Rural pub loosing face and looking for ideas

puffishoes

for a pub a second hand gaggia with a half decent grinder is more than enough. should get everything for well under 1k

Chet Zar

A coffee machine isn't gonna make or break a pub...and wine in a rural pub?! Gotta be a fair bit down the list of priorities.

I would have said it was ultra simple:

-Friendly owner and staff above all!
-Keen on the price of a pint (surely most rural pubs aren't going to be that expensive?)
-Clean, cosy surroundings
-Great food, again at keen prices

TheBody

playhouse12 wrote: »

If you have space outside in the garden area,i supply install commercial playground equipment tested to EN 1176 standards,these are very popular in pubs all over the UK,and kids want to come back,and parents will spend a few bob,plus kids burgers etc
Regards Playhouse

With the greatest respect, I think Ireland has enough problems with drink without encouraging people to bring their children to the pub too.

ladypip

I thought the culture of dragging children to pubs while parents drink was dead and buried but unfortunately it would seem not.

getz

ladypip wrote: »

I thought the culture of dragging children to pubs while parents drink was dead and buried but unfortunately it would seem not.

in countries like the UK children are now welcomed in pubs and bars,they found that the only way to get people back in ,is to have them family friendly,with children play areas ect,also pubs in ireland should be more dog friendly,to drag in the pet lovers and the UK tourist,many of them now bring their pets with them, less than a hrs drive from me is the town of ambleside [lake windermere] most of the pubs also have a restaurant and dogs are not only allowed in they also have their own doggy menu, [things like doggy bones 50p]

TheBody

getz wrote: »

in countries like the UK children are now welcomed in pubs and bars,they found that the only way to get people back in ,is to have them family friendly,with children play areas ect,also pubs in ireland should be more dog friendly,to drag in the pet lovers and the UK tourist,many of them now bring their pets with them, less than a hrs drive from me is the town of ambleside [lake windermere] most of the pubs also have a restaurant and dogs are not only allowed in they also have their own doggy menu, [things like doggy bones 50p]

That may well be but PERSONALLY it's not something I'd like to see here. In my opinion, children do not belong anywhere near a pub when their parents/guardians are dinking. I think it sends the wrong message to our young people. Sometimes I pop into my local for Sunday carvery and I feel really uncomfortable when I see children running around while the parents are getting drunk at lunch time on a Sunday.

2rkehij30qtza5

Funny this post should pop up as I've only been discussing this with my dad and my husband earlier today.

Our local pub (also country pub) is getting quieter by the week. So we were coming up with ideas.

I suggested that the owners provide some kind of taxi/minibus/car service which collects and drops people off on the half hour say, within an X mile radius up until closing time.

It's one way of convincing people to come to the pub without the fear of having a drink and being over the limit.

Another way would be to start a golf society. There doesn't have to be a club nearby as the society could travel on a weekly basis with prize giving that night in the pub.

Another idea for the summer is to do bbq's with a pint for €10-€15 a head or something. Starting at 7.30pm Sat evenings maybe. Then hold onto the crowd for the night. Provide some decent music-not blaring pop songs but music that will appeal to all...I dunno, Pogues etc. Stuff every age group knows. Anyone with iTunes and a laptop could set this up.

Week nights you could do sporting events too. Have an informal tag rugby event which ends up in the pub on say Wed or Thurs eves?

You could dedicate one night per month midweek to a table quiz?

Just some ideas. You need to keep a regular client base or establish one. The best way to do this is to have a club/society or multitude of them.

If you have a look at foreign holiday resort's websites where they have bars on the grounds of the campsites/apartment complexes..how do they keep the people there for the night? You might get some ideas there.

Lots of posters, Facebook page, twitter etc. advertising upcoming events!

syklops

Easton Obedient Doughnut wrote: »

Just some ideas. You need to keep a regular client base or establish one. The best way to do this is to have a club/society or multitude of them.

This is where I advise caution. If you have a regular client base, ask them what they would like and be careful of who you bring into the pub.

My local started doing a quiz night every week. Me and my mates and colleagues would always go there of a Thursday night, and that was usually their busiest night so they put the quiz night on that night(get more playing the quiz, right?. Unfortunately, the quiz attracted lots of people who dont normally go there, the place is packed and noisey, and it means that if your tired from a weeks work and just want a quiet few pints and a chat, you have to go elsewhere.

Still, its new people to the pub right? Well yeah but unfortunately, the crowd they have attracted don't spend very much. One of the quiz teams are teetotallers, and will sip the same orange juice all night. Whereas the group I drink with, well, drink. Sometimes heavily. After 5-6 guinnesses, many of us switch to the single malt.

