From tired boozer to star-performing food venue — licensee Paul Rogers tells Tony Halstead how he and his wife, Wendy, transformed a lowly roadside inn into the award-winning Railway Gastro Pub at Euxton in Lancashire.
How we got here
We first got to know about the Railway almost by chance and it was all down to my brother-in-law who spotted that the pub was available to let.
He called us one night back in 2007 to say he had driven past the pub and thought it would be an opportunity for us to put our retail skills to the test.
We were living in the south at the time, but came north regularly to visit Wendy's family and had always complained we could never find anywhere decent to eat in the area. Both of us worked in hotel management and had often talked about opening our own pub with a focus on food.
Taking on the Railway seemed the perfect opportunity. We contacted the pub's owner, Marston's, and five weeks later we were in there.
How we got started
The basic game plan was to create a traditional pub with excellent freshly-cooked food alongside excellent service, but getting the Railway established with the right reputation was always going to be a major operation.
Quite frankly the place had a negative reputation and was an all-wet pub trading at a very low ebb so most of the local people tended to give it a wide berth.
Marston's had been halfway through a major refurbishment scheme and had already lined up someone to take it on. When the company pulled out, Marston's needed to get a replacement lessee and obviously liked the sound of our plans.
The pub was on a major A-road and close to the M6 motorway, just north of Chorley. It looked a perfect location for the sort of outlet we had in mind.
The original plans had been for a fast-food two-for-one style concept, so we had to change all that, re-design the refurbishment and the kitchen and replace all the freezers and microwave ovens. In all we spent around £100,000 getting the place how we wanted it.
The original idea was for us to continue living in the south and come north every few weeks, but we quickly discovered this was not going to work. The business was losing money — sometimes a couple of thousand pounds a week — and the pub was not being run the way we hoped. We quickly realised that we would have to be here full-time, so after just three months we relocated north. We were only a few months into the smoking ban and the first signs of the recession were beginning to appear. I gave up a safe, well-paid job to concentrate everything on the business and fairly soon we began to turn things round.
How we operate
We had made a fairly early decision to name the business the Railway Gastro Pub. Too many people knew the old Railway for what it was and even though neither of us particularly like the term gastropub, it nevertheless summed up what we were all about.
The main goal was to create a first-class food offer using local produce and suppliers wherever possible, and to back this up with first-class service and provision of cask ales to flag up the fact that we were running a quality food offer in a traditional pub environment.
We took on a first-rate chef, Paul Rourke, and a manager, Gary Percy, as the two mainstays of the operation. We explored the area for local suppliers and highlighted the fact that our menus were sourced from local produce.
Our food and drink
We have an à la carte menu that changes seasonally and is backed up by our daily specials. It's a mix of traditional favourites and more elaborate dishes. We have also worked hard to introduce good vegetarian dishes to the menu to accommodate an area where a lot of other operators fall down.
We also include gluten-free dishes, which we think is very important. Despite the advances in pub food one of our best sellers is the home-made burger, which surprised us.
We try to keep things flexible and retain a casual-dining atmosphere all the time.
Cask-ale sales have been very good since we opened, enabling us to keep a balanced 30:70 wet:dry split.
We always have three cask beers on sale, which includes two permanent ales and one rotating guest. Using local suppliers has been our priority since the day we opened.
Customers are increasingly interested in where their food comes from and we pride ourselves on the quality produce these companies deliver to us. We were delighted to receive a Taste Lancashire Highest Quality assured award in recognition of our "buy local" policy.
Our special nights
Pepping up quiet nights early in the week has always been part of our game plan. Our weekly steak nights on Mondays are always very well supported, averaging 90 covers. We persuaded our butcher to give us a special wholesale price so we could knock 50% off the normal price of our steaks.
We have also just introduced Tuesday "Chippy Teas" where we offer dishes such as steak & ale pudding & chips for £7.95 or Lancashire sausage ring & chips for the same price. On Sundays we do a roast — normally lamb and beef — for £13.95.
The future
Right now it's all about consolidation and fine-tuning various areas of the business. We are always looking to put on special events such as our quarterly comedy nights, which have gone down very well. More long-term letting bedrooms are a possibility.
We don't live in the pub, so there is dead space on the first floor, plus a lot of spare land behind the car park.
Overnight guests bring in a lot of extra food and drink income on top of the room revenue itself, so it's something we are going to have to weigh up very carefully. We are also looking to expand our weddings and other function business.
Our best ideas
Marketing is probably one of the most important business areas. Getting a message out is key to attracting new customers and retaining existing ones. We operate our own Gastro Club, offering discounts and benefits for members, plus membership of our loyalty-points scheme. It also offers automatic entry into prize draws, surprise offers at special events and exclusive invitations to special gastro events.
Each new member fills in a form giving their name and address, birthday and dates of family anniversaries and so on, so that we can prompt them to book. It's been a big success, and our loyalty card scheme has also worked well, offering customers 20 points for each £20 spent redeemable on food and drink.
We carry out leaflet drops in selected areas to tell people where we are and what we do.
Facts 'n' stats
The Railway Gastro Pub, Euxton, Chorley, Lancashire
Owner: Marston's
Lessees: Paul & Wendy Rogers
Tenure: 25 years
Average weekly take: £11,000
Wet:dry split: 30:70
Meals per week: 700
Staff: 25 full and part-time
Food GP: 67%
Wet GP: 55%
Average spend: £18
Average main course price: £11
Cask ale price: £3 per pint
Lager price: £3 per pint