City diary

Carveries: the cutting edge of pub food missed by Coren

City Diary has an obsession with the humble pub carvery. And no apologies for it. Shocking, therefore, to read Giles Coren, the restaurant critic for The Times, musing on subjects he failed to cover last year. Starting off his list was "Orchid carveries", a jotting he claimed no longer made any sense. A quick call to Orchid's public relations team which promises to brief Coren about Orchid's modern take on the carvery. "The figures have been fantastic," the PR tells City Diary. "Contemporary carveries are big business with takings transformed. Jewels in the crown include the Young Pretender, Kings Langley, taking £8,000 per week average pre-investment, now taking £36,000 per week average, breaking £51,000 net over Christmas, and the Memphis Belle, in Warrington, taking £18,000 per week prior to investment, averaging £36,000 post, breaking £50,000 during Christmas week." Get with the programme, Giles.

Raking it in down on the Farm

Paul Salisbury, the entrepreneur who helped develop Mitchells & Butlers' Project S premium country-dining concept, has launched a new concept in Solihull called the Farm. The site is a Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) pub which he has taken on a lease under their franchise division. The Farm, which was opened in August, is now taking between £45,000 and £50,000 a week with an offer customers describe as "posh Harvester" - it was taking a paltry £3,000-a-week previously. The pub is a former Allied Domecq flagship and M&B didn't know what do with it because it has an Ember Inn, a Harvester and Pub & Carvery close by. "We intend to do a few of them," Salisbury tells City Diary. Expect to see managed pub company executives hanging around and furiously making notes.

Brewers Fayre falls behind

Conversions by Whitbread of Brewers Fayres to a new "contemporary dining" format are enjoying a 10% or so sales uplift. Not good enough given the amount of money being spent - around £400,000 a site. Several months ago City Diary wondered whether the odds had shortened on another tranche of Whitbread pubs being sold. Now analysts at Morgan Stanley seem to agree. "We suspect the new Brewers Fayre format is not working particularly well, and we think Whitbread will be under pressure either to cut back its capital investment plans, or to sell more pubs."

Getting away from it all

Analyst Geof Collyer, of Deutsche Bank, sent out a picture of snow-covered mountains by way of a Christmas card this year. He admits it's been borrowed from a friend who retired in July and is spending his first year trekking in Nepal, Sikkim, Rajasthan and Kerala, then spending three months skiing and six months sailing his boat around the world. Collyer adds: "Well, it's better than having to cope with the credit crunch, the smoking ban, Northern Rock, ultra-aggressive supermarket beer pricing and a UK consumer who is being repeatedly told 2008 is going to be awful. Let us hope that common sense and improved liquidity prevails in 2008." Amen.

Feeling the rent squeeze

It's just plain odd the way rent jumps around sometimes. Luminar's new Oceana in Brighton, a multi-million pound investment, has been hit with an eye-watering 172% rise in annual rent. It was claimed that onerous noise restrictions, because the club is part of a cinema complex, should justify a relatively low rent for the high turnover site. Licensed and leisure specialists AG&G disagreed and, acting on behalf of landlord Odeon Cinemas, achieved a massive rise from £55,000 to £150,000 a year. 

Tough times at the New Angel

Life may be challenging in the pub trade, but it's certainly no easier in the restaurant business. Corporate restructuring specialist Begbies Traynor has been overseeing financial affairs at John Burton Race's restaurant, the New Angel, in Dartmouth. Burton Race's wife closed the New Angel, you may remember, while he was eating unspeakable things in the Australian outback in I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. Begbies reports total debts of over £1.1m.

Striking a blow for the trade

Good to hear Premium Bars & Restaurants chief executive Mark Jones on Radio Five Live on Christmas Eve putting the case for the on-trade in the binge-drinking debate. Jones was scoring points left, right and centre with observations about the price of booze in the off-trade. Even better to hear support phoned-in by a "Steve" who runs nightclubs. "Steve" sounded remarkably like Steve Thomas of Luminar, which resigned from the Bar Entertainment & Dance Association last year. Who needs a trade body when you're prepared to have a go at swinging public opinion yourself?

Third-time lucky for Jones

Mark Jones is to become non-executive chairman of Las Iguanas, the restaurant business that is 50% owned by private-equity firm Bowmark Capital. Bowmark previously owned Living Room, the bar business that Jones failed to buy twice before it was third time lucky under the

aegis of Premium. "I think Bowmark thought they owed me one," said Jones. "They didn't - the price went down each time we showed an interest."