Anglian Country Inns’ Cliff Nye, multiple operator Marcus Pearcey and Philip Cutter of the Gardeners Arms/Murderers outlined what shapes the Norwich and wider East Anglian market earlier this month (Wednesday 8 October).
The operators laid out the current trading conditions in the city and how it compared with other areas.
Cutter said: “Norwich city centre used to be the cultural hub of the eastern region. [There were] 6,500 desks with Norwich Union (now Aviva), a hospital that had 1,000 patients, 1,000 staff and 1,000 visitors every day, they’re now not there.
“While now, people are shopping online, the pubs here are still quite buoyant. Generally, we don’t see the amount of closures the rest of the country sees. We do have venues that move on but generally Norwich is a great place to come to.
“It’s very safe, it always seems to be busy from our end. The struggle we have is the early part of the week - Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays - where there’s not the volume of people around that there used to be.”
Flexing operations
Norwich-based multiple operator Marcus Pearcey runs a number of sites including pubs in and around the city including café, brunch and nightlife destination Kerry’s on Queen Street and Irish pub Butcher Bhoy.
He echoed Cutter’s comments around the decline of people going out to the pub at the start of the week and outlined how his business has adapted to combat this.
Pearcey said: “We all suffer the same with the early part of the week being a struggle.
“We found community-based pubs do very well with all the different events we put on, such as bingo nights and quiz nights are massively important if you want to generate numbers during the early part of the week.”
Anglian Country Inns, which has a number of sites on the Norfolk coast, saw a positive impact from the warm weather this summer, capitalising on it with outside events.
Strongest asset
Chairman Cliff Nye said: “Fortunately, the sun shines on the righteous and the sun has shone this year. All our premises are outside based [with] fantastic outside areas.
“We’ve embraced the fruits of the coast with lobster, oyster and mussel festivals and music festivals and it has been incredible.
“The problems in the market may be shaded over by the weather. If the good weather goes, let’s see reality but at the moment, it has been a cracking summer.”
Furthermore, the multi-site pub operator stressed how staff are the sector’s most valuable asset, particularly amid the ongoing pressures faced by the industry.
Nye said: “The strongest asset everybody has is their staff. The Government has brought the industry to its knees but they can’t take the staff attitude to its knees, they can’t affect that, that’s up to you and engagement is fundamental.
“[The Government] has forced us into economising on food but the staff are your key thing on engagement. Not just saying hello when taking an order and taking the money, but by talking to customers, engaging with them, you make the customer happy before they’ve ordered anything.”