Speaking to the owner recently, he said they lost money in the last 3 months since they started the quizes. Surprise, surprise, the quiz was the wifes idea, and she says "It attracts a vibrant new crowd". In his words, "a vibrant new crowd who dont spend any money".

I found out on Friday, they are selling up. :sad:

Janedoe10

Music u could have a request card on the bar for example for the people coming in to suss out what songs they want .. This could be in corporated into the xxxx paddys bar top 20 maybe once a week . Or u could change it customer of the weeks playlist . It gives the punters more active interest in the music .
U will also find out what they want . Call it market research ,, but if the vast majority are into christy Moore or wee daniel ... They won't appreciate Jedward kicking off on a weekend night thru the music machine in the corner .. Might also help u decide if u are bringing in music what to have .. U don't want to alienate the regulars but still want to attract newbies

strandsman

set your self up on social media, twitter facebook etc, this is probably the easiest way to spread the word about your pub for young people, if you have a young crowd in on particular nites maybe have a netflix night, or show the WRC car rally highlights, young people like their movies, cars and like to drive or "cruise" so they might go to these nights with their buddies, other nights show old games of football or hurling or horse races for the older people, just have it on the tv on the backround and you would be surprised who would "shutup" to watch it. on weekends, maybe have a outside enclosed kiddies play area so parents can go there on a sat/sun evening for an hour or so for a drink. Good luck with it anyway!

sandin

A lot of posters are going on about price - this is an issue in city pubs, but most rural pubs already offer great value.

I will assume that the mixers for the spirits are from a large bottle and are usually free or its a can and charged 1.50 or less. Only those who really want the little bottles have to get them.

Selling pints at €3.00 won't make a pub any money and won't cover costs either. It can also attract a wrong crowd.

Service service service - ensure everyone is welcomed, at weekends possibly have someone who will entertain children out the back or have a kids room with cartoons / children's play things.

As others have said - clean toilets are an absolute must. Nice handsoap (keep eye for 1/2 price offers and buy a load), decent loo paper (esp for ladies) and a working hand dryer.

Entertainment wise - you don't want to alienate those who want a quiet pint, so look for things that are interesting to watch without having to participate.

Darts (but maybe one darts pub in village is enough)
Rings (old game, but getting more popular and every age group can play)
Poker - but its past its hey day, but look at other card games like bridge, 25's etc etc.

People are also creatures of habit, so allowing groups to use the pubs on Sat / sun mornings for meetings / changing etc can be very beneficial -0 supply sambos & tea for free / nominal cost.

+1 on decent selection of wine + wine of month. Do a deal with local wine shop or use the like of Tesco. It won't be a huge winner, but it will mark you out as different. Same with Coffee - you won't need a mega expensive machine, but a domestic Nespresso machine will be perfect, pods are about 38c and it means a perfect cup of coffee everytime. Pods have shelf life of 12 months +, so no wastage.

syklops

sandin wrote: »

Selling pints at €3.00 won't make a pub any money and won't cover costs either. It can also attract a wrong crowd.

Well that depends on the pub. Alot of people go to the pub just for pints, and a lot of people now are on stricter budgets. I am sure if you cancelled your internet, and sky subscription, sent the flat scrren TVs back and had pints at 3 euro, people would come and you would make money. You would have to know your market, and get the local pint drinkers in(like the gun club, and other rural clubs).

What 'wrong' crowd might you be attracting selling pints at 3 euro?

Poker - but its past its hey day, but look at other card games like bridge, 25's etc etc.

Poker is definitely not past its hey day. Loads of my friends and I play regularly with Texas Hold'em being the most popular.

puffishoes

after spending most of the last two weeks around Ireland and many rural pubs. It seems they don't seem to be learning. Lots of dead pubs and over priced pints.

Reduce the cost of the pint = more punters = more atmosphere = profit.

ssbob

puffishoes wrote: »

after spending most of the last two weeks around Ireland and many rural pubs. It seems they don't seem to be learning. Lots of dead pubs and over priced pints.

Reduce the cost of the pint = more punters = more atmosphere = profit.

Do you know the breakdown of the cost of a pint? I would love to find this out as I am sure we could come up with a breakeven plan/profit plan for a pub here which would be helpful?

sandin

syklops wrote: »

What 'wrong' crowd might you be attracting selling pints at 3 euro?



Poker is definitely not past its hey day. Loads of my friends and I play regularly with Texas Hold'em being the most popular.

Wrong crowd - crowd who drink til their drunk and then just become stupid and noisy. A certain pub in Kildare went down this route and the regulars just moved on to a quieter pub. - The reguloars would have dropped in 2/3 times a week whereas the drunk types would load up once a week. Pub has since closed an re-opened.

