Jolly Farmer: cultivating a quality offer

Run by brothers Steve and Chris Hardstone, the Jolly Farmer, in Bramley, near Guildford, Surrey, has a well-earned reputation for its cask ales and good food. Steve Hardstone tells Robyn Black how the pub maintains its edge over the competition.

How we got here

This used to be our parent's pub before they retired. To start with they employed some managers to look after it once they had left, but it didn't work out so my brother, Chris, and I took over about 26 years ago.

It was very different from what we were doing at the time — Chris was living abroad as an artist and I was in direct sales — but having grown up in the pub we knew exactly what we were letting ourselves in for.

Working together is quite easy actually; we are like two coaches going in the same direction. When we do argue it is usually productive. We roughly split the work, with Chris leaning towards looking after the wet side of the business and the cellar and me leaning towards catering, but really what we have learned over the years is that we both need to know the nuts and bolts of the entire business, so that whoever is nearest to hand can deal with a problem quickly.

Getting our ale offer right​

We're based in Surrey, near Guildford, which is generally a very affluent area, but that means there is a lot of competition. On top of that we have no passing footfall as we are in the sort of location you have to drive to get to.

There are plenty of managed pubs in the area, all of which do food and there are also many high-street chains around, such as Nando's and the Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Over the years we've been here, competition has just got stiffer and stiffer.

We've a long tradition as a really good ale house, which has always stood us in good stead when it comes to having the edge over the competition, particularly now as cask ale has become more fashionable, but it was always a core part of our offer even in the bad old days.

We just felt a proper pub should have good ale. We started with one and now we have eight on the bar and do about 20 casks a week. Doom Bar and Hogs Back Bitter are our best sellers and stay on permanently, while the others we get from all over the country.

We've built up good relationships with many brewers over the years and those that are near enough deliver direct to us and for brewers further away we have a good specialist wholesaler in the Midlands.

The only problem with building a reputation on cask ale is you have to be consistent. There's no point serving perfect beer one day and then when customers return, usually with friends, serving them a substandard pint. Being consistent is really at the core of what we try to achieve every day across the business here and we've built up a lot of loyalty over the years as a result.

Championing quality food​

It's the same with our food offer. We've been championing provenance and good quality meat and fish from named sources for years,

a long time before it became a fashionable trend.

I get up at 4am to drive to Smithfield Market to source good meat and the same for fish at Billingsgate. I've been doing it for two decades and it really gets the best quality at the best price.

I would describe our menu as modern British, with the pub classics such as fish & chips, pies and home-cooked ham all consistently remaining our best sellers over the years.

We try and keep the prices as reasonable as we can and don't run offers or deals or anything — again, it's about a consistent offer. The average spend is about £13 per head on food — without drinks that is.

Perhaps we're lucky with the area we're in or perhaps the quality of what we offer speaks for itself, but we are able to offer some top drinks — such as premium wines up to £50 or £60 a bottle and even a Champagne at £160 a bottle — and it all sells.

We've only got premium lager brands on offer and sell Beck's Vier for £3.70 a pint and Peroni for £4.90 a pint and we have no problem selling it.

Accommodation and staff​

We also have five accommodation rooms, which make up about 5% to 10% of the business, depending on the time of year. This is the one area where we have seen a bit of a dip since the recession, as we used to have a lot of business travellers

staying here.

Fortunately it's not a vital part of the business, more like the cherry on the icing. It's the same with the wedding business, which thrived for a while, but has dried up now.

We have quite a big staff — about seven full-time and up to 15 part-time — and some of them live on-site as well, to help us with the accommo-dation side among other things. I think that helps build a loyal team and more of a family feel.

We have always had a philosophy of trying to aid staff as much as possible, from helping put people through catering college to promoting and training internally. We also get involved in things like helping international staff set up bank accounts or sort out work permits.

We both very much believe that if you treat employees with respect then they will work harder and give more to their jobs as a result. We also have really good staff retention rates, which we are very proud of. Some of the team have been with us for decades.

Future plans​

We don't have anything drastic in mind. We run some events already such as a Sunday carvery, which contributes about 100 of the 400 covers a week we do here.

We also run a regular Sunday evening quiz, but this is a pub for conversation, good beer and good food — we don't want to fill it with endless events or karaoke, pool tables and games machines.

We are always tempted to expand and take on another pub, but it does bring a lot of its own problems. This isn't a small business in itself and there's a danger of spreading ourselves too thin.

Plus we're both big believers in a licensee actually being in the pub. It's still quite a personal business.

Success in a glass​

Wine makes up about 25% of our alcohol wet trade (the rest is made up of 60% beer and 15% spirits), as roughly half of our customers are female and they do tend to choose wine. We've got a pretty extensive wine list of about 67 bins and we do up to 20 of those by the glass.

We also allow customers to buy a bottle, which they write their name on and keep here to enjoy a glass or two a night over a period.

We invested in a Verre de Vin machine some years ago, so we can keep an open bottle fresh for up to four weeks for them.

It has become one of our most popular offers, and, of course, if their wine is here it encourages them to come in more often.

Facts 'n' stats​

Tenure: Freehold

Turnover: £700,000 per annum ex VAT

Wet:dry split: 60:40

Wet GP: 70%

Dry GP: 65% to 68%

Staff: seven full-time, 15 part-time

Staff wages as % of turnover: 18%

Covers per week: 400