Sunday best: pub roasts

In recent years, Sunday lunchtime has become an important trading period for pubs, as more consumers swap the chore of cooking at home for the enjoyment of eating out with family and friends.

The downside of the popularity of a Sunday roast at the pub is that more operators are chasing a perfectly cooked, pink-in-the-middle slice of the action.

The Ship, in Wandsworth, south-west London, a Young's managed pub renowned for its Sunday roast, is a good example. Having helped to establish the Sunday-lunch market in its affluent catchment area, the pub faces increasing competition. Oisin Rogers, general manager, says: "We're not just competing with pubs in the area, but the restaurants. Operators like Chez Bruce and Tom Aiken are offering Sunday lunch and making it a real feature."

In response, the Ship has moved to maximise trade. Last year, it stopped taking bookings for Sunday lunch. Rogers explains: "We found that a party of six would book for 1.30pm but only two of them would turn up on time, and the rest would roll up at about two. We just weren't turning the tables.

"Now, our policy on Sunday is 'no reservation, but we guarantee you'll get served'. We start to fill up from about 12.45pm as people come early to get seated, and by 1.30pm we're turning the tables again. If customers don't arrive until 2.15pm, they may have to wait 45 minutes, but we promise to seat everybody."

Core appeal​

Part of the core appeal of a Sunday roast is its place at the heart of British family life. At Paradise by Way of Kensal Green, in north-west London, customers can recreate the at-home atmosphere with a 'host your own roast' offer. Parties of 10 or more can book one of the pub's three private dining rooms.

Sam Pierson, the gastropub's bookings manager, says: "We describe it as like having Sunday lunch at home, only at the pub. The host chooses the roast, as well as the starter and dessert, so there's very much a dinner-party feel to it. The chef carves at the table."

The theatre of seeing the roast in all its glory at the table, rather than arriving pre-sliced on the plate, is recognised by many pubs. At the Fuller's-owned Red Lion in Barnes, south-west London, licensee Angus McKean offers roast chicken for two for customers to carve themselves. He says: "In fact, although we describe it as 'for two' on the menu, it's ideal for a family with two young children.

"This is very much a family area, and that's an important part of our Sunday-lunch trade."

Trained chef McKean adds: "There are no secrets or gimmicks, just a Sunday lunch cooked by people who care."

A pub that makes the most of the role Sunday lunch plays in British tradition is the Bull & Butcher, in Turville, Oxfordshire — a 16th-century pub in an archetypal English village, used as a location for Midsomer Murders and The Vicar of Dibley.

Brakspear tenant Lydia Botha says: "Our customers are looking for a particular English pub experience when they visit us. They want to walk through the beautiful countryside — we hand out route maps suggesting people look round the 10th-century church in the village — and enjoy a traditional Sunday lunch."

This local theme also extends to the meat, which includes Oxfordshire rib-eye beef.

A local roast has also proved to be a success for the family-owned Kilverts pub in Hay-on-Wye, Powys.

Licensee Ed Davies says: "Although we're right on the Welsh-English border, no-one locally was doing a Welsh lamb roast, so we found a supplier of organic lamb.

"There was a good customer response, so we switched to organic local beef too. The going rate for a Sunday lunch around here is between £12 and £13.

"We're able to serve an organic Sunday roast at £12, which gives us a real point of difference."

Quality Vs quantity​

While quality is important, quantity also counts. At the Cricketers Inn in Meopham, near Gravesend, Kent, customers having trouble deciding between the three roast meats on offer can choose to trade up and have all three.

Paul Giles, manager of the Whiting & Hammond managed pub, says: "There's a £2 premium for the three-meat roast over a single meat one — £14.95 compared to £12.95.

"It's usually roast beef, lamb and pork, and occasionally we'll substitute chicken for pork. It's quite a hefty portion, and for that reason I'd say it's more popular with male customers than with the ladies."

The "go large" option is increasingly being used as a way of driving incremental sales by big managed operators. Whitbread offers the option to trade up to a Mega Roast for an extra £1.50 at its Brewers Fayre pubs, providing additional meat and roast potatoes as well as an extra Yorkshire pudding.

At Punch Pub Company's Taylor Walker pubs, an extra £2 allows customers to "go large" with extra roast potatoes, vegetables and a second Yorkshire pudding.

The Taylor Walker brand has many pubs in tourist locations in cities including London, where the traditional roast dinner is a consistent seller throughout the week.

Varying portion sizes also meet the needs of different customer types. The "grey pound" is important when it comes to Sunday roasts, as are families, and both older customers and children may want smaller portions.

At the Ship Inn in Aldborough, North Yorkshire, Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company tenant Brian Rey offers a half-size, half-price portion for children.

Sadly, though, that means only one of Rey's Yorkshire puddings, which were praised by TV chef Gordon Ramsay on Kitchen Nightmares.

Although Brian and wife Elaine have changed pubs since appearing on the programme, the lessons learned still apply.

He says: "Perhaps the best piece of advice that Gordon gave us was that people now come out to eat later — we were only taking orders until 2pm." The Ship Inn serves on Sundays from noon until 6pm in winter and 7pm in summer.

A slow-cooked sirloin of beef, put in the oven on Saturday afternoon and served up after 20 to 22 hours of roasting, is now the highlight of the Ship Inn's Sunday menu.

Operators needing to balance value for money with customer expectations can consider options such as a Bernard Matthews Boneless Single Turkey Breast Lobe — 100% British turkey breast with no waste. "It looks good on a carvery and is a way for smaller

outlets to incorporate British turkey on a menu," says Duncan Marsh, general manager for Bernard Matthews Foodservice.

Carvery​

The great advantage of a carvery is it makes customer choice simple. Children can pick only the veg they like, while those who prefer their Yorkshire pud gravy-free can be accommodated.

Sarah Thomas, head of food at Orchid Group, says that a "rest is best" when serving carvery meat "Allow your roast to undergo a rest period of 10 to 15 minutes after being removed from the oven.

"Roasts carve much more easily once rested, and this allows the juices that have risen to the surface during cooking to settle back into the meat, making it much more juicy and tender when eating."

Thomas also has a tip for pubs faced with the perennial problem of customers digesting a Sunday roast but finding it hard to contemplate a pudding afterwards.

"For those with a sweet tooth who've eaten too much, offer a box to take a pudding home in."

Sunday is the day of sharing​

Sharing also continues to be a big trend for Sunday roast offers. At the Durell Arms in Fulham, west London, a Sunday roast sharing board was introduced a year ago, which has contributed to a four-fold increase in turnover at the pub on Sundays.

The roasts, which include corn-fed chicken, topside of beef and roast leg of lamb, are cooked to order and the meal is served on a board for the groups to carve themselves.

All the dinners come with roast potatoes, seasonal vegetables, Yorkshire puddings and condiments. Pub manager Laura Carr says: "The idea behind the shared roasts idea is to attempt to get as many people together as possible.

"When we were brainstorming, we were thinking about what we enjoy