Spoken bar in Exmouth, Devon, won the Best Spirits Pub award at the 2015 Great British Pub Awards and its “steak and bj day” deal encourages diners to book and offers them two steaks and two cocktails for just £25.
Spoken owner George Nightingale said: “It has been nothing but positive this end and while being a bit close to the line, when the day comes round, everyone is talking about it anyway. This year, I am being proactive about it, and bookings have come in nicely for a mid-week in March."
Quirky site
He added: “With an organic reach of more than 15,000 people on Facebook, I haven’t had a single negative comment.
“Spoken is known for being quirky and this is not an offer I would promote in the bar to customers of a certain age and disposition.
“However, online marketing of this is relatively tame for what is allowed to be posted online. I was careful not to market this to minors and only to followers of Spoken who know what we are about.”
One Facebook user, Jemma Norton, said: “Fair play Spoken!”
Celebrating events
Another, Sarah Howell tagged a Facebook friend in her comment and said: “Somewhere to take your missus instead of cooking” with a laughing/crying emoji.
Meanwhile, this wasn’t the first time a pub has taken advantage of celebration days in its marketing as earlier this year (February) a licensee welcomed the “fit, fat and fugly” – along with a picture of Sloth from The Goonies – in his bar’s ‘undateables’ Valentine’s event advert.
Owner of Oscar’s Gin Bar in Stockton-On-Tees, Durham, Craig Harker, said he “didn’t want to leave anyone out” when he came up with his latest “tongue-in-cheek” poster for his venue’s Valentine’s Day event.
The poster advertised the bar’s “undateables’ night” and said “fit, fat or fugly” are all welcome, offering drinks deals for one.