Better Business – The Elm Tree, Elmton
When Chris and Jean Norfolk took over the Elm Tree it was selling traditional pub staples like lasagne and scampi. They replaced them with more local, fresh food, and after a tough start, the business is thriving. Neil Gerrard reports
Need to know
Around four years ago, husband and wife Chris and Jean Norfolk started looking for a business to run after Chris was made redundant from his job as deputy general manager of the Aston Hall hotel in Sheffield. Despite still being relatively young to run their own business, Chris was confident that he and Jean could make it work, particularly because he already had three years of college, experience of teaching cookery, and a degree in hospitality management under his belt.
The pair found the Elm Tree - a Punch pub in the village of Elmton in Derbyshire. The previous tenant struggled to make the site work, having offered what Chris describes as a "branded type of operation" with pub staples like lasagne and scampi, often straight from a microwave. But he and Jean were hopeful that their plans to offer more local, fresh food would help turn the business around.
Target market
The pub does enjoy a local trade, and Chris makes sure that residents of the village of Elmton, which consists only of about 20 houses, know what's going on at the pub so that they continue to drop in for special events.
"Some people come in for a drink every two days, others come in every six months, but they all use it," Chris says. However, the village is not big enough to sustain the business on its own, which is why the Norfolks work hard to bring in customers from as far afield as Chesterfield, Sheffield, Doncaster, Derby and Nottinghamshire.
The type of customer that comes through the door changes day-to-day. "On Sundays there is more of a family feel. During the week it is mainly couples or tables for four, and on Friday and Saturday people will get dressed up more," Chris says.
Special events
To help drive trade, Chris and Jean run special events, one example of which is their twice-yearly series of wine nights where they offer wine matching with a meal. Chris normally designs the menu to match the wines, while the sales director from Hull-based House of Townend drops by to conduct the tasting.
The next in the series will be a tongue-in-cheek 1970s wine night where the pub offers out-of-fashion household names like Black Tower and Blue Nun, paired with pub food staples of the era like prawn cocktail and Black Forest gateau. If that doesn't immediately sound appetising, Chris explains that the food will offer a modern take on classic dishes - the prawn cocktail will contain king prawns and lemon grass to give it a Thai twist, while the Black Forest gateau won't be straight out of a freezer but will instead be made up of a chocolate sponge, a chocolate ganache and a cherry sorbet.
Relationship with Punch
Punch, like several of the other big pubcos, has a reputation - whether warranted or not - for imposing tough tied deals on tenants and licensees that they struggle to fulfil. But that hasn't been an issue for the Norfolks. Chris says that while they did some refurbishment work themselves when they took on the tenancy, handling the fixtures and fittings, Punch shelled out for a £90,000 refurbishment encompassing the building works that were required. For Chris, it is all about making sure you go into a deal with your eyes open.
"I know I have to buy their beer at a ridiculous price and they know I have to sell their beer at a ridiculous price in order to make the margin. I make my money on the food. I don't buy out of the tie or anything like that. If you know the deal before you sign up, then that's the deal. I stick to my side and they stick to their side," he says.
Marketing
Chris hopes that the pub will soon appear in some of the well-known pub and restaurant guidebooks, but for the moment he relies on word of mouth and the pub's email database, which he has grown to 500 addresses through the use of comment cards on tables. He has also found that positive reviews in the local press have helped to generate extra customers, as has entering competitions (see opposite).
Best business advice
Chris says that he is still learning as he goes along, but the best piece of advice he can offer when starting up a new business is to stick to your guns. "When I first took over the pub, and because it was a microwaving kind of place, you would get customers coming in and asking why we didn't do lasagne or chicken nuggets any more."
Chris said he tried to explain to these disgruntled former regulars that this was no longer what the pub did, but that it was sometimes tough to take the reaction.
"When you first take over and you have a business that is failing, and you have a table of four that walk out because you don't do chicken nuggets and jacket potatoes, it is a bit disheartening," he explains. "But stick to your guns. We did loads of research about demographics before we took this pub on, so we knew there were potential customers for what we did within a 20-mile radius - we just had to get them here."
Spotlight on Britain's Favourite Burger
The recipe made it to the final five after a public vote on Facebook. The next stage was a cook-off at Heinz's London offices, but Chris couldn't make it because Jean had a baby the day before. So one of the pub's chefs, 21-year-old Ben Wilson, was drafted in at the last moment and won.
"He did really well," Chris says. "We get a 31-day hung full sirloin on the rib and we take the sirloin and the fillet off and then all the trimmings and ribs and chain off the fillet are used to make the burger."
The pub won a £1,000 cash prize and a stay in a Hotel du Vin, as well as the publicity that came with winning the competition.
Chris Norfolk's Revelations
Favourite restaurant Restaurant Sat Bains, Nottingham
Favourite hotel Hotel du Vin
Who do you most admire? Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Favourite book Nose to Tail Eating by Fergus Henderson, and White Heat by Marco Pierre White
Motto Greed ruins businesses
Facts and stats
Owner punch taverns
Tenants Chris and Jean Norfolk
Staff 15
Capacity 65 (dining)
Average spend per head £20 (food & drink)
Length of tenancy Five years
