Business Ideas - Winning Ways
In our regular new series, Mark Taylor discovers simple but effective methods that could give your business the edge
Fish and Seafood Weekend
Where: The Bull & Butcher, Turville, Henley-On-Thames, Oxon
How it works: Subtitled "The Fish Market", this annual weekend event in August was started by owners Hugo and Lydia Botha. This year's menu included pan-fried baby squid in spicy citrus and ginger dressing, seared queen scallops in a rich creamy herb sauce on black tagliatelle and a lobster and seafood platter (£55 for two people).
The pub runs popular, regular themed evenings, including Thai, tapas and South African food nights and has more than 600 members on its website who receive emails telling them about all events.
Hugo is South African and loves seafood hence the idea. Lydia says: "It seemed like a nice idea for summer. It was a bit of an experiment, but has been very successful. Last year, we ended up doing 30 lobster and seafood platters over the three days. It is a lot of work for the kitchen and preparation is key, but the customers love it and it's good for trade."
Ready, Steady, Cook evenings
Where: Plough Inn, Allscott, Shropshire
How it works: Inspired by the successful TV show, chef Martin Board started a regular Ready, Steady, Cook evening: diners bring mystery ingredients and have them cooked by the chefs. Before he and his wife, Mel, took over, the pub had a reputation for serving bought-in food so it was also a way of showing people he could cook with fresh ingredients.
Tables of four spend £15 for a starter, main and pudding - all cooked from scratch in less than 30 minutes. The popular evenings now see six tables of four.
"Everybody seems to like it," says Martin. "People have started to bring more challenging ingredients, but it has also been something of a menu inspiration. We have duck with sweet potato mash and blackberry sauce on at the moment from one of our nights.
"We're not in London, we're a small Shropshire pub, so we decided to gear it towards what people around here wanted to eat and they keep coming back. We encourage the diners to come into the kitchen to have a look when we're cooking. We haven't missed a deadline yet."
Gourmand Evenings
Where: The Tollgate Inn, Holt, Wiltshire
How it works: Co-owner Alison Ward-Baptiste says sales of wine at the Tollgate Inn have increased dramatically over the years, especially by the glass. With this in mind, the pub has just started to host a monthly wine dinner, or "gourmand evening", which attracts 40 customers.
Alison says: "The idea was to introduce customers to matching wine with food. In this country, people tend to drink beer in pubs and in the past they weren't big wine drinkers. We wanted to help them with wine choices without making them feel they don't know very much. If you do
it as a gala evening and include the wine with the food, they are more likely to understand what's going on and, perhaps, purchase the wines themselves. It helps us, as people then come in understanding more about wine and what they require. It's educational, but it's also fun."
As well as the recently-launched wine evenings, the Tollgate Inn also hosts a special gourmand evening for British Food Fortnight in September. For £45, customers enjoy a seven-course supper, with each dish made from local produce and every producer listed on the menu.
The Oriental Club
Where: The Noel Arms Hotel, Chipping Camden, Gloucestershire
How it works: When Ian Taylor, who also owns the nearby Cotswold House Hotel, bought the Noel Arms, he wanted to offer something different from the usual Italian, Greek and British food in the town. With the help of Beijing-born head chef Peter Xu and Singaporean general manager Loy Seng, he brought Oriental food to Chipping Camden.
One year on, it's a very popular night held every six weeks. Dinner is £19.95 including a glass of wine and concentrates on different cuisines from the Far East - so far, China, Japan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia, with future evenings featuring Vietnam and Mongolia.
Loy Seng says: "As events roll on, they gain in popularity and we now attract 80 people. As soon as they attend one, they tend to book the next. We do a big selection of starters on buffet and mains. We always have two soups, five starters, five meat dishes and two vegetarian dishes. We've set the price low so regulars will return on normal evenings
and we are already seeing lots of return customers. It's different and quite unexpected for a quintessential Cotswold town, but the response has been great and it has proved a very successful business idea."
