Payne: 'pub discount deals here to stay'
Heavy discounting of pub food and drink will be a permanent feature of trade, says Ian Payne, chairman of Town & City and Bay Restaurants.
"You've got to be making offers these days. And it's deals like our scampi and chips for £1.99, all day, every day, that are driving our business at the moment," he told Morning Advertiser.
"I'd much rather have the cash than the margin, and I can't see the offers ever coming to an end. This is changing the face of the trade, and it makes it very hard for tenanted groups to compete." Payne, whose high-street chains include Yates, La Tasca, Slug & Lettuce and Ha Ha Bar & Grill, said the internet is the main source of new business these days.
"We put our offers on the site moneysavingexpert.com, and we hear that secretaries at companies often pass them round the office. It's by far the most powerful site we use, and we can turn them on and off whenever we want."
Payne said business across both groups was much better than was anticipated. "If you'd have offered me at the start of the year what we're doing now, I'd have bitten your arm off. January was much better than we thought, February OK and March is going well."
The moneysavingexpert.com website is run by journalist Martin Lewis and in one of his current blogs he reviews La Tasca's 50% off deal. He writes: "Do vouchers work for restaurants? Well, I just tried somewhere new and loved it!
"Having scanned down the restaurant vouchers list, the other day, to see what was available, my eyes popped onto a La Tasca 50% off deal — actually better than a 2for1 as it's 50% off all food including starters and desserts. Now I'm not the biggest fan of tapas, but decided to give it a try anyway.
"We went to the one in Chiswick. Using the voucher meant more range, and lots of dishes; in the end we had nine main plates and a dessert each, plus drinks for £21 for two. Now frankly this is big greedy pig territory — a serious amount of food — though of course I manfully did my bit and finished it off.
"Yet it did make La Tasca not that much more expensive than Le Tesco (OK, well maybe quite a bit more, but still pretty reasonable for a night out in a restaurant)."
