Pub Mentors: Elephant trumpets its successes

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Business building: Sarah Eskins and Ben Bartrip, of the Elephant, Bristol

Consultant Alastair Scott had plenty of ideas to help Ben Bartrip and Sarah Eskins, licensees at the Elephant in Bristol, improve performance when he last popped in, and he is pleasantly surprised by what he finds on his return visit.

There is nothing more satisfying than the joy on people’s faces when they get results. Ben and Sarah have such a great attitude.

Never too proud to listen, never too fixed to change and never too reticent to act. They have embraced the actions with a sense of vigour and purpose that will make them very successful whatever they do.

They have successfully driven the key actions that are delivering spectacular results in such a short space of time.

Outside areas

They put up two blackboards, used for food messages during the day and drinks messages in the evening. On the external tables they’ve put condiments, cutlery and menus in holders so food is clearly highlighted. It makes the pub look inviting.

Early sales have been superb as a result. On the first two days of doing this, lunchtime sales doubled. Since then the business has seen steady growth.

Ticket times

Ben and Sarah had perhaps not seen the importance of ‘ticket times’ to the customer. But when you do the maths they are vital.
Five minutes to walk to the pub, five minutes to order a drink and another five minutes to decide what to eat and you are already 15 minutes into your lunch-hour.

If the food comes out in 15 minutes then you have 20 minutes to eat your food, five minutes to pay your bill, and five minutes to get back to the office. So food has to be out in 15 minutes or customers won’t return. They now target 10 minutes for ticket times at lunch and it is working for them.

They have a great chef who helps them every step of the way. He is pleased the pub is busier and isn’t asking for extra staff. If only there were more like him.

Parties

I happened to go in one evening and Ben and Sarah were holding a function. We changed how they approach the party market, instigating the following methods for staging a successful party and ensuring that not only does the party return, but that those people attending become regulars.

Offer the pizza (part of the buffet), using waitresses rather than leave people to collect it — it shows a touch of personal service and allows Ben to say hello to everyone and engage with people.

Get email addresses. A corporate party is a fine way of getting details. We chose in this circumstance to get addresses and send them a follow-up offer for a half-price pizza.

Parties represent a great opportunity to convert on-off users into becoming regulars.

If you have a party and close the pub, you must not annoy regulars. There are several ways you can do this, including saving a small space for regulars and staggering the shutdown of the party and the opening of the bar to regulars.

Labour management

Ben and Sarah have embraced labour-management principles. They stripped out 40 hours a week, saving £15,000 a year. We’ll refine it to see how we can save more.

Christmas plans

The Elephant has a great set of plans for Christmas. So far it has 1,500 people booked in for festive bashes and buffets, and aims to reach a target of 2,000. It is working with Catton Consulting on January ‘bounceback offers’.

The pub is shut on Christmas Day, but will be open for the New Year celebrations.

Interim results

The results are spectacular. Sales have grown by 40% as a result of the work done. This is making a big difference to the pub’s performance.

The sales uplift will generate about £50,000 a year in profit and is really exciting. But the work won’t stop, and there is still more to do to make the pub really successful.

But it shows the value of fresh eyes, of helping new entrants perform to their maximum ability, and of training.

What the licensee thinks

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The Pub Mentors scheme has been a great opportunity for us to look at the business through a fresh pair of eyes.

A combination of brain-storming and taking advice from some industry experts has allowed us to implement changes that have yielded instant results.

It has been encouraging to know that, despite being relative industry novices, we have done many things well and that, with just a couple of tweaks, we have been able to improve business turnover dramatically.

These changes have allowed us to add to the bottom line without adversely affecting the customer experience, and we can now scale up the turnover knowing that we will also be improving the profit.

Having made a start on highlighting the food element of our business with exterior blackboards, we are also investing in upgrading the exterior lighting to highlight the boards in the evening to drive food trade.

Given our location, we are using this opportunity to attract late-evening drinkers to our cocktail offer and further increase those sales.

But this is just the start for us. We are still some way below target on what we believe is a realistic turnover for this business and it is up to us to continue to drive forward with new ideas and best industry practices to deliver the right results.