Profile: How Cambridge concept Pint Shop embraces all walks of life

How did you get where you are?​

Pint Shop is owned by myself and Benny Peverelli. Benny oversees the kitchen operation at Pint Shop, and has worked in kitchens for 14 years. He began working at various high-street restaurant brands, before moving to London and working at a number of venues, including as sous chef at private members club Century on Shaftesbury Avenue in London.

Benny worked as head of food at Leon since it began in 2004, and met me when I joined in 2008 as operations manager.

I previously worked at a number of gastropubs and high-street chains on the management side, before working with Benny at Leon for three and a half years. We left in 2011 to set up Pint Shop.

Pint Shop specialises in meat, bread and beer, and took its inspiration from the beer houses of the 1830s. It is all about creating a place that embraces both eating and drinking equally, where customers from all walks of life can feel at home whether they are having a few beers, a light lunch or a full-blown feast. The site has a wet:dry split of 50:50.

What are your best business ideas?​

Using Twitter to publicise our launch because it meant we did all our pre-opening marketing for free when we didn’t have a huge amount of budget available.

Also offering online reservations because this is quick and easy for our customers and where the bulk of our reservations come from.

Introducing a set menu after Christmas to drive off-peak business. We also expanded our drinks range to include more spirits and wine, and this really added a lot of revenue. Finally, integrating all our stock systems and tills has given us complete visibility of our sales and helped us to make more money.

What are your best marketing ideas?​

Without a doubt, using Twitter has been the best. It is a hugely powerful tool when used correctly and has brought us real success.

We also held a pre-opening press night back before Pint Shop’s launch, which built up excitement for the site and generated a lot of coverage.

We find running events really useful too, whether that is linking up with local street-food merchants as we did for our ‘Beef. Bread. Beer.’ event at the Eat Cambridge festival, or one-off sales.

In January 2014, to combat the post-Christmas slump, we held a January sale, which we promoted through our database, offering £10 off every £30 spent at Pint Shop. This was very popular and helped us get through what could have been a dull period. These events keep people talking about our site and keep the brand fresh and exciting.

Please talk us through your expansion plans​

We’ve now employed someone to help us find our second site, which we’re hoping to open early 2015, followed by one toward the end of 2015. It will ideally be in Oxford, London, Brighton or Bristol. We expect it to be similar to the existing Pint Shop but not the same, it will depend on the site we find and its location.

Which concepts inspire you?​

For places to eat, I’m particularly inspired by St John Bar and Restaurant in Smithfield, London, the Quality Chop House in Farringdon and HIX Soho because they offer simple, great-quality British food —
similar concepts to ours, but with a different pitch.

For drinks, the cocktails at HIX Soho are beautiful, and I also rate Dean Street Townhouse. I’m a big fan of North Bar in Leeds, which was one of the first places to do craft beer about 15-20 years ago, it’s really cool.

What are your most effective ways to recruit and incentivise staff?​

We find the most effective way to recruit new staff is through referrals or people that approach you because they know the brand and want to be part of it. We find that with job adverts, our success rate
is a lot lower.

To incentivise staff, it’s important they work in an environment they feel comfortable in and want to be in. We want them to be proud of Pint Shop, proud to work there, and also have fun. Of course, we have development and incentive schemes in place but we think the key way to have motivated staff is to make the environment they work in the best it can be.

What is the biggest challenge to the pub industry at the moment?​

It’s hard to generalise the sector as a whole, but for rural pubs I’d say the VAT issue is the biggest challenge because it can be hard for them to compete with supermarkets, which can offer cheaper prices. For city centre pubs such as ourselves, business rates are a real challenge — ours have doubled overnight, and we know it is causing problems for other pubs too.

What training are staff offered?​

Our staff receive all the regulatory training, health and safety, food hygiene etc. But we also run a special ‘Beer Day’ a few times a year. Mark Dredge runs this for us and takes us through about 25 different beers, their history and the manufacturing process, as well as the different styles available and beer and food pairings. We also create our own beer on the day, which is great fun, and by the end of the
day, everyone has a very good understanding of beer and feels comfortable making recommendations to our customers.

What are your best-selling drinks?​

A third of our total revenue comes from beer but the menu changes all the time — pale ales are always very popular, particularly IPA. Our seasonal specials are always best-sellers, with our current drink ‘Pint Shop No.1’ (gin steeped with strawberries — our version of Pimms) selling about 300 glasses a week. When we offered mulled sloe gin at Christmas it flew out the door; we got through about 60 bottles a week.

How is planning for the December introduction of allergen law legislation?​

Fortunately, we already have a food facts book in place for all of the items of our menu dish so our staff can tell customers what’s in them, even our specials. We also have menu sheets available for those on gluten-free, dairy-free, etc. diets, which the team are briefed on so they can give a quick response to any customer queries. It’s all about having a procedure in place — we ensure our staff are trained and the kitchen sticks to recipes and doesn’t freestyle.

What is your ideal pub menu?​

I want different food from different styles of pubs. If it’s a local pub, close to home, which I can pop into on a whim, I want good-value, homely cooking such as pies, and sausages and mash. If it’s in a city centre and I’m out for dinner, I want something exciting and original that I couldn’t cook. It needs to be well thought through, not just a burger or fish and chips.

Best-selling dishes on the Pint Shop menu?​

This changes regularly (as do our menus), but generally anything spit-roasted always sells really well. At the moment this is pork belly and lamb shoulder. Of course, a good piece of steak always sells well too.

What is Pint Shop’s focus for Christmas 2014?​

We’d only just opened last Christmas so were a bit rushed, this year we’re preparing far in advance to ensure we get the most out of the season. Our menus are ready and we’re trying to get bookings in as early as possible, while making it as easy as possible for people to book a table.

We’ve scrapped pre-orders because we don’t think they help anyone — no one can ever remember what they’ve ordered and it’s a nightmare for both the table staff and the person trying to organise their office’s Christmas party.

We’re giving people the chance to customise their meal, and have got everything they could possibly want. We’re offering ‘bolt-ons’ so customers can build their own experience, such as arrival cocktails, beer and wine matches for each course, a suckling pig for the whole table to feast on, and even a chocolate menu.

It’s all about making the meal as flexible as possible, so there’s a base for everyone, but they can make it what they want.