Stick it up your Betamax: how one pub brought back VHS and another made a killing from pizza

Money making ideas for your pub or bar.

Get a Free Slice

Where: Royal Pier, Aberystwyth

Website: www.royalpier.co.uk

Twitter: @royalpier

The Idea: Give away free slice of pizza to customers between 5pm to 6pm on a Friday that runs alongside drinks promotions.  

How it works: Customers buy a drink at the bar on the Friday evening and receive a token. They can then swap the token for a slice of homemade Margarita pizza.

Marketing: The Friday event is promoted on the website, Facebook, Twitter and in-house media including TV screens.  Table flyers, posters and A–boards are also used.

Be prepared: Food need to be prepared and staff are needed on site to make homemade pizza.

Pay-off: It drives sales especially during the quieter colder months. General manager Lee Price said: “It costs next to nothing to produce the pizzas.  Customers are given a slice of the pizza and what then customers often elect to pay for a premium pizza or take some home for the family. “

Key benefits: To get more people through the door and showcase the products the pub offer.The pub offers a buy one and get a second pizza for £1 between 6-9pm. The result is that people stay for an extra beer and invite the family down for food.

Advice: Despite the fact that the pizza slices are given away free the quality of must be kept high. This will ensure that people tell their friends, added Price.

Best outcome: The bar is busy and the venue gets repeat customers as they are being offered more than other sites. It is also a low cost method of marketing and promoting the pizza offer at the venue.

Stick it up your Betamax

Where: Clapton Hart, Lower Clapton Hart, London

Website: claptonhart.com

Twitter: @claptonhart

The Idea: A night called ‘Stick it up your Betamax’ showing cult, classic and budget VHS movies on a big screen in a room at the pub. Previous screenings include The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th Dimension, Meet the Applegates and Over the Top.

How it works: The free event runs once a month on a Thursday evening starting at 8pm and finishing around 10.30pm depending on the length of the film.

Marketing: Advertise on social media and website. A full schedule of films to be shown is made available ahead of time.

Be prepared: A room is made available for the viewing at the pub. The night was originally launched on a Monday but did not prove to be popular so was relaunched to the more successful Thursday evening.

Pay-off: Up to 20 people are attending on a Thursday film night. They are ordering two or three drinks each and then usually have something off the bar menu such as the pint of whitebait.  

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Key benefits: Drives business during a quieter night and introduces new customers to the venue.  Some people attending have never been to the pub before.

Advice: Originally the event involved a voting system for customers to choose the film they wanted to see. But this hindered attempts at marketing the event ahead of time and affected people’s ability to attend and was changed.

Best outcome: Thursday is not a busy night at the pub but the event brings in additional customers.