Wall, who heads up the operator-led community-focused arm of Admiral Taverns, said while consumers want to visit the on-trade to socialise with friends, the cost-of-living crisis continues to drive people towards local venues and more affordable occasions.
Join our new WhatsApp channel: The Morning Round-Up
Get the biggest pub trade stories straight to your phone. Listen to our one-minute daily news briefing and receive breaking news, exclusives and sector updates throughout the day....just remember to turn notifications on in top right corner!
Join the channel here.
“People want to go out, they want to socialise, they want to be with their friends – we are a low-cost way of people doing that”, he said.
“At community pubs, you can go out with £10, chat with your friends and have a bit of a laugh.
“People can still manage to do that. They might not be able to go out for a big meal but they can go to the pub.”
Wall said this dynamic has helped well-run community pubs remain “incredibly resilient” but warned challenging trading conditions have put operators under pressure to maintain quality.
Cost pressures
“We’re constantly looking at our KPIs and we’re doing pretty well but the cost pressures are huge in the pub industry and we’re not immune”, he continued. “We need to mitigate those things without diluting our offer.
“Town centres are not as busy as they were because people are struggling to find that discretionary spend… but, fundamentally, they’re still choosing community pubs, which is good for us, but it’s hard work and you have to be relentless in your approach within this environment, otherwise you fall behind very quickly.”
While recent Government support, including the U-turn on business rates following the Autumn Budget, has been “helpful”, Wall said it amounted to a “sticking plaster” and called for “root-and-branch” reform of the system alongside a VAT reduction for hospitality.
Despite the pressures, Wall stressed he was confident in the long-term outlook for the sector amid the growing demand for community-led experiences.
He added: “I’m a natural optimist. Pubs have always adapted. What we’re seeing now is an enormous focus, not just from us but a lot of our competitors also, on community value experiences. It plays to our strengths.”
To support its operators and drive performance ahead of April’s minimum wage increases, Wall told The MA Admiral has stepped up investment into the wet-led division.
Some £8m was invested into Proper Pubs last year, with plans to increase this “substantially” as the business looks to accelerate openings by around 50%.
Growing and investing
“We’re evolving Proper Pubs”, the managing director explained. “We’ll continue to tweak it and add new things to make them relevant for the next decade.
“Some of these pubs have been here for hundreds of years. We’re just custodians who have them for a period of time. But if you don’t change you die.
“Pub culture in the UK is unique and as long as you evolve your offer and stay relevant then the future will be good.”
Though he told The MA the pubco did not want to grow for the sake of it, adding the plan was to grow from around two pubs a month to three in the coming year.
“This year has been about making sure we’ve got the infrastructure in place to grow our speed of growth”, he continued.
“We want to pick every pub carefully… [we’re] not retrenching but growing and investing. We’ve got supportive investors and a supportive board and that’s allowing us to continue to invest.”
- Look out for The MA’s Big Interview with Nathan Wall on Tuesday 7 April.
