Judgement of a peer

01 January 2000
Judgement of a peer

What the hell does the Earl of Bradford think he's doing? The 51-year-old restaurateur, best known for Porters restaurant in London's Covent Garden, has spent the past four months up to his eyebrows in builders' dust and rubble after buying a run-down old pub in Shropshire for £350,000.

He and his team have been working out of a Portakabin in the car park while gangs of carpenters and roofers set about transforming what was formerly the Plough at Weston Heath into a smart new drinking and dining venue, the Countess's Arms.

By Bradford's account, the pub had not been trading well, causing the previous owners to "descend into a mood of despair" before deciding to sell up as they approached retirement age. But he was convinced that the place, just a few miles away from his family home, was a potential winner. "The location is excellent," he says.

Sceptical locals

The pub stands on a two-acre site with large car parks front and back, 20 minutes north of Wolverhampton on the busy A41 trunk road. But some locals are sceptical about its ability to attract trade. "Nobody lives around here," says one.

Bradford, of course, disagrees. "It's become a commuting area for Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Telford. A lot of people are living round this area now. The tiny cottages are becoming rather grand palaces these days." The pub is highly visible and easy to get to, he insists.

Despite his current enthusiasm, Bradford had balked at starting up a business in his own back yard. "I've always sworn I would never open a restaurant in Shropshire," he says. "Around here a restaurant is still somewhere you go for a posh evening out on Friday and Saturday nights. I've been to restaurants that are empty on a Thursday, fully booked on Friday and Saturday and doing no lunchtime trade at all." To compensate for the lost business, prices can be high, with customers forced to spend up to £40 a head.

The Countess's Arms, therefore, will not be a restaurant, but a pub with food. "To call it a restaurant would be a financial cutting of the throat," he believes, and is aiming at a modest spend per head of £7-£8 net of VAT. "There's a very definite local need for something that bridges the gap between a restaurant, which tends to be fairly expensive, and a pub."

So what will the new venture look like?

"It ain't gonna be your average country pub," declares Bradford. The builders have knocked through what used to be a maze of small rooms on the ground floor to create a modern bar area with space for about 120 people. What was previously the landlord's accommodation on the first floor has been demolished to double the height of the room and create a gallery with 55 seats. And to the right of the main bar an 80-seat extension has been added, with French windows at the far end.

From the outside the extension has been disguised to look like a kitchen-garden wall and has been topped off with old tiles taken from an outhouse round the back. A "horrid" lean-to attached to the pub's front wall was replaced with a brick porch, again in keeping with the original building, which dates from 1875.

Inside, Bradford is going for a colourful, non-standardised look with a mix of wooden and Lloyd Loom furniture in an effort to create a relaxed atmosphere. Floors are flagstone in the bar, wooden in the extension and carpeted upstairs. "We want this to be a casual eating or drinking experience where people come along and enjoy themselves and feel comfortable." Customers will be able to eat or drink in any part of the pub they want to, and all tables will have waitress or waiter service.

Kitchen investment

The target market, says Bradford, is "essentially 25- to 50-year-old professionals - anybody apart from 17- to 20-year-old troublemakers".

Food is expected to account for about 50% of sales, an importance reflected by the company's £110,000 investment in equipment for the kitchen (which at 15m by 8m is large for a pub). It is staffed by a team of 10 led by Mark Hands, previously head chef at Soulton Hall hotel near Shrewsbury.

The main menu mixes English favourites such as steak and mushroom pie (£5.75) with more exotic flavours like Thai green chicken curry (£5.95) and pork or chicken satay (£4.95). On the drinks board are five cask-conditioned ales including Bank's bitter (£1.80) and Old Speckled Hen (£2.10), plus 18 wines by the glass or bottle. These sell for between £1.95 and £2.95 for a 175ml glass.

A major selling point is expected to be quick service. All waiting staff have been issued with vibrating pagers to tell them when their orders are ready, keeping them out of the kitchen as much as possible. The menu has been designed for speed, and electric dumb waiters will ferry dishes up to the gallery. "Main courses should get to customers' tables within 15 minutes, possibly less," says company director Neil Wornham, who has been managing the pub's launch and will continue to oversee the venture.

The project itself appears to have been remarkably trouble-free given the short time from buying the pub in mid-June to opening last week. But there were one or two hitches, as Wornham points out. "The structure of the building was in question on more than one occasion," he says, adding quickly that it is now firmly shored up with "an awful lot of steel".

Equipment hitches

Apart from two break-ins and some difficulty finding staff, the main hitch has been with the kitchen equipment. A vital pizza oven turned out not to be the make that had been ordered, staff discovered on unwrapping it; and just before the pub was due to open both the dishwasher and bratt pan were still not working and one chiller cabinet had not turned up.

The experience has clouded Bradford's view of British industry. "Start with the basic assumption that everybody's going to screw up," is his new motto. He does concede, however, that the contractors working on the building have, for the most part, been outstanding.

Bradford is reluctant to set strict financial targets, insisting that as long as enough customers are coming through the door, the pub will be successful. At a conservative estimate, though, he reckons it could take £900,000 a year; and he hopes that gross profit will hit 62.5%. "We're not pissing around running a little country pub. We want something that can take serious money."

Maybe he does know what he's doing after all.

Next visit: 10 December

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