City Diary — 19 February
Whiteside avoids Punch Wives Club
Those with long memories will recall that Punch Taverns appointed Adrian Fawcett as their chief operating officer, after he got the thumbs-up from key executives' wives in the wake of a dinner. Is the Punch First Wives Club still in operation? New tenanted boss Roger Whiteside says not. He got the job via the more traditional route of first contact from headhunters, followed by interviews with chief executive Giles Thorley and non-executive directors.
TCG sets Kulture record straight
Tattershall Castle boss David Ford rings City Diary to put it straight on a story from a fortnight ago. Diary reported Tattershall Castle's Kulture in West Street, Brighton, is being converted to a Revolution vodka bar after "failing to cut the mustard". Ford points out that sales are in fact up by a mighty 108% year on year although the site is due to convert in the coming months. It's a case, then, of hoping that Revolution cuts more mustard. How are things otherwise? "We were very pleased with Christmas and January was better than expected," he says.
Playing pub PR musical chairs
It's all change in the restless world of financial public relations. Punch Taverns ditched College Hill last year in favour of Smithfield Consultants. And at the start of 2009, Enterprise Inns severed its link with Gavin Anderson in favour of Tulchan Consultants.
GlassHouse goes on pre-pack diet
GlassHouse, the managed operator run by Peter Linacre, went through a pre-pack a fortnight ago, slimming from 12 sites to seven. For the record, its three Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprise sites and two venues on the Isle of Wight have been left languishing in administration.
M&B carves out niche in Brighton
Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) is busy converting the 44 former Whitbread pubs it acquired last September into its own brands. There's one site where the water is being tested. Whitbread spent heavily on a site at Withdean in Brighton, converting it into a Table Table. M&B thinks carvery will work there, but has opted to take the more cautious route of turning it into an unbranded carvery, rather than a Toby or Crown Carveries site. City Diary predicts it will be a blockbuster, helped by the adoption of Crown Carveries' £3.50 a pop price point.
Ploughshare back at auction
Regular readers will remember pub company Provence, which specialised in selling pubs for wildly over-valued sums to gullible investors at auction. There was a pub called the Ploughshare in remote Beeston, Norfolk, that Provence sold for a ridiculous £505,000 in February 2006 on a 35-year lease to itself on a promise of £49,000 per annum rent. In the event, Provence traded for just 18 months of the 35 years. The pub is back at auction this month for £275,000.
Marston's takes on Whitbread
Marston's is putting its room-expansion programme on hold as it pays down debt. But in Wadebridge, Cornwall, there's a race it looks set to lose to Whitbread to build the town's first sizeable hotel. Whitbread has won a 14-month planning battle to build a 60-bedroom hotel in the town's Dunveth Industrial Estate. Marston's Inns & Taverns, which already has the green light to create a hotel at the top of West Hill, is not daunted by the Whitbread plan and wants to re-submit plans to allow the pub to cater for an increased restaurant trade. Marston's Inns & Taverns estates director Ed Hancock said: "We are currently in further discussions with the local authority for a slight re-design on our original plans. We hope this will result in a bigger pub and an improved hotel."
JDW's cop-shop pub on hold
Another casualty of JD Wetherspoon's move to focus on paying down debt through cash flow. A plan to convert the police station in the leafy Surrey town of New Malden is on hold. Wetherspoon fought tooth and nail for this one, overcoming a 1,100-name petition from locals and two licence rejections from Kingston Council. Success finally arrived at Kingston Magistrates Court last November, where it won an appeal. Now the New Malden site has been placed in a holding pattern for between 12 and 18 months as Wetherspoon focuses on other priorities. Company spokesman Eddie Gershon said: "We've put a number of projects back, but New Malden will definitely open."
Pub trade under the microscope
City Diary has been in regular contact with Masters degree student Phil Harman, who has just completed a dissertation on whether the pub industry is in terminal decline. He talked to 37 licensees across Norwich to complete his study. He blames a "major lack of pub and business experience within the industry" as a contributory factor towards the high failure rates of licensees. But he fears changes in people's lifestyles are also playing a part in robbing pubs of their previous role as the heartbeat of the community. Discuss.
Orchid creditors out of pocket
Will creditors of Orchid Pub Company, which went through a pre-pack in December, get much of their money back? It's looking unlikely. Mark Dillon, of Mark's Garden Care, did the gardening at Orchid's Perdiswell House pub in Worcester and is owed a tidy sum. "PricewaterhouseCoopers said I might get 5% of what I'm owed, but I feel like I have been trodden on," he said.
Identity crisis at Carlsberg
When Carlsberg does do liquidations, you'd probably hope they'd run smoother than this. The lager brewer placed a non-paying customer in liquidation, but the paperwork got cocked up. In the place on the paperwork where the customer's name should have gone, Carlsberg's own name accidentally appeared. Companies House was showing Carlsberg UK in compulsory liquidation last Thursday.
A Carlsberg public relations minion told City Diary last week: "This is obviously a complete mistake and is being rectified."
Valetine's Day perfection
The Coach & Horses pub in London's West End takes the prize for the most original thinking on Valentine's Day. The boozer, where licensee Norman Balon ruled the roost for many years, held a "Rugby and Romance" evening. Punters were invited to watch Wales versus England before settling down to watch Casablanca. Something for everybody.
