Roasts: How to modernise your offer

Roasts-to-go​

In this modern age of time poverty, a growing trend for take-away roasts, such as the service offered by the Farm Tavern in Hove, East Sussex, is emerging. The pub offers a hot and cold take-away option for all of its Sunday roasts and desserts.

Customers can even choose to have their roast-to-go served straight onto their own plate, brought from home. Taking the take-away option one step further is Andrew McKenzie, lessee of the Penny Black in Hartburn, Stockton, who uses a delivery service to bring the pub’s roast dinners right to his customer’s door.

Using a local franchise, One Delivery, the Star Pubs & Bars site has been trialling the service for the past five months and now sells around 25-30 home-delivered Sunday roasts each week, accounting for approximately 20% of its total Sunday lunch sales. Customers order online, via the delivery company’s website, or can phone the pub direct.

The meal is packaged, sealed, then collected and delivered, for a charge, by One Delivery to the customer’s front door. The pub also pays a fee of 10% of the value of the food to the delivery company.

“The system is great as it allows us to very easily sell additional lunches as well as freeing up dining space in the pub” says McKenzie.

Offer group packages​

Edinburgh’s Kyloe Steak Restaurant and Grill, whose offering won it the title of Best Roast in Britain in 2013 and finalist in 2014, limits its Sunday roast offering to group packages.

Louise MacLean, head of sales, marketing and PR for the restaurant’s parent company, Signature Pubs, explains: “A roast dinner is the ultimate sharing food. Our Sunday roast packages are about creating a home-style Sunday lunch in a restaurant environment.”

Kyloe’s Family Sunday Roast offers a roast rib of beef, carved at the table by one of the restaurant’s managers, together with all the trimmings and a British pudding to share. “We have an awful lot of regulars who come in most weeks for one of our roasts” says MacLean.

“For a family of five, the package works out at £20 per head for the best beef money can buy.” The restaurant, whose beef is supplied by Hardiesmill in Gordon, Berwickshire, noticed a gap in their offering for smaller family units, so recently introduced a roast fillet option, available for two people, which is proving to be very popular.

Group roasts can also be an easier option for the kitchen according to Dean Wilson, manager of the Greyhound in Kew, London.

The Enterprise pub has been offering self-carve Sunday roast sharing boards, alongside its regular roasts, for a couple of years now, finding that the sharing boards ease pressure on kitchen staff as food is produced in one serving. “We serve the roasts on large wooden boards with Yorkshire puddings, crumbed parsnips, homemade Scotch eggs and baby vegetable bundles” explains Wilson.

Roasts aren’t just for Sundays​

Traditionally, Sunday roasts went in before the sermon, to be enjoyed with family and friends after their visit to church. Whilst Sunday lunch is still a cultural mainstay with, according to a CGA Strategy report, 67% of Sunday pub sales coming from a food offering, changes in working patterns and longer shop opening hours mean that licensees should consider serving their roasts at other times of the week.

One pub owner to have widened his roast serving times is Steve Ruffell-Hazell who runs the Down Inn in Bridgnorth, Shropshire. The pub operates its carvery at both lunchtime and in the evening, seven days a week.

Ruffell-Hazell explains: “I used to work for Toby Carvery who offer a carvery facility every lunchtime and evening. The idea works, taking pressure off of the kitchen and allowing a business to cater for large numbers of covers relatively easily, so I introduced it here. We still experience a peak on Sundays, but sell between 30 and 40 roast covers every week-day, predominantly to the grey market. We also attract a large number of functions and coach parties, actively steering them towards our carvery offering.”

Mix it up​

Mark Selfe who, along with his parents, runs the George in Trottiscliffe, West Malling, Kent, introduced both two-tone and three-tone roast options to his Sunday food offering after finding that many customers were asking to have more than one meat with their meal.

As the names suggest, the pub’s Two-Tone roast combines two meats, roast beef and pork, whilst the Three-Tone offers customers three - beef, pork and chicken. “Lots of people were asking for a combination of meats and, as we don’t have the space to offer a carvery, we decided to introduce mixed roasts as a regular menu choice” Mark says.

The Two-Tone roast is now the most popular of the pub’s eight-strong roast offering. Winners of the 2014 title for Best British Roast Dinner, West London’s Truscott Arms in Maida Vale, serve their roasts on large boards, allowing groups of diners to easily order a variety of meats to share, whilst Bacchus Sundays, a weekly pop-up at East London’s Hoxton Street Studios, offers ‘The Undecided,’ allowing customers to try all the meats on offer as well as every trimming.

Meat-free roasts​

A meat-eater’s delight, the traditional Sunday roast is very often not the food of choice for vegetarian diners, put off by the limited choice of vegetarian roast options available. James Armitage, head of marketing at Enterprise Inns, explains why this situation needs to be re-dressed.

“It’s important to include appetising options for vegetarians, as these customers often decide where the whole group eats” he says. Armitage cites Enterprise publican, Zoe Rodgers at the George Payne in Hove, East Sussex, who estimated that of the 180 Sunday lunches she served recently, 30 were vegetarian.

“Consumers are no longer satisfied with a nut roast option” he explains, “so by experimenting with unusual ingredients and seasonal vegetables you can create the difference vegetarian consumers crave.”

Offer a sandwich​

For those not wanting a full meal but nevertheless keen not to miss out on the weekly tradition, a roast sandwich is a good option. Freehold pub the Parlour in Chorlton, Manchester added roast meat sandwiches to its Sunday lunch menu, around four years ago, to appeal to those customers wanting a smaller bite.

General manager Chris Byrne explains: “We offer roast meat sandwiches, beef with horseradish and roast pork with homemade apple sauce, every Sunday, serving them on locally-made barm cakes. We also serve bowls of roast potatoes, as a side dish, and the two are often ordered together. As the weather gets warmer, the roast sandwiches become a more popular option and are easier for people to eat outside.”

Customers at County Durham’s South Causey Inn are also able to enjoy a selection of roast meat baps every Sunday. The award-winning pub serves them with chunky chips and gravy.

Beef it up​

Marrying roast beef with beer is a classic British combination, enjoying a recent boost in popularity, and one that Charles Rogers, owner of the Dog in Suffolk’s Grundisburgh, used for his recent St George’s Day celebration.

At the pub’s patriotic beef and beer evening, guests were served roast rib of beef, Yorkshire puddings and all the trimmings alongside jugs of ale. “Roast beef is a national dish, so very fitting for St George’s Day” Rogers explains.

“People aren’t eating like this at home anymore, so it’s great for them to be able to come to the pub to enjoy a traditional favourite. For tables of four or more people, we served the whole rib of beef and carved it at the table” he says. “We also offered four-pint jugs of ale at special prices.”

The 60-cover restaurant was fully booked for the event.