Packing in
In October, Robin Hutson and Gerard Basset opened Hotel du Vin & Bistro - a relaunch of a run-down Winchester hotel, which they bought in June.
The £1.25m project is their first move from employment into running their own business. Hutson was formerly managing director, and Basset chef-sommelier, at Chewton Glen country house hotel, in Hampshire.
In the first month's trading, the hotel comfortably beat its modest targets - with room occupancy of 50% and an average of 70 covers a day served in the bistro.
For one week in November, the bedrooms at Hotel du Vin were booked out. No one was more surprised than Robin Hutson and Gerard Basset, not least because the previous week had been dead. The secret, it turned out, was in an unforeseen benefit to their location.
As the hotel is immediately behind the Winchester courthouse, they had expected some business from the legal profession. But they had not reckoned on the media entourage that follows high-profile cases. The main news in November was the Lyme Regis canoe disaster case, which was being heard at the court.
During the week in which the trial began, Hotel du Vin was fully booked with journalists who, true to their reputation, boosted bar takings handsomely. Hutson and Basset are looking forward to their return when the court returns its verdict.
That experience proved to them the importance of filling the rooms. "That week we added 50% to our best take so far," says Hutson. "It proved that if we can fill the bedrooms, the success of the bistro will automatically follow from hotel guests using it."
The bistro is maintaining its strong start, and on certain days people have been turned away. Local interest remains strong. A particularly welcome diner over the past month was Jonathan Meades, The Times's restaurant critic. His full-page article, praising chef James Martin's cooking and the quality of the operation, has brought in extra custom from beyond the local area.
A less agreeable visitor was an environmental health officer who, true to stereotype, made demands that related neither to necessity nor practicality.
"We've been asked to replaster part of the cellar wall which will cost several hundred pounds," says Hutson. "But it's where we keep cans and bottles - everything is sealed, and there is no possible risk to health." What he and Basset find particularly farcical is that the property had been operating as a hotel in a very run-down state before they invested heavily in improving it.
Finding the golden team of staff is still proving a struggle. Although they have some bright stars, finding a full complement of the right calibre is difficult. Several have already left.
"It's always like that at a new opening," says Basset. "Some people are impatient and they don't stick around until things stabilise."
Part of the problem has been that, because of the high volumes in the bistro, staff have not been doing the jobs they had expected when they were first taken on. "We said originally we would have general assistants' positions, which meant people would work around different areas of the hotel, almost in a junior manager role," explains Hutson. "But, in the event, we have been so busy in the bistro that they have barely been able to leave it."
To address their problem, they have appointed somebody slightly older to lead the team. He is at present working in a country house hotel and has 10 years' experience in the industry. "He came to spend the weekend here and said how much he liked the place - so I mentioned we were looking for somebody," says Basset.
Part-time staff are proving easier to come by and they now have several reliable people to call on. "For every good one you find, you have to try out half-a-dozen who aren't what you want," says Hutson. "So, when you find a good one, you pay them a bit more and give them regular shifts, in order to win their commitment."
But perhaps their most pressing need to solve their staff problems is cracking the accommodation issue. Winchester is a wealthy city, and it is not easy to find affordable accommodation on catering wages. So, several staff have been staying in the hotel bedrooms - which means both lost room revenue and unsettled workers.
Hutson and Basset hope the answer will come in the small house attached to the hotel, which they are negotiating to buy. A two-up two-down, it could accommodate four members of staff. But it comes with a price tag of £100,000 and they have to ask the bank for more money, as well as getting permission from the shareholders.
In the short term, the house would solve their staff problems. Looking to the future, if bistro business continues to build strongly, there might be reason to extend it into the house.
Musing over the possibilities of expansion, Hutson turns to the subject of the conference room. "If it turns out that the conference room doesn't produce the right level of business, we could turn it into the Café du Vin, for example," he says.
But that is likely to be some way off. They still do not know how important a role the conference room is to play in the overall interplay of the business. "We know that the way to success is through filling the bedrooms," says Hutson. "If the key to filling the bedrooms is via the conference room, then we need to concentrate on that."
Plans for the wine school are now well under way. A series of Sunday Mediterranean evenings has been arranged with several sponsors. They will be run by senior people from each of the companies together with Basset.
Basset has also put together a series of tastings that he will tutor himself, once a month on a Monday evening. He is keen to avoid conventional format for this type of event, so has come up with a series of original themes for the evenings.
The first four will be: "White dinner-party wines for under a fiver", "Choosing claret without a bank loan", "ABC - Anything but Chardonnay!" and "Red dinner-party wines for under a fiver." The aim is to appeal to people with a limited knowledge of wine and to relate the tastings to everyday consumption. n
NEXT visit to Hotel du Vin & Bistro: 19 January 1995
