Coach House: Back on track

Robinsons licensee Darren Johnson tells Tony Halstead about revitalising the Coach House, in High Bentham, North Yorkshire.

How we got here​

My wife Amanda and I ran a pub at Winsford in Cheshire for six years, but became increasingly disillusioned with life under the big pub companies. Trying to deal with them meant we were slowly being put out of business, thanks to excessive rent and barrelage charges.

In the end we were forced to sell our lease mainly to pay off debts we had run up. But we still felt we had a career in the pub industry and while on holiday in the Lake District picked up a pub beer mat, advertising Cheshire family brewer Robinsons. We gave the company a call and four months later in April 2009, following Robinsons' excellent advice and support, we were installed as the new Coach House tenants.

Our game plan​

The Coach House is in the centre of the rural market village of High Bentham which sits near the borders of three different counties: Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Lancashire. There is a strong community feel in the village, which gets a big boost from tourism in the summer months thanks to its great location near to Lancaster, Kendal, Kirkby Lonsdale and Settle.

There are three big caravan parks nearby and High Bentham itself has a population of nearly 4,000. Our first job was to win back local customers because the previous operators had run the pub almost exclusively as a restaurant on severely limited trading hours. It is a Grade II-listed building with a separate dining room and four high quality letting bedrooms, but, most importantly, the building was in a good state of general repair.

Our mission was to increase beer sales through local trade, offer a more flexible food service and advertise the pub extensively to attract overnight guests. The business had been poorly marketed in the past and attracted few outside visitors, with the locals also giving the place a wide berth.

It had been run in such a way that potential customers were put off by the restaurant-level food-prices and most were unsure whether the pub would be open when they arrived. Nobody seemed to be aware that the Coach House already had four quality letting bedrooms. In short, we had a battle on our hands.

What we did​

• Beer trade

Robinsons is a well-known family brewer and pub operator, but High Bentham is one of its more remote locations, so its beers are not found in very many pubs nearby. We knew we could capitalise on marketing and promoting the brewery's cask ales, so that was at the top of our agenda as soon as we took over. We immediately changed the opening hours from 12 noon until midnight, seven days a week, and made sure everyone knew about it. Basically we needed to turn the Coach House back into a pub and raise its profile. Beer trade began to show an increase within the first month and now we are on target to achieve increased sales of more than 65% after year one ends this coming April.

• Food trade

The pub had been open just four days a week; food trade had fallen away and despite its lofty image had relied on quite a bit of frozen produce. We decided to approach local farmers and suppliers to establish a chain of quality fresh ingredients coming to the pub. This was also good for word-of-mouth advertising as it quickly got round that there was a completely different food service now in operation.

All our meat and fresh vegetables now come from local butchers and grocers; our bread and cakes are from a local bakery and cheeses from local tradesmen. We completely re-wrote the menu, encompassing classic pub dishes supplemented by a specials board including items such as locally-caught game. By last summer we had upped the number of covers per week from around 75 to more than 300.

• Accommodation

The four bedrooms had been an almost unused part of the business and were barely advertised as the pub's website had become almost obsolete. We commissioned a local web designer to produce a new website to promote our beers, food and accommodation.

We also started to advertise our rooms in tourist brochures and marketed them alongside the many bed and breakfast venues in the local area, flagging up our rooms as something a bit different.

• Training

We see properly trained staff as a key element to the success and growth of the business. We have four full-time and seven part-time staff, with most embarking on NVQ programmes relevant to their roles at the Coach House.

We put all staff through Lancaster College, which has produced some very successful results for us. We cannot understand any licensees not putting their staff through this sort of training facility.

Our plans for 2010​

We aim to increase our restaurant covers to 50 by re-arranging space to cater for peak trading periods. We also plan to upgrade the bedrooms with the aim of achieving a five-star quality rating.

A further boost to local trade is planned by the introduction of a loyalty card to give regular customers a 10% discount on food and drink. Overall we hope this will eventually give us a 30% boost in wet sales and an increase in food covers to 400-plus per week.

Looking back​

Basically we feel we have achieved most of what we set out to do last April although we are definitely not resting on our laurels. The worst thing we could do is to sit back and allow the business to stand still, so we have to continue to look forward.

We wanted the Coach House to become the focal point of the village and we were thankful we had carried out a lot of initial research to identify gaps in the local pub market.

I think we sit well alongside the two other village pubs, which do things slightly differently. The pleasing thing for us is that we've got local customers back in the pub providing the essential community environment, which a pub like the Coach House should be doing.

We certainly don't regret our move up here, which has enabled us to link up with a family brewer that still believes in traditional values and a straightforward tenancy system. One of the key factors has been running a pub on a traditional tenancy. It's a world apart from life under the big pubcos.

Facts 'n' stats​

The Coach House, High Bentham, North Yorkshire​

Owner:​ Frederic Robinson, Stockport

Tenants:​ Darren and Amanda Johnson

Turnover:​ £330,000 pa (est)

Rent:​ £20,000 pa

Wet GP:​ 60%

Dry GP:​ 50%

Wet:dry:accommodation split:​ 60:35:5

Meals per week:​ 300

Average food spend per head:​ £14

Best-selling dish:​ Steak & ale pie (£8)