City Diary — 8 October

MP attempts to extricate foot

Conservative Shadow Licensing Minister Tobias Ellwood has explained

his controversial comments about Liverpool, made at the ALMR conference last month. He told delegates that people with criminal records in the city were flooding his Bournemouth constituency and opening pubs. Ellwood has since told City Diary he was referring to the apparent problem of criminals moving from one part of the country to another being able to get a licence. The MP said he wasn't picking on Liverpool, just using it as an example. "It was taken well out of context," he said. City Diary expects he'll need to smooth it over with Bournemouth-based Liverpudlian licensee Michael Mullin, of the Goat & Tricycle, who called MA towers to say Ellwood's comments were "ridiculous and unfair".

Rosier future for the people's pubs​

Taxpayers now own a pretty substantial stake in the sector thanks to the Government bank bail-outs of last year. There's the RBS pub estate run by Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company (as it's now called) for starters. But John Barnes of Novus was keen last week to remind the audience at M&C's Future of Pub Retailing Conference that RBS owns half the bank equity in Tiger Tiger operator Novus now. How's our investment going? "Business is up. Why? Because we can run the business and not look over our shoulder now."

Watch this very profitable space​

Little-known pub company 580 Ltd runs 11 pubs and bars, three of them Mitchells & Butlers franchises, including the Camden Lock, and two Enterprise sites. It also has joint venture sites with M&B's managed division, including Sixty Million Postcards in Bournemouth and Nation of Shopkeepers in Leeds. Its Camden Lock site, opened in 2002, takes, according to one well-placed source, very large amounts of money. City Diary hears there are two more openings in the pipeline — one in London next month and one in Cardiff in January 2010. We'll be watching this space.

Sam Smith's goes centre stage​

The inscrutable world of Sam Smith's comes under the television spotlight on 12 October. BBC Yorkshire will look closely at the brewery's operations in its 30-minute-long Inside Out. It's only being shown in the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire areas, but is viewable on iPlayers.

Tapasing in to a lucrative market​

Bay restaurants boss Paul Symonds reports that La Tasca has had a good summer, boosted by its five tapas dishes for £10 offer and an improved menu. He reports that his busiest La Tasca chipped in with a £90,000 take in a week. He adds: "That was all on tapas — can you imagine the washing up?"

Taking a Broads view of finances ​

One former Orchid pub still shut since the company's pre-pack last December is the Ferry Inn at Horning, an idyllic pub that fronts onto the Norfolk broads with its own mooring facilities. As well as boasting a view onto the River Bure with space for a number of boats to moor, it also has its very own nine-hole crazy golf course. Fleurets director Bob Whittle says: "At the end of the day it's fairly unique to have a pub in the heart of the Norfolk broads. How many other pubs can you think of with that position or river frontage?" He says Fleurets has received "tremendous interest" in the pub. Norwich pub historian Derek McDonald says: "The problem is it's a seasonal business that does very well for six months in summer, but gets little trade for the other six, and that scares big pub companies."

Unearthing GK innovations​

John Barnes, chairman of Novus, was asked at M&C's Future of Pub Retailing Conference last week to name the pub sector innovation he's seen that's most impressed him. He replied saying that he's been impressed by the excellence of the innovations that Jonathan Webster's introduced in the Greene King managed division, although he thought these were largely going unpublicised for the obvious need to keep competitive advantage under hats. City Diary will be having a poke around Cambridge very shortly.

TV pulls plug on pub rescue plan​

The Ploughshare in Beeston, Norfolk, has had its fair share of problems. Greedy tenanted pub company Provence bought it for £360,000 a few years ago and then re-sold it almost straight away for £505,000, thanks to its offer to pay an absurd £48,000 a year in rent. Provence collapsed not long after. The pub has had a chequered history since and is currently shut. Hope arrived in the form of a television company, which offered to reopen it as a community pub for a month in an experiment. It looked too good to be true — and was. Twofour Broadcast, a TV company based in Plymouth, pulled the plug on the plan last week after its expert Jay Smith went to have a look. The show's producer Jonney Steven said: "Jay Smith has only just seen the pub for the first time and realised that the time frame we have to make the programme was too tight, considering the renovation work that was needed."

Bacon machine rolls on and on​

Veteran pub and bar entrepreneur Tim Bacon is not one to rest on his laurels. He currently runs the Gusto restaurant chain, but is perhaps best-known for founding the Living Room brand, which he sold to Premium Bars and Restaurants — the sites turn over an amazing £80,000 a week or so each in the lead up to the festive season. He's currently got three brand-new projects in the pipeline — a 250-capacity nightclub called Suburbia in Hale, Cheshire, that he calls a "1930s/modern fusion with a 1950s kicker"; a "re-invention of the Living Room space"; and a new restaurant concept. All three sites will open in the next six months.