My market

I did question my own sanity when taking on the pub. Wadworth's had had it since 1994 and there had been more managers and tenants than I care to remember. I questioned whether people would like my style, so we did a business plan and looked at the competition. There are a lot of gastropubs, some mass market chef & brewer types, cheap and cheerful managed pubs and a couple of independents. In the end I created my own market. I wanted to do good, old-fashioned, home-made British food at reasonable prices. I didn't want to be a gastro. For me that is a restaurant housed in a pub. So we decided we would neither be the cheapest, nor the most expensive. We would be about real food, real ale and real service.

My beer

Last year our beer sales grew by 15,000 pints. We did that by getting the quality right. We did have a few problems initially, trying to get the right temperature in the cellar. It is simple things that help like cleaning the lines and the glasses properly. I won't tolerate poor quality, so customers can tell me if they think the beer has started to turn and I will change the barrel. Some licensees would say "there's nought wrong with that its brown and wet!"

Having clean glasses is again simple but necessary. About a year ago, we had a group of ladies who came in and ordered some wine. They were complimentary about the wine and clean glasses as they had come from another pub with dirty glasses. They have come back here ever since.

My wine

We sold an extra 800 bottles of wine last year. Wadworth has a good sommelier and a good range of wines. Again, we don't go for the most expensive or the most cheap. We have a decent range. Staff training is important in selling more wine. They need to be able to recommend certain wines and we are also looking to add tasting notes to our wine lists.

My food

Food sales have grown on average 20% to 25% a year.

1. Quality products: I spend an enormous amount of time tracking down the best quality products. It is the little things that are important. We try to buy local food but we have to remember that we are not a gastro pub and do not charge a 10% cover charge and are not charging upwards of £12. We do go to the local butcher and ask for our sausages and faggots to be made that way.

2. British food: I am passionate about British food to the point where I drive my wife and staff to distraction. I have never understood why the British prefer to do other countries' cuisine badly rather than concentrating on our own good old-fashioned food.

3. Home made: We make everything here from bread to the shortrust pastry for our pies, to real gravy and puddings.

4. Coeliacs: Because we make everything here we know exactly what goes into our dishes so it is easy for us to cater for specific diets and for coeliacs. If they come into the pub we can tell them about gluten-free dishes but if they let us know beforehand, we can offer more. We have done gluten-free steak and kidney puddings and Christmas dinners before.

My marketing strategy

1. Word-of-mouth: We spent the first year consolidating and getting our offer right so relied on this type of marketing a lot.

2. Advertising: After the first 12 months we started advertising in the local newspaper. If you do a long-term deal with the paper you can get a much better price and you have more chance of getting your ad in a better position where people will see it. We use nice clean ads with our logo so even if people don't read it, they will see the logo.

3. Heli-pad: Our premises is tied to Mapledurham House and they told us we must do something with the paddock - we have three acres. We want to utilise it more fully, but in the meantime we have put a heli-pad on it. We have had about half a dozen come in for lunch. It is great PR and gets us in the local newspapers.

4. Website: We have a good website (www.thepacksaddleinn.co.uk), designed by a friend of mine. It is a useful marketing tool. We record the amount of hits and it proves the advertising is working as we get more hits after an advertising campaign.

5. Discount offers: We go in for the Daily Telegraph two-for-one pub meals but also we have a link-up with staff at Barclays. They approached us and now we offer their staff a 15% discount on food Monday to Thursday.

How I motivate staff

Before Christmas we did a SPIF (Sales Promotions Incentive Fund). If staff sold certain products such as port with a cheese board, they would get points. And points win prizes.

This time in the shape of a £25 Virgin gift voucher. It did work but we need to tweak it. We ran it over three months but it really needs to be over six or eight weeks. I think we will do a board next time to show the scores and give extra training to those lagging, so it is more competitive.

My plans for the future

I would like to get an extension for a function/family room. The main pub could then be child-free and children would have more freedom in a separate room. It would also be very useful for wedding receptions and civil services. We desperately need more covers at the pub and a bigger kitchen to host functions.

Our wet:dry split is 56%:44% and I would like to push that to 60%:40%, not because I want to sell less food but because I want to continue increasing the wet trade.

My Pub

Tenancy: Wadworth, one-year rolling

Turnover: increased 25% each year

Beer sales: up 15,000 pints last year

Wine sales: up 800 bottles last year

Food sales: 25% increase year-on-year

Wet/Dry split: 56%:44%

Covers: 80

Avg spend per head: £15

Meals/week: 400 winter, 800 summer

GP food: 70%

GP beer: 50%

Staff: Up to 16, three full-time

Ales: Four Wadworth ales plus guest