Smoking blog: tales from the city

I keep asking myself the same question. It was a business decision, I keep reminding myself, and then a voice inside my head says "not the best decision".

Let me tell you a bit about my husband and me. We are both from the corporate world, my husband an ex-lawyer and I am an ex-banker. We entered the trade about five years ago, and have since then bought, turned around and sold many a pub in the central London area.

We bought the current pub from Punch; it was a Spirit pub that Punch had earmarked as not meeting their return on investment. So why did we buy it? Well, we saw potential, and lots of it. The pub is on a busy London road, surrounded by offices and shops. We have (had!) a sound business plan and refurbished in April this year. At the same time, we thought that as 1st July was only around the corner, we would go no-smoking. After all, 75% of the population don't smoke and the ban was imminent anyway.

The first two weeks were ok, so we thought that we made the right decision. And then the weather turned, it started raining and raining and raining, and there went our smokers, to places they could smoke in. Personally I don't blame them; I would have done the same.

So follow our journey to win our customers back. Read about all the incentives and marketing that we have done since and are continuing to do. Hopefully this will provide other publicans in similar positions with ideas that have worked for us and those that were just a waste of time and money!