We have to stay ahead of our imitators

As we approach Easter and the summer season, it is always rewarding to see the same faces returning after their winter break. Many have caravans locally or simply visit the Dales on day trips, but for the duration of the spring and summer they are an important market of regular customers.

However, the fact that so many people regularly reappear can lead to a little complacency on our part, and over the winter months, some of our local competition have changed their style of menu and food to something closely resembling our own. We accept that imitation may be a compliment, but it has also made us take a rather more critical look at ourselves in order to stay ahead of the field.

One option was to become more visible, but I have never believed in local press advertising because it is indiscriminate.

The answer seems to be to improve our in-house marketing, driving improved food and services through the people that we know, and who already like our style of food.

We have decided to offer a wider range of wine by the glass, regularly changing the wines, possibly with tasting notes available and featuring some unusual wines from less popular countries. This stems from my own disappointment at a recent wine tasting, when 18 out of 25 white wines tasted were Chardonnay derivatives - a shame when there are so many excellent alternatives.

We are also planning to offer some themed dinners. We did this some years ago when times were difficult, and had considerable success. Initially, I plan to offer an extensive tasting menu, possible of eight to 10 courses with accompanying wines. Again, this can be entirely marketed in-house with very little associated costs.

It appears that the wet side of the business is still in terminal decline in rural pubs. Increasingly we feel that we are running a restaurant with only a fraction of sales unconnected to food, and we are certainly not alone, as a tour of local competition showed last week.

It is difficult to envisage how this decline can be arrested by local marketing and promotions in the face of greater competition for people's disposable income. Still, we have little option but to keep trying to innovate. n

Ian Vipond is chef-patron of the New Inn, a free house pub in Hunton on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales

Next diary from Ian Vipond: 6 May