Taybarns messy but happy
City Diary has followed Whitbread's all-you-can-eat concept Taybarns with enormous interest. Fresh evidence of its blockbuster potential emerged last week. Whitbread has around 400 pub restaurants, where like-for-like sales are up 4.5% — of this, seven Taybarns are delivering 1.8% or around 40% of the uplift. The only downside to Taybarns is that is can get quite messy as diners make repeated charges at the food deck. Yet it turns out that Taybarns is whipping Beefeater and Brewers Fayre on customer satisfaction scores, achieving a 97% score for "value for money" and
94% for "recommended to friends".
Premier package flies off shelves
Bundling, offering a meal and drink for a set price, is on the increase. Whitbread is now offering those who stay at its Premier Inns a two-course meal, drink of their choice and breakfast for £20, at sites co-located with pub restaurants. Hotel and pub restaurant boss Patrick Demsey reports 20,000 of these value bundles were sold in the first few weeks after their launch.
The best kind of regular punter
City Diary's favourite watering hole near the office is the superb Chequers at Slaugham, located in a delightful Sussex village and operated to a very high standard by Brighton-based multiple operator InnBrighton. There's a regular who visits the pub for lunch and dinner each day, spending a mighty £1,500 per month. And, quite frankly, it's money very well spent.
Bargain buys may double Merchant
A phone call to veteran leisure industry investor Robert Breare to tell him that no fewer than four pubs operated by his company Merchant Inns are placed in the top 10 of the industry's best pubs, as voted for by a pool of hundreds of industry professionals on a list compiled by the Morning Advertiser. Breare is, naturally, delighted. And there's a signal that the pub market is offering bargains — he reports that he thinks Merchant Inns can double in size by the end of the year.
Wailing insight from Hastings
Journalist Max Hastings, who used to edit the Telegraph, has written an essay in the Daily Mail on the decline of the British pub. He says a number of sensible things, but then he offers this analysis of the industry from Professor David Preece, an academic at Teesside University. "(He) condemns what he calls the 'financialisation' of the industry. 'Pubs are assets that can be bought,' he says. 'If the big conglomerates that now dominate ownership can make more money by selling and reinvesting elsewhere, that's what they do.'" It's called business, Max.
Punch shows green shoots
Absolute honesty is the order of the day at Punch Taverns. Over on the managed side, Mike Tye has been wrestling with an ever-expanding estate, swollen by 50 bouncebacks (or lease reversions as they are more properly called). A grand total of 45 have now come back from Orchid Group's administration four days before Christmas. But there's better news at Chef & Brewer, the flagship premium food brand that was suffering minus 8% like-for-likes a year ago. Tye has introduced value offers, improved menus and sharpened service. And there are signs of recovery. Referring to last year's dire like-for-likes, Tye reports: "They are not as bad as that, but they are not where they need to be."
Chef & Brewer's premium push
Punch Taverns produced a grid for City analysts last week, showing all the new market positions it intends to occupy as it remodels the Spirit managed estate with a host of fresh concepts. These concepts were shown as pink rectangles. Just above Chef & Brewer was one marked "Premium Food", a surprise given that Chef & Brewer is supposed to be a premium offer. Tye, to his credit, conceded what we all knew: "Under various ownerships, Chef & Brewer has not kept pace with the premiumisation of food." A problem acknowledged is half-solved as somebody once said.
Mr Marston's High Court case
Confusion reigned at the High Court as one-time Marston's multiple lessee Mark Charman presented his case against the operator last week. Charman was appealing against a judge's decision that he should pay £93,000 to the court in order to continue his case against the pubco. The dispute centres over dilapidations charges and a counter claim over misrepresentation of trading potential. Despite being rectified by his colleagues on the bench on several occasions, Lord Justice Rix continued to refer to Mr Charman as Mr Marston throughout the hearing. The irony of it all is that with 30 Marston's leases at one time, it was probably once an appropriate tag.
Beefeater beats own 1994 prices
The trick now for anyone in the pub sector is to press down hard on the value lever to drive volumes. Whitbread boss Alan Parker had some startling figures at last week's results that show how Beefeater is now charging a heck of a lot less for key meals than 15 years ago, in 1994: rump steak & chips, gammon steak & chips, and fish & chips all cost £5.95 — they were priced at £9.25, £7.35 and £6.95 respectively in 1994.
Dodds gets down to bare bones with new purchase
Anti-pubco campaigner Mark Dodds made a guest appearance on last week's The Apprentice. One of the team alighted on the Sun & Doves pub in Camberwell, a Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises site run by Dodds. Tasked with selling an assortment of bric-a-brac, the team had to sell a skeleton worth £160. The team's luck was in big time as Dodds, who has been at loggerheads with S&NPE, forked out £160 in notes. He says: "Strangely enough, I bought the skeleton. Perhaps unintentionally it was
an ironic purchase, but I've always wanted one and the moment presented itself. I now own a plastic skeleton."