Settle for the best
Mark Stretton meets Katie Reed, one of the founders of the Settle Inn, and discovers how she has built up her pubco from scratch.
Walking through the door at the Settle Inn it is hard to imagine a nasty upholstered carpet, frosted windows and heavily-tattooed Chelsea fans, but that was pretty much the picture before Katie Reed and Paul McKinley stepped in.
They took control of the battered Rising Sun two and half years ago and have the pictures to prove the transformation that ensued.
Looking back through the pub then-and-now photo album, it is hard to believe what went before. Now punters entering the magnificent three-storey Victorian building are greeted with big windows, wooden floors, clean lines and open fires. And there isn't a Chelsea shirt in sight.
Before taking the plunge at the Battersea pub, Katie and Paul visited as customers to get a feel for the place. "We stuck out a mile," she said. "The pub was filthy and horrible but we could see the potential.
"It was a seedy little pub with frosted glass and net curtains," recalls Katie. "There was this huge u-shaped bar that took up most of the trading space."
To get off the ground they raised a six-figure sum. Paul, a trained architect, sold his house in France, while Katie re-mortgaged her flat.
They took the keys on January 2000 and set about gutting the insides. Friends and family were roped in to demolish and paint. No electricity meant 7am starts and that daylight dictated the hours they worked.
The duo went to court to change the position of the u-bar.
The application was granted just days before they were due to open. "It was like a military operation," said Katie. "We had the Coca-Cola lines going in at 7am and then Courage in at 10am.
"It was so exciting. But when we finally opened we were both really depressed - there was nothing to paint or fix."
The Settle Inn opened on the evening of Friday March 17 - St Patrick's Day. "It was a blinding night," said Katie. "We had been working in the pub constantly for two months and had sparked a lot of local interest.
"When we opened it felt like half of Battersea came along."
Initially, both Katie and Paul worked seven days a week. "It was our business and we had to make it work," she said.
The appointed chef at Settle Inn failed to show so Katie found herself in the kitchen for the first four months. She installed a fresh food policy straight away. "We wanted to avoid an a la ping (microwave) menu," she said. "When I started in the pub trade we would nuke everything.
"I think customers are much more aware now - people's expectations have grown up."
The duo's hard work paid off - last year the Settle Inn at Battersea scooped the Evening Standard London Pub of the Year award. Battersea was the first pub to open under the Settle Inn banner. Two more have followed, one in Archway, the other in Kensington.
Both sites have an interesting past. Archway was the fifth in Tim Martin's Wetherspoon empire and Kensington, a basement bar now called Settle Down, was formerly Scribes, the nightclub owned by ex-England manager Terry Venables.
Although still very much involved, Paul McKinley has taken a step back to launch a building business and now Katie is at the helm on her own, making her one of the rare breed of women who heads up a pub company.
"It is a fairly male-dominated industry," she said. "It used to really wind me up. Me and Paul are equal business partners but when we would go to meetings people would assume he was the boss and talk to him."
Katie got her first taste of the industry at her local pub, aged 14. "That was my first job," she said. "I was only allowed to chop carrots and wash up but it was quite an experience - the licensee was a raging alcoholic."
She studied hotel and catering at Brighton and then went to work for Hugh Corbett at Harvey Floorbangers in Lavender Hill, where she met Paul McKinley.
Kate then went travelling in Australia and New Zealand. She returned to work, once more for Hugh Corbett, as an assistant manager at the Fulham branch of the Tup chain that was later snapped up by Massive.
She worked for Massive for eight months before breaking out on her own.
Katie says the industry does a pretty good job of training its staff and the most important thing is enthusiasm. "At the Fulham Tup, potential employees would be sent to walk around the block," she said. "The slow ones didn't get a job."
Katie has been keeping a fast pace ever since. With the help of an electronic device she recently measured the distance she walked in the course of a morning's work behind the bar. In three hours she covered 12 miles. "We had a beer delivery and it was a Five Nations day," she said. "I get through a lot of shoes."
The company is not looking to expand further just yet. "We are not looking for anymore sites at the moment," said Katie. "But we are in touch with a number of property agents and if an opportunity arises we will take it."
The issue of the beer tie was once again bought to the fore with the Punch flotation, but Katie does not subscribe to the view that pub companies exploit tenants to swell profits.
She has an agreement with Unique for the Battersea branch of Settle Inns. "We have a good relationship with Unique," she said. "We are tied to them but that's what you get for taking a leasehold pub - you like it or lump it.
"They generally leave us to get on and run the business."
Of licensing reform, she says that Settle would be one company to benefit from relaxed drinking hours. "I think people should be allowed to drink when they want," she said. "It's very frustrating if you operate a pub in a residential area, especially London. People don't often get home from work until eight or nine so by the time they're ready to come out for a drink it's almost closing time."
She says the company focuses on customers rather than cash. "Obviously it would be nice to think we'll come out of this with a bucket load of dosh but I do it because I love it.
"We sell fun above anything else," she said. "If people have a good time and want to come back then the profits will follow."
