How we got here
I left school at 15 and after a number of jobs, including digging holes and cleaning bacon boilers, joined Midland Bank. My time there gained me experience as a lender and corporate planner and, since leaving in 1976, I have been involved in running several of my own businesses as well as a number of business start-ups and rescues in a variety of sectors.
The pub next door to my home in Faversham was closed and run-down so, in September 2009, I bought it. It had previously been a Thai pub-restaurant, but I wanted a decent English pub and that’s what we’ve got now.
Start-up renovation costs were around £70,000 and we reopened two months later. The pub is clean, warm and welcoming with log fires, Chesterfield sofas, good cutlery and china and great, well-kept beers and Corney & Barrow wines.
Achieving business growth
As a local myself, I wanted to create a pub that was the type that I would walk around town looking for. We hit the ground running, as you have to, and have introduced a lot of ideas in a relatively short space of time. Not all of them have worked, but we will try anything.
We have hit on a market — by identifying the type of customer that we wanted to attract — and have catered for it. The pub is traditional in a quality sense, perhaps almost suave, but comfortable and relaxed, not exclusive.
There is no TV for the public, no alcopops, no jukeboxes, no fruit machines, and no condom machines. We welcome children and dogs and do a lot for charity. I suppose you would call us a community pub. Fortunately, many people in the area share my vision as the pub is busy.
Standing out from the competition
If we were within the M25 there would be many like us, but I like to think it’s the atmosphere we create, the quality and value we give and our style that makes us stand out.
A third of our customers didn’t go to a pub in town before we opened, because there wasn’t one they liked. Women come in on their own or in small groups and feel comfortable. We’re not the cheapest, and don’t want to be.
The public like us, saying great and kind things, and we are busy. In 2010 we were awarded Best Newcomer for the south-east region at the Great British Pub Awards.
Business philosophy
We aim to provide a comfortable environment in which customers can enjoy quality at sensible prices, giving both value for money and an experience that they will enjoy and want to repeat. Consistency is key.
Best piece of business advice given
To seek to provide a consistently high-quality service that is food-driven. We are proud of our culinary offering, which is not only good value for money, but high in terms of quality.
Bar talk
All of our wines are supplied by the Royal Warrant holder Corney & Barrow, with eight available by the glass. The emphasis of our list is on quality and value for money and we sell a considerable amount of non-food-associated wine which, for this area, is unusual.
We also offer a wide selection of about 30 whiskies and red and white Port. Our draught lagers consist of Peroni, Stella Artois, Staropramen and Beck’s Vier and we offer a wide range of real ales from around the country. We run four handpumps every day.
Harveys of Lewes [in East Sussex] is a constant and we keep an entry-level bitter, which tends to be Adnams Best, Adnams Lighthouse, Otter or Ringwood Best.
The other two turn around on each barrel change (often including a blonde), with favourites such as Doom Bar, Timothy Taylor, Adnams Broadside and London Pride, as well as others from smaller, local breweries including Nelson Brewing Company, in Chatham, Broadstairs-based Gadds and the Whitstable Brewery.
ON THE MENU
Menu Philosophy
We offer good food, home-made on the premises, using local suppliers wherever possible. Our food is well-priced and offers customers a wide choice, from light bites and pub snacks to traditional pub grub and à la carte. Our core menu changes seasonally and there is a daily-changing specials board.
Best-selling dishes
Starters/light bites: Whitebait — small (£3.25), large (£4.50); kedgeree — small (£3.75), large (£5.75); Stilton mushrooms — small (£4.05), large (£5.95).
Mains: Gourmet burger (£6.15); steak and kidney pie (£10.15); ham, egg and chips (£6.95); pork steak (£13.95); pan-fried trout (£12.95); 6oz rib-eye steak (£15.50).
Desserts: Bread and butter pudding (£5.45); lemon posset (£3.95); Kent cheeseboard (£6.95).
Best food event
We offer, on average, five special events each month with additional weekly theme nights. Events are fun, give us profile, and draw in customers in a difficult market. As well as regular initiatives such as a winter stew night and charity quizzes, we also hold dinner discussion nights and our Half Mast Poets Club performs at events such as our mad hatter’s dinner party.
Our Trafalgar Night offered Nelson 1805 on tap with a four-course meal of potted shrimps, roast beef, chocolate rum pots and Stilton and biscuits preceded by a tot of rum. Bangers and mash were also available at the bar, the staff were in nautical attire and the pub was decorated in a similar vein.
IN THE KNOW
Service secrets
Picking the right staff and teaching them properly to do what you want them to do is important, but the bottom line is to really care about your customers; to know them and to treat them as individuals.
Customers are hard to win over, so when you have them, in whatever business, you have to look after them and nurture them. As a member of staff, you have to know that they might be the 50th person you’ve served on that particular day, but the customer is not interested in the other 49. They just want you to take care of them.
Successful marketing and PR
Paid-for advertising is mostly a waste of money in my view and, if done at all, should be strategic and part of a presence rather than expecting a specific return.
We run our own database from feedback cards, use Facebook and Twitter and send out a weekly email, but get masses of free publicity locally, regionally and nationally from print, wireless and by telling people what we do.
Staff motivation
Our team consists of two full-time chefs, two full-time managers, and a number of part-timers. They all start by knowing that they are valued as part of a team, but also that it works two ways; they have to play a part in that team and doing so means they enjoy their work, which is motivational.
I also believe in treating staff as grown-ups and helping them develop their own particular skills. You have to have confidence in them when you’re not there. We pay well, but we don’t have an incentive scheme — yet.
PUB FACTS
Tenure: Enterprise Inns lease
Licensee: David Selves
Website: www.thephoenixtavernfaversham.co.uk
Wet:dry split: 70:30
GP food: 60% but aiming for 65% plus. The pub is absorbing costs at the moment because of market conditions
GP drink: 60% but aiming for more than 65%
Total covers: 63 (inside); 100 (outside)
Average weekly covers: 185
Average spend per head: £10 (bar) and £22 (à la carte)
Five best ideas
- Bin End Club — offering quality wine at competitive prices for customers to take home.
- Real Ale Advisory Board — a group of customers who meet in the pub monthly to sample and discuss unusual bottled beers.
- Wine-list style guide — helps customers make an informed choice by numbering wines from one to five, or lightest to heaviest.
- Game, set and match menu — there is a different set menu each week based on rabbit, duck, venison, pigeon, wild boar sausages, game stew and game pie, with recommended wines, beers/lagers to complement it.
- Independent State of Phoenix — a fund-raising initiative in which an annual, corrupt, presidential election takes place. Votes are sold and customers vote as often as they like for as many people as they like. A dog won last year.