STEN case study – Gastro Pub
Landlord wants Irish pubs to focus on food, writes Douglas Dalby If your experience of pub grub consists of cardboard roast, soggy carrots, wrinkly parsnips and butter-sodden spuds long past their serve-by date, then you may be in for a pleasant surprise. If Martin Connolly of the Gastro Pub company has his way, fine food at value prices may be coming to a hostelry near you. “A gastro pub is not far removed in concept from a Parisian brasserie. A gastro pub is where you go for a good lunch Monday to Friday, a pre-theatre or cinema early bird menu, a reasonably priced dinner, which all can be had with a bottle of wine or a few pints,” Connolly said. “Similarly, it is a place where families can feel comfortable eating of a Sunday. “We produce locally sourced fresh food for under €20 cooked to order by a full team of chefs in an open kitchen - there's not a carvery in sight.” Connolly and his partners, who opened their first gastro pub in Dun Laoghaire in April 2007, are planning a €100m investment in 14 more throughout Ireland over the next five years. Far from reinventing the wheel, Connolly believes the current business climate in Ireland mirrors the situation in the UK in the late 1990s that gave birth to gastro pub movement there. “In London, about 10 years ago, restaurants and restaurateurs became extremely fashionable and very expensive as a result,” Connolly said. “Gordon Ramsey, Marco Pierre-White and others brought a type of showbusiness to the industry. Designers, landlords and suppliers were anxious to get on the bandwagon and as a result restaurants became very expensive to build and operate, excluding lesser-known managers and chefs from progressing in the industry in the best locations. “At the same time pubs all over the UK were closing down because of a major fall-off in business. They were regarded as dingy, out of date and, because of drink-driving laws, a turn-off for drivers.” If all this sounds familiar, the antidote may be similarly successful - something Connolly and his partners, architects James Toomey and Michael Duff, are betting on. In London it came in the form of The Eagle, a pub leased by two chefs who put a kitchen into the bar and started serving good food at reasonable prices. It started a culinary movement. Here, it has started in the form of the Gastro pub in Dun Laoghaire. The bar employs 30 staff and is projecting turnover of €2m this year, up from €1.2m in the first nine months of trading in 2007. Over the next five years, the company intends to grow to 360 full-time and 120 part-time staff, growing turnover exponentially. Connolly, who opened Dobbins Wine Bistro in Dublin before moving to the UK in the late 1980s to manage and own restaurants in London and Brighton, shrugs off suggestions that the current credit crunch may stymie such ambitious expansion. In fact, he believes tumbling turnovers in a struggling pub trade will make his proposition more attractive to finance. “Pubs are valued on the basis of turnover, which have been falling in many pubs in recent years. The benefit to the publican by rebranding as a Gastro pub is that sales increase in both food and drink, thus driving turnover and the value of the pub. Because the future growth is property driven with security in the value of the pubs combined with the increased turnover borrowing will be secured.” Connolly and his partners believe the gastro pub formula “offers a lifeline to struggling publicans”. “The economic slowdown, drink driving laws and an increase in Sky TV subscriptions have affected the pub trade all over Ireland,” he said. “This has been the key to the company's business
strategy.” And what would stop struggling publicans adopting this strategy and doing it for themselves? “The changes came to Ireland more suddenly than London and publicans are still trying to play catch-up in too many areas at the same time,” Connolly said. “As food became a hugely important factor, many publicans were just not trained and many did not have pubs properly equipped to do food to restaurant standards. Most - not all - pubs in Ireland are still not producing food to restaurant standard. The Gastro pub Company was formed to address this need.” Connolly believes the chain will most likely flourish in the suburbs of major cities or in large towns but believes neighbourhood bars rather than superpubs will be the most likely targets. He is firmly of the opinion that the mentality of many Irish bar owners belongs in a bygone age. “It used to be if a publican was in trouble he would renovate the bar but that just isn't enough anymore. Young people in particular do not have the same disposable income as in pre-Celtic Tiger days when they couldn't dream of owning their own homes. That disposable income is going into mortgages and furniture - pubs will have to do a lot more than a lick of paint to make them attractive.” It may be anathema to pub purists but in the future, the answer to 'what are you having' will likely be something far removed from the pint of plain. Still, Connolly is keen to emphasise that gastro pubs are still pubs. Beer and wine sales have always formed an important component of any gastro pub. There has never been a requirement to eat - in the company's Dun Laoghaire outlet the mix is 60% food and 40% drink. That said, pub food may never be the same again. Connolly said: “Last week we got a deal on lobster from a local fisherman and had it on the menu for €25 a portion as a special - that went down well.”
Maintaining value for money in times of soaring costs By John Langrell, Branch Manager, AIB Dun Laoghaire
The Irish Pub trade has undergone significant changes recently - the introduction of new legislation regarding the smoking ban and random breath testing along with changing social attitudes towards alcohol consumption has had a significant impact on the industry overall. However, The Gastro Pub company are well set to capitalise and lead the charge on an emerging ‘casual dining’ trend. Managing costs will be key to Gastro Pub for sustaining success. quality while continuing to deliver value for money. Ensure that you negotiate the best possible deal with your appropriate to obtain keener prices. Carefully manage stock efficiencies. Finally, by monitoring staff levels, you will have the you and allow you to operate more effectively. Be careful not to compromise on suppliers and bulk buy where levels to create maximum cost optimum manpower available to
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