M&B rebrands Pub & Carvery

Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) is to rebrand its fast-expanding Pub & Carvery brand as Crown Carveries.

The brand, which serves the company's largest number of weekly covers with an average per venue of 3,400 and has average site sales of £20,000 per week, has doubled in size in the past 12 months, moving from 50 sites to just over 100.

The Alma in Southampton, a former Whitbread venue acquired as part of the package of 239 venues bought in 2006, opens this weekend with the Crown Carveries branding and will be the 101st site.

M&B hopes to change the signage at all Pub & Carvery venues by the end of 2008. There are five or six sites, acquired as part of the M&B asset swap last month with Whitbread that brought in another 44 pub-restaurants, which are earmarked for conversion to Crown Carveries.

Pub & Carvery conversions produce an average sales uplift of £5,300 per week — venues charge around £3.50 for a carvery meal during the week and £6.50 on Sundays.

An M&B spokeswoman said: "The Pub & Carvery offer has been very well received and the time was right for a new look as part of the brand's development."

The new Crown Carveries signage has been trialled at the Cock & Crown in Wakefield, and was also in place at the 100th opening, the Scoop Inn on the Isle of Wight.

The new brand name for Pub & Carvery comes as its retail operations director Steve Cash moves on to become retail operations director at Harvester.

An M&B source said: "Steve has done a fantastic job building the brand — M&B likes to give staff the chance from time to time to learn new skills as part of their development."

Cash is being replaced by Martin Gosling, previously retail operations director for M&B's high-street bars.