Family pubs: fun for all the family
Kids Have all the fun, it's often said. For a long time this was the case in Spirit Group's Wacky Warehouse venues, essentially children's playbarns attached to pubs. Ball pools, slides and rope ladders keep the kids amused - but as Spirit Group realised, it can be too easy to overlook the parents.
Consultation groups revealed that parents were happy with Wacky Warehouses' soft play kits for children, but were unhappy with the environment they themselves had to sit in.
The pubco is now bidding to bring mum and dad back into the fold by adding adult areas to Wacky Warehouses. Modelled on high street coffee shop chains, these areas incorporate magazines and newspapers, 42-inch plasma screens to show sport, an adult-friendly look with lots of dark wood panelling and, of course, hot drinks and coffee-shop style food. The venue is laid out in such a way that adults can have a clear view of their children enjoying themselves.
The adult areas are scheduled to be rolled out to 44 of the venues in the 126-strong Wacky Warehouse estate by the end of this financial year, according to its operations manager Karen Turton.
She explains that Spirit started to consider what it internally labels 'Adult Wacky' around nine months ago. The company was converting two sites into venues with Wacky Warehouses attached. Karen says: "We realised we had not moved the brand on in some years. Children's and adults' behaviours had changed. This was the perfect time to respond to that."
The company launched a trial of the adult areas in the two pubs under development, the Outside Inn, Blackpool, and the Outside Inn, Mottram, located in Hyde, Manchester. The concept was based on high street coffee operators such as Ritazza and Costa, but consistent with the 'value' offering of Wacky Warehouse.
This trial "went down fabulously", according to Karen, and was followed by trials in 11 more sites, before the current programme of expansion began.
It is all part of a change in Spirit's approach towards the evolving family market. Karen explains: "We are targeting volume of customers. We have understood that we need more parents coming into the Wackys. We're also starting to look at average spend per head.
"We are now treating them as a real business proposition, not just an add-on. They were always built to try to drive business into the pub. What's happened over time is we know a large proportion come into the Wacky Warehouse who don't have the need to go into the pub."
The new versions of the playbarn concept have generated an average return on investment for Spirit of 40 per cent, according to Karen, and year-on-year revenue growth of 50 per cent for some outlets.
Karen says: "That growth has absolutely come through engineering this new volume."
The average weekly take of a Wacky Warehouse (not including that of the pub to which it is attached) is £800, she says. This modest figure looks set to increase now that the company has made mum and dad feel more welcome.
"It's not uncommon now to see a dad tucked into a sofa in a Wacky Warehouse, reading the paper or watching the match, while the kids go off and play," says Karen. "Wacky Warehouse has evolved."
Positive on smoking
Wacky Warehouses have been no-smoking facilities since day one. However, Karen is positive about the effect that the smoking ban will have in making pubs a more attractive proposition for families.
"The smoking ban can only be beneficial to Wacky Warehouse,' she says.
