Nick Pring: keeping it Real

Nick Pring's campaign for 'real pubs' is reviving corner houses all over London. He talks to. Phil Mellows about the mission that he and business partner Malcolm Heap have taken on.

Over smoked mackerel and pints of Betty Stogs at the North London Tavern, in Kilburn, a worrying thought crinkles Nick Pring's brow. The way things are going, there may not be any proper pubs left, he ponders.

Except there's you to save them, I suggest.

Pring looks surprised. The heavy responsibility of what he's taken on seems suddenly to have dawned on him.

At least he's not on his own. Pring is one of a growing band of multiple operators who are reviving pubs like this all over the country.

And the fact that he, and his business partner, Malcolm Heap, called the company Realpubs suggests they are fully aware they are on a mission to preserve something precious, something in danger of being lost.

So far they have rescued 14 London pubs, all big, solid corner houses near Tube stations, mostly in Zone 2. They started by leasing them from Enterprise and Punch, and in the past few years, thanks to a joint venture with private equity firm Brockton Capital and the tenanted pubco debt crisis, have converted the estate to freehold.

Now Pring can do what he wants with his pubs, an ambition that's driven him since he joined Bass Taverns as a graduate trainee. Why choose the pub industry?

"My degree was in environmental studies, which didn't put me into any particular box," he says. "I looked at a lot of graduate training schemes and got interviews with Unilever, Lloyds Bank, Sainsbury's and Bass. Bass was the one that excited me.

"I've always been good at throwing parties, and this business is like throwing a party every day of the week. It's the same principle — get people in and make sure they leave feeling they've spent a great night with you.

"I had five fantastic years with Bass. On the first day they told us we'd spend the first year working

in pubs. Our faces dropped. I wanted a suit and a mobile phone. But I worked in a dozen different pubs and it was the best year in terms of learning the trade."

Early days​

At the age of 24 he was made an area manager of 18 pubs on the outskirts of Leeds.

"I have very fond memories of those days. They were unbranded pubs and, as long as I had the approval of the surveyor, I could spend up to £150,000 on my own refurbs. I could decide what I wanted to do.

"I'm sure I got more involved in refurbs than other area managers did. I loved it, and all my investments turned out to be very good ones."

So good that Pring got the plum job of looking after some of Bass's biggest pubs, across a region that stretched from Glasgow to Hull.

But then he was spending "too much time the car" so he went to Whitbread to become operations manager for 100 Hog's Head pubs in southern England. "The brand was on the wane by then, and I wasn't happy," he says. "I realised my job satisfaction came from being able to influence the pub — not doing things by an operations manual. I knew I wasn't a brands person. I had to do something for myself."

At Whitbread, Pring met Heap, another former Bass man, and they found they shared a vision. "We both wanted to do the antithesis of what we were doing. We were passionate about the British pub — 'real' pubs in great buildings, fine Victorian architecture, iconic corner sites."

They each chipped in £35,000 of their savings and got a bank loan to match it. Pring gave up his job to look for their first 'real pub' venture.

"I must have looked at 50 pubs and done business plans for four or five of them. I spent a lot of time trying to convince people we could make it work."

Eventually, up came the Metropolitan in Westbourne Grove, west London, a former Bass managed house that was transferring to the Unique leased estate.

"When we took over in June 2002 it was taking £4,000 a week. It wasn't a bad pub, but it had its rough edges. We had big plans to reposition it, but we had to wait six months for planning permission.

"I started to wonder what I was doing. There wasn't enough work for Malc, so he took a six-month honeymoon. I wasn't even able to pay the window cleaner. I was doing the cleaning myself."

The Metropolitan​

The refurb was done in time for Christmas, though, and takings doubled. Then something amazing happened. The Metropolitan got discovered.

"It happened over the May Day bank holiday. We took £20,000 that week and we've never looked back.

"We couldn't keep up with it. It became the place to be. We had celebrities coming in including Calum Best and Kate Moss.

"On Sundays we put on a DJ and roasts and there were so many people that some of them brought picnic blankets so they could sit in the road. We knew we'd cracked it."

The Realpubs business plan suggested it would open 13 pubs in seven years.

"We did it," says Pring. "We're doing now what we set out to do. There is more of a food angle to the business, but we're definitely hitting the numbers.

"We were more wet-led at the Metropolitan but when this pub, the North London Tavern, came along 18 months later, it had a dining room and that was hugely successful from the word go. It gave us the format. We're now 35% food across the estate — though that's not exactly gastro."

He reckons the group can go to 30 pubs in the capital before it starts expanding further afield.

"We're very selective about sites — for each one we buy, we've probably looked at 10. We know where we want to be and know all the pubs in the locations we want. I get around on my bike, and I've got to know the city pretty well.

"We don't buy on the market, we might have our eye on a pub for two or three years and then make an offer on it."

In the process Pring and Heap have gained a loyal workforce.

"All our managers report directly to us, so it feels like a family business," says Pring. "They also have a lot of autonomy so they feel like they're running their own place. There's no branding anywhere in our pubs.

"The biggest problem we had with staffing was going from one to three pubs. It's easier now, with people coming through internally. We have 80 to 100 people working in the kitchens alone. There are always people pushing through and we have succession plans in place."

Expansion​

So Realpubs has the people to expand — and cash doesn't seem to be a worry either.

"The pubs are performing and the banks are very happy with us. In the first four weeks of 2011 we were 17% up on last year and only one of our pubs is trading flat.

"We're growing turnover because people are being more choosy, particularly about where they spend their money when they go out. So I'm not worried about the economy. It's going to be a cracking year."

My kind of pub​

"If I can't pick one of my own I'll go for the Churchill Arms in Kensington Church Street. It does things we wouldn't do — staff in uniforms, Thai food — but it's a good pub for a good pint.

"It always has a great selection of cask ales, really friendly staff, efficient service and a warm atmosphere."

Key dates​

• 1995 — After graduating from Manchester Polytechnic, Nick Pring signs up to the Bass Taverns graduate programme

• 1996 — After stints as an auditor and trainer, Pring is appointed area manager for Bass Taverns in Leeds

• 2000 — Joins Whitbread as operations manager, with responsibility for 110 Hog's Head pubs in southern England

• 2002 — Starts Realpubs with Malcolm Heap with the opening of Enterprise leasehold the Metropolitan

• 2003 — Purchases second Enterprise leasehold, the North London Tavern, in Kilburn, north-west London

• 2007 — Now with seven leases, Realpubs enters a joint venture with Brockton

Capital to build a freehold London pub estate

• 2008 — Buys three freeholds from Mitchells & Butlers

• 2009 — Acquires three freeholds from Punch Taverns

• 2010 — Buys the Vine, Kentish Town, north-west London