It's hell out there. Great!
The great French general and strategist (yes, there were some) Ferdinand Foch once remarked: "My centre is giving way, my right is retreating: situation excellent, I am attacking."
That's exactly the kind of spirit we need in the pub trade today. Our backs are firmly against the wall. We're under attack from the so-called New Puritans — the interfering busybodies who hate people smoking, drinking or enjoying themselves. Government seems to be fully signed up members of that club. Consumers are tightening their belts. The housing market is on the slide. Banks have given up being banks. And inflation is letting rip.
Excellent! Just the time for pubs to re-establish themselves at the heart of everyone's community.
Yes, things look bleak at the moment. But there really is a golden opportunity for good licensees to put a welcoming arm round the shoulder of fed-up, cash-strapped customers and make them feel things aren't so bad after all. What could be a better antidote to the blues than a friendly pub serving excellent food and drink at very reasonable prices?
Even the petrol crisis is playing into the hands of community pubs. Why drive
miles in your cash-guzzler when you can stroll to the local? (And if the new drink-drive laws come in... well, as they say,
every cloud has a silver lining.)
The best licensees are already on to this. We saw some of them on film at the ALMR's business show last week — top retailers like the Salisburys, Steve Wilkins' Little Gems and Corney and Barrow, who have the knack of recruiting great staff who can make customers feel happy. They've got, as someone put it, the hospitality reflex.
But many licensees are stuck. They've done things the same all their working lives, never saw the point of changing what once may have been not exactly a winning formula, but at least wasn't a losing formula. Well today, it is. And unless these licensees wake up and smell the coffee (with beer sales tanking, a more appropriate term than smelling the hops), they will be one of the 5,000 to 10,000 licensees sitting in the pub departure lounge.
Punch MD Deborah Kemp told the ALMR audience that her company analyses its licensees into two camps: those who can change, and those who can't. They don't see a future for those who can't.
Atrip to Adnams is always an inspiring occasion. A jewel of a brewery with proud, motivated people committed to the highest ethical and professional working standards. And all the more inspiring these days given its commitment to green values. Adnams really is showing the trade how to present itself in the 21st century.
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