City Diary — 20 August

Apathy rules OK among licensees

CGA Strategy, which revealed Nielsen had acquired an equity stake in it last week, produced a damning report on pubco/tenant relationships for the BEC committee after surveying 1,000 licensees. Not surprisingly, one or two of the pubcos that came out worst in the survey were keen to commission CGA to get to the root of the problem. City Diary hears that a survey of one pubco's tenants five times larger than the original survey by CGA found tenants nowhere near as disgruntled. The problem seemed to be more about a lack of engagement with the pubco.

Enterprise in the mood to talk​

Enterprise Inns scrapped tenant's forums when it acquired Unique Pub Company a while back.

Last month, though, the company decided it was the right time to hold a meeting with some of its tenants, with chief operating officer Simon Townsend attending too. It's good to talk, isn't it?

Mulholland drive ​

Pubco critic Greg Mulholland MP is enjoying the summer recess at his constituency, Leeds North-west. But it's not stopping him firing bullets at the pubcos. In the submission to the OFT, which is considering the CAMRA super-complaint, he suggests any pubco running more than 2,000 pubs may be a "bad thing" for the consumer and the marketplace. Referring to the Beer Orders, his submission, made through the auspices of the All-Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group, states: "2,000 was deemed too many pubs for any brewer to have, at a time when there were more pubs than there are currently (1986 number of pubs estimated before Beer Orders: 78,598; current number approx 56,000). So 2,000 now is a notably larger share of the market than it was when the Beer Orders were introduced."

Walsh switches on TV career​

A former employee of Marston's brewery, who narrowly missed out on her dream of winning The Apprentice, has scooped a news presenting job on television. Kate Walsh, 27, made it through to the finals of The Apprentice , but lost out to Yasmina Siadatan for the £100,000 per annum salary working for Sir Alan Sugar, now Lord Sugar of Clapton after being made a peer earlier this year. Walsh, who joined Marston's as a graduate trainee, will be joining former footballer Ian Wright and former glamour model Melinda Messenger on Live from Studio Five. The programme is due to air at the start of September in an early evening slot, branded "forthright and chatty".

Managing great expectations​

There is a website, as mentioned by City Diary before, devoted to moaning about life at Sam Smith's. One visitor asks about life as a pub manager with the brewery and there's some interesting advice.

"What's the secret of a long and successful career at the brewery? I have a theory — it helps greatly if you have had a previous career in the forces. You are trained to follow orders, and the question why is not one that you are encouraged to ask in the army. So, if you keep your head down and just get on with it you do stand half a chance of a reasonably happy life. Just don't start showing any initiative!

The other half of a happy life depends on how lucky you are with your posting. The Smith's equivalent of Cyprus or Bermuda is a nice quiet country pub, where you can have a nice quiet life among a few pensioners enjoying the subsidised beer. I guess the brewery equivalent of Afghanistan is a city-centre pub where staff hours have been cut and you have to cope without a bouncer, especially when you have to persuade the punters to go home at 11.30 pm."

Realpubs gets thumbs up​

It's a well done to Nick Pring and Malcolm Heap who garnered a positive review from Evening Standard food critic Fay Maschler for their Crabtree pub in Hammersmith, newly acquired from Punch Taverns. La Maschler, who is the doyenne of the London restaurant scene, notes: "Realpubs, run by Nick Pring and Malcolm Heap, who met not in a Martin Amis novel but on the Bass graduate scheme, aims to renovate large Victorian boozers to create 'urban locals'." They're called pubs, love, and they're very popular.

Pubs quartet eye Kilimanjaro​

The worlds of music and television sent their brightest stars up Mount Kilimanjaro last year to raise cash for Comic Relief. Now it's the pub world's turn. Paul Salisbury, who runs Lovely Pubs and has opened more than 50 Project Orange gastropubs for Mitchells & Butlers, David Salisbury, who runs Salisbury Pubs, and Lee Cash, who runs Peach Pub Company, are set to climb Kilimanjaro for charity. A source told City Diary: "They decided that if Messrs Moyles, Barlow and Keating can do it,

then we too should put Africa's highest mountain to the sword. Three bottles of red and 20 Marlboro lights later, the flights were booked and their names were on the list." The trio are joined on the trip by Peach staffer Tim Doyle. The intrepid bunch can be sponsored on www.thethreemountaineers.co.uk​.

Directors of Flatcappers are heaven sent​

Flatcappers is a single site operator with a pedigree. Its directors are Pierre Woodford, who spent a number of years running Bibendum in Fulham for Terence Conran, and Alex Reilley, who founded the very successful Loungers business in Bristol, and they are now planning to grow to 30 sites within a few years. The pair opened the freehold Castle Inn in Bradford-upon-Avon in Somerset two years ago. Turnover has increased 10-fold to north of £20,000 per week. Now the pair are close to signing up to run their first-ever tenanted pubco venue with a well-known free-of-tie operator. City Diary is keeping mum about which free-of-tie operator until the legals are complete, but, suffice to say, the tenanted pubco should know its getting a tenant sent from the gods.