This year’s finalists are:
Buzzworks
As its name suggests, Buzzworks is a pub company dedicated to creating a buzz across its 22 venues scattered across the south of Scotland, from Troon to North Berwick.
Founded in 2002, the family firm’s growth has accelerated considerably in recent years in four formats, from the swish bar-restaurants of Scotts to the quirky community Herringbone pubs.
Wherever you are though, each site bears the bright and colourful Buzzworks signature design features, and each sets the same high standards of service. Its ambitious Customer Promise aims to ensure guests are acknowledged in 10 seconds and served their food within 20 minutes.
Each Buzzworks bar simply aims to be the best in town, and general managers, head chefs and their teams are charged with investing their businesses with a distinct personality and are given the freedom to actively engage with the locals and flex the offer to appeal to their own customer base.
In that they are supported by a 40-strong team based at the company’s Kilmarnock headquarters which is delivering a major drive towards digital marketing including a new mobile app and loyalty programme.
And alongside coaching in the pubs, head office also acts as a hub for training staff to meet Buzzworks’ exacting standards and for developing its people to meet the demands of an expanding operator.
Clear career paths have been put in place to make sure employees know from day one the opportunities available to them, while a skills matrix identifies the gaps to be filled within the business so that training can be targeted where it’s needed. The result is a rise in promotion from within and a sharp fall in staff turnover in the past 12 months.
This strong culture means the group is well prepared to pursue future growth and bring that buzz to more Scottish towns.
Heartwood Inns
Born out of Raymond Blanc’s Brasserie Blanc, the Heartwood Inns mission is to bring restaurant quality food and service to the traditional English pub – and in the past year it’s added great places to stay, too.
Now numbering 33 sites from the Midlands to the south coast, the group has managed its speedy expansion superbly well, bringing out the potential in a mix of historic and characterful properties with some big, bold and imaginative investments that are all about comfort, quality and individual charm.
A culture of high levels of service and professionalism is driven by an experienced operations team in which an ops director and executive chef work together to ensure general managers and their staff have the right offer in place and everything they need to achieve success from the moment the doors open.
And that same meticulous preparation and attention to detail has gone into Heartwood’s new pub-hotels that are adding a fresh and exciting dimension to what was already an impressive business.
Guests are well looked-after with high-quality dishes created by chefs tuned into the latest culinary trends and nearly everything prepared from scratch by skilled people in the pub kitchens, served, along with fine wines and local cask ales, to exacting standards.
Perhaps it’s not so surprising that Heartwood sees itself as primarily “a training organisation” reflecting a focus on staff development that seeks to guarantee a pipeline of talent that can fuel its growth.
The opportunities for career progression are graphically illustrated in the company’s Stepping Stones programme, and colour-coded charts enable the company to see instantly where skills gaps need to be filled, and which staff are ready from promotion.
It all means Heartwood is delivering a wonderful experience for pub-goers and now travellers, an experience that increasing numbers of people are going to enjoy as it surges forward on its expansion trail.
The Morgan Pub Collective
A family owned and run operation since 1974, Morgan has a diverse estate of 23 pubs circling London to the west, as far out as Oxford. Its estate includes some of the capital’s classic boozers, such as Soho’s Lyric and the Express Tavern on Kew Bridge, and large family-focused venues such as the Old Mill at Berkhamsted.
It’s a nimble operation, and in recent years the company has been able to seize a number of opportunities to add to its portfolio, and it enjoys a flexibility that ensures the offer will match the site.
The emphasis is on each pub retaining its own identity, and the family, as well as the operations team, are out in trade a lot, working closely with general managers and tuning into the needs of each business, giving them the feel of an independent. Regular audits help maintain consistent standards.
With beer, both cask and craft, central to the offer, GMs have a big say in what’s on the bar and the range can be extensive. More than 100 craft brewers have had the chance to put their beers on a Morgan bar where they can expect due attention to quality.
Food has become increasingly important as the group has expanded into more family-friendly venues, and head chefs, too, have the freedom to improvise around a core menu.
The pubs work hard at deepening the loyalty of their clientele, organising many events, including live music, and there local sports teams are sponsored enthusiastically.
Talented people can progress quickly within the estate, and younger staff are engaged with the business partly through bite-sized TikTok training videos alongside hands-on coaching from their managers.
Morgan’s success demonstrates that, in a fast-changing and challenging industry, traditional pubs that know their market and inspire their people can still thrive.
St Austell
One of the country’s great family brewers, with a history dating back more than 160 years, St Austell has been on a mission to transform its managed house business since emerging from the Covid pandemic, aiming to unlock the full potential of its 46 pubs around the South West.
Alongside heavy investment into its estate, including upgrades to its hotel operations, it is driving a culture change that frees up general managers and teams to take more risks, try new things and inject individual character into their pubs, giving locals, as well as tourists, good reasons to visit.
Through its Guest programme, St Austell has also driven consistent standards by turning the focus onto customer experience across all aspects of the operation, training staff in the ‘Super Seven’ steps that make sure people enjoy themselves to the maximum.
A new pathway that shows how people can develop themselves working for St Austell has been introduced, too, with ‘Crafting Careers’ designed to enable employees to grow at their own pace – which can be quite fast as the company aspires to the ambitious goal of recruiting 70% of its managers from within.
Chefs have a large degree of scope to create a menu that suits their pub thanks to a bank of no fewer than 500 dishes to choose from, and they are also encouraged to come up with their own creations, reflected in the annual ‘Proper Chefs’ contest, which is proving valuable in helping recruitment and retention in the kitchen.
On the bar, St Austell enjoys the advantage of having its own range of ales, now supplemented by beers from Cornish craft brewer Harbour.
Overall, a well thought through plan is coming to fruition, with improving guest scores and staff engagement showing that the company is on the right track to delivering a pub experience it can feel proud about.
