New order
hat is it about the British pub concept that seems to render its owners incapable of doing anything more imaginative than scraping years of nicotine off the walls, orlooking through a catalogue for fake Victorianaor horse brasses?
As Jonathan Meades, writer and food critic says: "Our fondness for the past is a result of our resignation at not being able to do anything better with the present."
Ian Grier, development and marketing director of Alloa Pubs & Restaurants, summarises the problem facing his brewery colleagues: "Breweries don't back up their design element sufficiently. They are stuck in the ‘if it ain't broke, don't fix it' mentality."
Pubs need to sharpen up their act. They need to become more attractive to women, improve the food they offer, and compete with the new plethora of late-night cafés and continental-style bars in ambience and style.
Alloa is one of a small number of pub-owning companies busily shaking up the old formulas. Grier has divided his pub portfolio into different types: the town drinking house, the male-oriented drinking house, the quality, traditional wet pub (drink-led), the quality, traditional food pub (food-led), the young person's circuit pub (one they would visit and then move on from), the young person's venue (destination pub), and the broad-based local city pub.
Typical of the way he has tailored design to fit the pub concept is the Hunter's Tryst, a coaching inn in Edinburgh which fits the quality, traditional food concept. The locals are what Grier terms "grey panthers" - retired couples or people in their late forties with a high disposable income.
Alloa installed light wood banisters with hand-turned poles, fitted seats and a real wood fire. The tables are covered with oiled tablecloths, decorated with dried grasses and surrounded by heavy, mediaeval chairs. The overhaul cost Grier £222,000, but the turnover on food is now up by 50%.
At the King Street Mill in Aberdeen, in the middle of the university campus, Grier saw the potential of a student audience and set about turning it into a young person's venue. He completely restructured the building, which housed two cramped bars divided by a toilet block. He spent £350,000 on the building, retaining the slate-tiled roof and rough-cast rendering on the outside, and opening up the bar into one long room, with toilets sited at the back. The floors are mostly wood, the bar is 60ft long and the furnishings are back-to-back settle chairs and tables. Griers didn't see the need to dress it up too much, but he did invest in a 1,000W music system.
The pub draws a big student crowd by night, and quite a lot of business lunchers by day. Its weekly turnover has shot up from £4,000 to as much as £28,000. Grier says: "It will make twice my projected profit because it can now take 300 people."
Grier's latest coup has been themed outlets. Around four years ago, he and Graham Russell, creative director of Edinburgh's Northcross consultancy, developed the Bert's Bar concept of town drinking house. It is pure theatre, based around a 1950s blue-collar bar and kitted out with vintage fittings: lino, formica tables with aluminium edging, Cannon gas fires in tiled walls, and a black and white TV perched above the bar. Cigarettes are kept in a wooden drawer, and the coffee comes in large ceramic mugs. The two Edinburgh bars, both previously taking around £2,000 a week, are now taking up to £8,000. There are also Bert's Bars in St Andrews and Dundee.
But by far Alloa's biggest success is the newly launched Scruffy Murphy's, an Irish pub concept. The first Scruffy Murphy's opened last November, utilising fixtures and fittings imported from Ireland.
Inside, it is a spit and sawdust style bar, with wooden floors. The back of the bar is an old chemist's counter (all shops in Ireland used to be entitled to sell liquor). Grier says: "It is Allied's most successful pub in terms of take per square foot. The Edinburgh one is 780sq ft and takes £18,000 per week."
Allied has plans to have 25 of these types of pubs throughout the UK within the next year.
Grier has even invested in quirky, one-off, fashion-led bars. Last December he opened a 1970s bar in Edinburgh called Car Wash, the frontage distinguished by a resin model of the front of a pink 1970s cadillac.
This fit-out cost him a mere £24,000, and comprised second-hand artefacts acquired from junk shops and auctions. "Previously it was doing £1,800 a week. It's now doing £10,000," says Grier.
Ind Coope, Alloa's sister company in the South, has been following suit, along with Whitbread and JD Wetherspoon's. But in fact some of the boldest innovation has come from the independents. The Sun, in Clapham, is a Bass freehouse run by Tom and Ann Halpin as part of their young pub company, Helmshine's. It was opened a year ago and is obviously tailored to appeal to Clapham's substantial arty population.
The Halpins have kept down conversion costs by relying largely on surface decoration. They employed local design company Organised Chaos to take charge of murals, wall finishes and upholstery. Ann Halpin herself designed metal-framed sofas, with removable seats and backs for easy cleaning.
Colourful wall decorations extend over ceilings and into the toilets. A mere £85,000 covered all furnishings and effects for the large front room, the back room and the upstairs function room. Including regular functions at weekends, Mrs Halpin reckons the take is between £7,000 and £8,000.
Another clever independent is Clarke Baker Inns, owners of the Truscott, close to London's Liverpool Street station. Built into an old warehouse byLondon designers Stock Woolstencroft, it is lightand spacious, with a huge glass brick wall thatlets in light.
It combines an attractive, café-style eating area with a traditional horseshoe-shaped bar. A wooden-floored drinks area offers plenty of standing room and a comfortable sofa, plus space for live music.
Both the Sun and the Truscott have found that they have attracted more women customers.
Julian Stock of Stock Woolstencroft says that the key attractions for women were good ventilation and "clean toilets, visibility and access to the door, and the clean lines of the design."
Another pub which achieved hefty increase in female clientele after redesign is the Leatherne Bottel, a rustic pub in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. It had previously been a bikers' hangout, but proprietors Keith Read and Annie Bonnet, who took the place on four years ago, were determined to turn it into a quality pub with a strong food element. Read was recently rewarded for his efforts with a Michelin Red M.
Rather than go the usual rustic route of horse brasses and twee chintzes, Read and Bonnet made the most of strong light from the nearby river, and themed the restaurant area in terracotta and blue, with plain painted walls. There are two real fires, the chairs and sofas in the pub area are upholstered in high-quality, contemporary fabrics, and made cosier with fat cushions.
Possibly the most popular touch among women customers is Bonnet's lavish use of fresh flowers, most of which are from her own garden. Read says they spend around £20,000 each year on freshening up the place and making improvements.
As recent surveys indicate, food is the way to pull in pub customers. At the Sun, a new menu offering home-cooked Italian-style fare has raised food revenue to a healthy £700 a week.
In a desolate pub landscape, there are a surprising number of oases cropping up. But there's still a long way to go before the image conjured up by the word pub is no longer a dank, greasy cave. o
