Grimbleby remembers the precise moment when he and his Craft Union co-founders recognised they were on to a winner with the operator-managed pub company.
It was early days for the wet-led community pub company, which was co-founded with James Croft (now at Punch Group) and Carol Roderickson, then part of Ei Group.
“Pub number nine was the Corner Pin in Barnsley when realised we had something special,” Grimbleby recalls.
“We transitioned an L&T [leased & tenanted] pub from doing about £4,000 a week into the Craft Union estate and it was doing £15,000 very quickly.
“What it taught us and gave us such huge confidence with, is we could trade this pub seven days a week, wet-led, deal with daytime trade, sport on the weekend and turning it up and going high energy on a Friday and Saturday night until 3am.”
Company values
This flexible, multi-daypart model has proven a winning formula for Craft Union, which is one of Stonegate’s stand-out performers, and one of the key reasons it acquired the Ei business in 2020.
Speaking at The Morning Advertiser‘s sister publication MCA’s Pub Conference last month (Thursday 26 June), Grimbleby reflected back to when the company was formed a decade ago.
“We started with the philosophy that said we wanted to create outstanding community pubs and put them back into their communities,” he said. “To do that, we needed an operator that would be the local hero.
“Our values were honesty, humour, diversity, win-win and of course community alongside a mission to revitalise the community wet-led pub.”
Over the past 10 years, Craft Union has grown steadily with conversions from the former Ei Group L&T estate, now Pub Partners under Stonegate, but Grimbleby emphasises how the original founding ethos has remained.
“Despite having more than 600 pubs now nothing has really changed, we’ve kept that philosophy at the heart of the business,” he said.
“The only thing that’s changed is the average price of a pint!”
Business ethos
Being value-led has always been core to the business model, as part of its community oriented and accessible ethos.
The secret behind the business’ success, which Stonegate CEO David McDowall previously described as “a jewel in its crown”, is its business partnership model, according to Grimbleby.
“In this model there is one aspect – operating with a true partnership, standing shoulder to shoulder,” he added.
“It’s going really well, how it’s been 10 years I don’t know. The average tenure is 85%, and when we look at retention, that is a very strong number.”
- This story was first reported in MCA. Catch up on more from the Pub Conference here:
- Urban Pubs & Bars on track to deliver turnover in excess of £100m
- Punch sees managed partnership model as ‘key growth engine’
- Parogon Group: ‘We’ve still got growth’
- Nightcap: ‘Brighton i360 is great hedge for our bar business’
