Refurbishment focus
There are few things as powerful as a refurbishment when it comes to changing customer's perceptions of your business or for clearly spelling out what type of pub you want to be.
The décor you choose can make the difference between people visiting your premises or the pub down the road. Getting it right is essential.
We spoke to two small pub companies, Geronimo Inns and Grand Union Group, to see how they coped with refurbishing two new pubs, and also about what design cues they used when creating two new concepts.
For Geronimo, the challenge was transforming a neglected, wet-led pub into a comfortable music pub with community appeal. Whereas Grand Union had to adapt its sleek, urban style to a country pub.
Geronimo Inns' first music pub
Pub: The Elgin, Ladbroke Grove, London
Tenure: Freehold
Number of pubs: 12 freeholds, 15 leaseholds
Cost of refurb: £200,000
If you mention the Elgin to people living in Ladbroke Grove, most will remember it for one of two things. Firstly for its amazing stained glass Victorian screen, carved wood back-bar and ornate mirrors, and secondly, for being a rundown, female-unfriendly sports pub.
For Geronimo, a company that has built its reputation on community pubs with a quirky mix of modern and traditional design, fresh food and a quality drinks range, this was a rough diamond waiting to be polished.
Geronimo bought the pub in July from Punch Taverns as part of a package of six sites. Head of design Jo Clevely, who founded the company in 1995 with husband Rupert, is in charge of how every site in the company looks.
With over 20 pubs under her belt, designing the Elgin should have been easy. However, Geronimo chose this pub, which was one of the first venues played by the Clash, as the company's first music pub.
Jo wanted the space to be flexible enough to host a band, but also to have clearly defined areas where people could eat, drink and relax.
"We want it to feel like a country house dining room but also for people to feel they're not in a great big room. But this space has to be flexible enough to have bands play here. So we have divided the pub up into different sections but we have used furniture that can be moved to help define spaces. For example we plan to adapt an old bureau to be the mixing desk."
A large cabinet and a shelving unit, both set on casters, divide the space on gig-free nights, but can be wheeled away to open up the pub's back room when a band is playing.
Besides that, hints to the pub's musical leanings feature in paintings on the wall such as one that depicts legendary rockers eating the last supper and photographs of Elton John and the Spice Girls in the ladies loo.
Grand Union's first country pub
Pub: The Grand Union at The Three Locks, Stoke Hammond, Buckinghamshire
Tenure: Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises (S&NPE) lease
Number of pubs: 10 leasehold
Cost of refurb: £720,000
When Grand Union Group takes on a site, it likes to splash money on transforming it. Though Adam Marshall and Adam Saword, who founded the company in 2006, want each of their 10 pubs to look like they're independently owned, they all have the company's signature style.
With the other pubs located in London and their target market being predominantly young professionals, the décor in the past has been modern and urban but with an Edwardian twist.
For their first site in the country, with the pub having to appeal to a slightly different crowd, the challenge at the Three Locks was how to adapt the Grand Union brand to suit the pub, without diluting it? The pub is the first of six planned restaurant-pubs in the Home Counties - very different from the London venues that offer only a bar-grill menu.
"Supreme quality vintage furniture, complimented with general knick-knacks, is part of our commercial DNA," says Marshall.
"But we also designed the pub to attract the local community. The entire site, inside and out, needed total refurbishment. We wanted the Three Locks to appeal to anyone who enjoys quality, locally sourced produce, at fair prices, in wonderfully elegant water's edge surroundings."
The nine-week scheme, £594,100 of which was funded by S&NPE, included extensive structural alterations such as removing the kitchen, cellar and toilets, adding a car park and a large external seating area facing the canal. The deck, which seats 100, has an outdoor sound system.
A mix of traditional furniture and warm colours has kept things classic.
Saword says: "There has been an enormous increase in trade and we are extremely happy with the performance thus far. Since opening six months ago, trade is more than 10 times higher than pre closure and 25 per cent ahead of our forecast."