Poker - heyday is truly gone. In 2006/2007 it would not be unusual for a rural pub to get 80+ players on a Tuesday night, now 15-20 is considered good.

puffishoes wrote: »

after spending most of the last two weeks around Ireland and many rural pubs. It seems they don't seem to be learning. Lots of dead pubs and over priced pints.

Reduce the cost of the pint = more punters = more atmosphere = profit.

What do yo call over priced. Decent pint of guinness is €3.80 or less in many pubs. For taht you get good pint, served to you in clean glass, comfortable seating, heating, entertainment / tv etc.

Cost of pint is about 1.65 (not sure exactly these days, but it was 1.58 2 years ago)
Of the 3.80, 71c goes in vat, 1.65 to guinness and 1.44 to the publican.

But even if the pub sells other drinks at higher margins, the average rural pub will make 1.50 on each drink.

Then you have the costs
Rates
Water Rates
Staff
Heating
Electricity
Sky TV
Cleaning
Rent if not owned
Licence fee

Excluding rent and running on a very tight budget, it would be difficult to get costs below €80,000 - add in 10k for rent and its min 90k.

That's 60,000 drinks that have to be served just to break even - Over 1000 per week.

Considering the only busy time is Sat night, its not hard to see how ends are not meeting for a rural pub - so lets knock the "too expensive" argument on the head, in reality its a cheap night out.

puffishoes

sandin wrote: »

What do yo call over priced. Decent pint of guinness is €3.80 or less in many pubs. For taht you get good pint, served to you in clean glass, comfortable seating, heating, entertainment / tv etc.

I'll have to go back over receipts but I don't recall being charged less than 4e for a pint and 12.95 for a bowl of stew

I don't want sky blaring in my ears or a band if I do, I'll go to a concert. I want to go to the pub to have a pint and a chat with my pals or other punters. The price of a sky sub for a pub must be outrageous? and the license etc get rid of this and give me the pint and the cheapest price possible otherwise I'm going to go to the off license and invite my friends to my home. This also causes them not to go to the pub and spend money.

I'm not claiming to be an expert in the field, I'm just explaining as a "punter" what will get me to the pub.

Something that has confused me over the years is i imagine the rents in Dublin for example are through the roof but generally pubs outside of Dublin's prices were fairly close which seems odd. if a pub in grafton st can do a pint for 4e surley a ruarl pub with much lower costs can go lower than 3.80?

syklops

sandin wrote: »

Wrong crowd - crowd who drink til their drunk and then just become stupid and noisy. A certain pub in Kildare went down this route and the regulars just moved on to a quieter pub. - The reguloars would have dropped in 2/3 times a week whereas the drunk types would load up once a week. Pub has since closed an re-opened.

Well that would follow on from my earlier advice of consult your regulars no matter what you do. Any major change risks alienating them and they will find elsewhere to go. That said so long as the new crowd spend more than the old crowd, then its an increase in takings.

Poker - heyday is truly gone. In 2006/2007 it would not be unusual for a rural pub to get 80+ players on a Tuesday night, now 15-20 is considered good.

Ok, I wasn't sure if by hey-day you meant its recent hey-day in the last few years, or the last time it was popular. 15-20 players on a tuesday night is still not to be sneezed at.

If the OP had 20 people coming in of a night, each of them drinking, I doubt this thread would exist.

What do yo call over priced. Decent pint of guinness is €3.80 or less in many pubs. For taht you get good pint, served to you in clean glass, comfortable seating, heating, entertainment / tv etc.

its 3.45 in my local at home(in the west), and 3.30 in my Uncles pub in west cork. 3.80 still feels a bit on the high side.

Considering the only busy time is Sat night, its not hard to see how ends are not meeting for a rural pub - so lets knock the "too expensive" argument on the head, in reality its a cheap night out.

A first class plane ticket could set you back a couple thousand euro. Just because the airline isn't making any money on it does not make it a cheap way to travel.

Its always been expensive to go to the pub and unfortunately its not getting any cheaper.

Puffishoes wrote:

I'm not claiming to be an expert in the field, I'm just explaining as a "punter" what will get me to the pub.

As a punter, e.g. the guy who is handing over the money you are the expert in the field.

Hanley

puffishoes wrote: »

Something that has confused me over the years is i imagine the rents in Dublin for example are through the roof but generally pubs outside of Dublin's prices were fairly close which seems odd. if a pub in grafton st can do a pint for 4e surley a ruarl pub with much lower costs can go lower than 3.80?

