With trade increasingly reliant on programmed activity, the site has expanded its offer to create more consistent footfall across the week.
Co-founder Garth Jackson said events now play a central role in commercial performance. “Trade is so sporadic at the moment and actually without those events, without the stuff that’s going on, it makes a massive difference,” he said. “An event can be the difference between normal sales and quadruple sales.”
Competitive eating
As part of that strategy, the venue has introduced a series of oversized eating challenges, which have become a distinctive draw both in venue and online.
Jackson said the idea stemmed from monitoring operators who were gaining strong traction on TikTok and other platforms. “Like all good ideas, it was stolen from someone else,” he said. “There was nothing like that around here, so I thought, right, let’s give it a try.”
The pub’s core challenges are deliberately extreme, sitting at over 3kg of food each, plus drinks.
The breakfast challenge, which some guests regard as one of the largest in the country, comes in at around 3.2kg of food plus two pints of tea or coffee. “It’s interesting to see. It’s huge,” he said,
The burger challenge includes five 8oz steak burgers topped with cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, pickles and onion relish, accompanied by 1kg of chips and 1kg of coleslaw.
The jacket potato challenge features seven jacket potatoes with 1.2kg of beef chilli, 1kg of cheese, 1kg of beans and 1kg of coleslaw, with a salad garnish. “That one is big,” Jackson said.
Around 30 people have attempted the challenges, often bringing groups with them. “There’s always a bit of a buzz around the table,” he said. “People in the venue love watching it, especially on quieter days when we host the challenges in the main bar.”
Some events attract multiple competitors at once. “I had four guys take on breakfast challenges simultaneously. The difference in how they did it was really interesting.”
Driving engagement
Jackson said the commercial benefit extends beyond food sales. “The biggest impact has been social engagement,” he said. “Our Facebook is already active, but the challenges have really helped grow Instagram and TikTok. It breaks up our usual event content and gives us something more interesting to shout about.”
The scheduling also strengthens weekday sales. “Most competitive eaters don’t want to feel gross at the weekend, so they naturally book Monday to Thursday,” he said. “That helps massively.”
The wider events programme at Almondsbury Creative spans K-pop parties with multiple 300 person sessions, festivals and trend led programming.
“You have to be so aware of what’s on trend,” he said. “Sometimes you think something will fly and it doesn’t. But other times it explodes. Our K-pop events have sold out over and over again.”
A recently approved licence now allows Almondsbury Creative to host outdoor events for up to 8,000 people, enabling the launch of its Small Town Big Music festival on 4 July. “That’s hopefully going to be our biggest event,” Jackson said.
“It’s not really about hitting 8000,” he added. “It’s about having room to run events for 1000 to 2000 without loads of infrastructure.”
Community at the centre
Despite the scale of programming, Jackson emphasised that the business remains grounded in community activity.
“It’s about supporting the football club, the tennis club, the cricket club, the dance classes,” he said. “The majority of what we do isn’t that profitable. But without events, trade is so sporadic.”
His long term ambition is stability. “I’d like some consistency,” he said. “It would be nice to get to a point where trade isn’t so erratic. But mostly, it’s about creating somewhere people feel comfortable. We’re not a great looking venue, but people love being here.”
Asked about future concepts, he said: “I’m always working on new stupidity. There’s always something. That’s the fun of it.”
