Pub Mentors: The elephant in the room

The Elephant is a two-floor leased pub in the centre of Bristol. Ben Bartrip and Sarah Eskins took it over in May 2010. Both are experienced business people, Ben coming from a sales background and Sarah from animal welfare.

The couple have a real passion for the business and the industry, having worked in bars and pubs when they were younger. They are keen to progress to become multiple operators and want to learn all the skills in the industry. The two of them have learnt the usual way, by making mistakes and improving, and have picked up an immense amount of knowledge in such a short space of time.

They went into this first pub believing they could deliver a better experience than many other operators. One of their main drivers behind getting into the business was that they had been to a lot of poorly run businesses and thought it could-n’t be that difficult to do it better.

The pub is in a good location, with lunchtime trade from business people and later evening trade from people out for the night. Ben and Sarah have made the business look magnificent after spending £80,000 on a refurbishment and trade has grown consistently, earning them a great reputation for food.

But the business now seems to be hitting a ceiling, and the challenge is to take it to new heights, both at the sales and profit levels, as well as to equip them with the skills to go on to their next site and hit the ground running. They want to make this first pub successful so that they can replicate the food-led offer at a second site.

The symptoms ​

The market for the pub is threefold. It is on the edge of the business district so there is good opportunity for business lunches. It is surrounded by brands such as All Bar One and Slug & Lettuce, so the after-work market remains a prime opportunity. But there is also a significant late-night business, with the pub sitting opposite a Revolution vodka bar.

Ben and Sarah have relied on a head chef to deliver the food offering, but admit they don’t have a full understanding of the kitchen. They also face strong competition from these bars and need to encourage people to come into their venue instead of the branded operations. They also need to encourage new people to head down the street and come into their venue.

The two main challenges for the business are an exterior that prevents a view into the pub and only a small outside space at the front on the pavement. The Revolution has a large outside space, so the Elephant loses trade to that site when the weather is good. They are considering another investment to open a roof garden to counter this.

The business takes less than £5,000 a week and is at break-even point, with the challenges for Ben and Sarah being a combination of equipping them with experience for new sites while improving the existing business.

The diagnosis ​

Ben and Sarah’s situation is surprisingly familiar. As an industry we have successfully attracted high-energy people with a

determination to succeed. But what we have failed to do is to train them sufficiently, either at the start or on an ongoing basis. Our ability to diagnose problems and find relevant training solutions all need to be improved if we are going to improve the success rate of new entrants, a prize that seems vitally important to the future of our industry.

THE ACTION PLAN​

• Fully understanding the kitchen.​ Ben and Sarah have left the running of the kitchen to the kitchen manager and focused on other areas of the business. My advice is that they need to learn how to run the kitchen themselves, so they can step in if required and also manage it more closely.

• Labour management​. The labour cost can be lowered without affecting service. The plan, therefore, is to reduce hours in a carefully planned and controlled way, which will save the pub money, but will in no way affect the service to customers. This will also equip them for a new site more effectively and generate cash for that site. We will use the S4 benchmarking process (a tool to improve staff scheduling) to determine the optimum opportunity for labour.

• Signalling​. While the pub has tables on the pavement outside there is not enough signalling of the offer at the front of the building. This can be rectified easily and is an immediate priority. The second signalling challenge is at table. Currently the Elephant puts out its cocktail menu. Their plan is to put out a food menu during the day and a cocktail menu at night, thus

  

  signalling the right activity at the right timeslot. The plan for the future will be to have two different layouts of the table dependent on time of day. The only area that would benefit from some investment is seating. As is the case for so many operators Ben and Sarah were tight on cash for opening and so they didn’t put cushions on the benches. However, to attract the all-important professional audience we will look to have at least some of the benches recovered. In the immediate term we will generate these funds through quick and effective labour management.

• Marketing​. Promoting the pub more heavily to build a bigger database and attract more business, splitting this between the business market and the night-out market. Ben and Sarah need to market different offers to the different target groups, and also enlarge their market through seeking out new customers via email. The plan is, therefore, to create several distinct marketing offers and buy specific email address databases to gently expand out the customer base of the business, and grow the pub’s internal database.

• Pricing strategy​. The business has an excellent food GP and there may be an opportunity to re-invest some of this margin to grow the business, by creating a more laddered approach to the food menu and creating some cheaper dishes.

Alastair Scott is managing director of Catton Consulting. He also runs S4, a new productivity tool for pubs, and Catton Training and Development, which focuses on practical skills for pubs and area managers.​

• Pub Mentors is run in partnership with Coca Cola Enterprises Ltd Open More Business​