Marginal cost and volume. The overheads as mentioned earlier are largely fixed, there's a lot more competition in Dublin so a cheaper price point attracts more punters without necessarily adding a huge amount of costs. Which means higher turnover and a better net margin.

Plus the bigger pubs doing more volume probably get better deals off suppliers, further increasing the net margin of each sale.

mikemac1

Sky must cost a lot

I'm no expert on the matter but I remember reading a British landlord getting their signal from Greece. Or maybe it was Norway.
Either way there were big savings and they won their case when it went to court

You get their local analysts at half-time and before and after and they won't be speaking English but who cares, just mute that and you'll get the English commentary for the match

Maybe ask the tech experts over in satellite forum.
Maybe nothing will come of this but worth checking out.

Better the money in your phóca then Rupert Murdoch

WexTex

Depending on the clientelle, you could have a wine tasting night. Could be very basic. Or have a wine of the week and offer free little taste. I might not think of wine, but if I liked it after tasting it, I'd get a glass. Take the ferry to France, pay the duty and you'll have easy drinking wines at €4-5 and very nice ones at €6-10. Have people vote on their favourites and you could carry those.

We would look for a little bit of child friendliness if having a meal at lunchtime, wouldn't take much, just something to keep them occupied: photocopied colouring pages, those beads on the wires, a safe area outside to play ..

rainbowdash

Whats scandalous with pricing is the €2.80 I paid recently for kids bottles of coke.

Went into a pub with kids recently for dinner and they should give cans of coke for €1, they would still be making 100%

Might encourage families in for food and a few drinks.

At a minimum pubs need to be seen to be offering some value in a recession.

Hanley

WexTex wrote: »

Depending on the clientelle, you could have a wine tasting night. Could be very basic. Or have a wine of the week and offer free little taste. I might not think of wine, but if I liked it after tasting it, I'd get a glass. Take the ferry to France, pay the duty and you'll have easy drinking wines at €4-5 and very nice ones at €6-10. Have people vote on their favourites and you could carry those.

We would look for a little bit of child friendliness if having a meal at lunchtime, wouldn't take much, just something to keep them occupied: photocopied colouring pages, those beads on the wires, a safe area outside to play ..

I'm sure there's some VAT/excise duty implications in here(??), so be careful to those considering.

puffishoes

WexTex wrote: »

Depending on the clientelle, you could have a wine tasting night. Could be very basic. Or have a wine of the week and offer free little taste. I might not think of wine, but if I liked it after tasting it, I'd get a glass. Take the ferry to France, pay the duty and you'll have easy drinking wines at €4-5 and very nice ones at €6-10. Have people vote on their favourites and you could carry those.

We would look for a little bit of child friendliness if having a meal at lunchtime, wouldn't take much, just something to keep them occupied: photocopied colouring pages, those beads on the wires, a safe area outside to play ..

I'm not sure there's much to be gained from a wine tasting evening if you don't plan on stocking a large selection of wine going forward and have the punters to drink it.

specialist wine shops in Dublin can't seem to fill a 10 seat wine tasting evening, not sure what hopes a rural pub has.

syklops

Hanley wrote: »

I'm sure there's some VAT/excise duty implications in here(??), so be careful to those considering.

Not if he pays the duty.

puffishoes

rainbowdash wrote: »

Whats scandalous with pricing is the €2.80 I paid recently for kids bottles of coke.

Went into a pub with kids recently for dinner and they should give cans of coke for €1, they would still be making 100%

Might encourage families in for food and a few drinks.

At a minimum pubs need to be seen to be offering some value in a recession.

The funny thing is when I worked in a bar as a much younger puffi, coke and the like were the biggest profit makers were you usually made 3-400% on it a lot of the time you got the soft drinks free with X amount of kegs etc too.

It really is outrageous the prices charged.

mikemac1

When I was a barman the most profit was

1. Mineral Water. Buy in Finches water for 69c and sell for 2.20, ca-ching
2. Minerals
3. Smirnoff Ice, Bacardi Breezer, WKD, etc. All sold for a fiver

Price of the pint was important of course but that certainly wasn't the most profitable product


I was going to include tea/coffee here but that machine costs thousands.
Not realy comparable to sticking minerals on a shelf


Every brand always had blue for still and greeen for sparkling
Tipperary Water just had to be different as they have it the other way around
I was constantly gettting the wrong bottle when someone asked for Tipperary
Head wrecker :pac:


We bought in Pepsi once, it's a larger bottle and we charged Coke prices so in theory we're giving you better value
Getting 30ml extra
Jaysus, you'd think I was offering bottles of piss.
"Have ya no Coke???"
We ended that and never trailed Pepsi again. Pepsi not popular in Ireland

Squ

Hows things op?