In a Pub News

I love going to pubs, chatting with the locals and the barstaff, meeting the landlord and landlady and seeing what I can learn from people who do the same job as me.
The first thing I always do is look for an idea I can take away and use. It’s a fun excuse to use on the wife when I’m hankering to go into a new pub. Anyway, I am vindicated as soon as I walk in to The Thatcher’s Arms: in front of me is an elegantly simple solution to a problem I face in my own pub.

Ideas worth stealing
Like mine, this is a pub that has two separate bar areas and a need to show customers in both what beers are available to enjoy, but not enough handpumps to display all the clips on.
I’ve tried various ideas, including doubling up the clips on handpumps, but here, sitting in front of the fixed dispensers, neatly spaced to ensure every beer is visible, are a row of empty beer bottles with the clips attached to their necks. It’s an effective solution, done so neatly that at first you don’t even realise the clips aren’t actually attached to handpumps.”
We change our beers frequently,” landlord Mitch Adams explains. “One of our unique selling points is the variety of beer we have available. So this is an ideal way to quickly show what beers we’ve got on sale at any time.”

Be inventive
When you own a rural pub, even one with as stunning a view as The Thatcher’s Arms, you need to hold events to attract business. “You’ve got to have different things on regularly that keep the customers coming back to your pub,” says Mitch. As well as running bar billiards and quoits teams, he hosts open-mic nights and beer and food matching events.
He has one special feature that makes me dribble with jealousy. Every Thursday night is ëFilm for a Fiver’ night in the Pilsner Media Room, a little-used conference room that Mitch has turned into a cabaret-style cinema is as versatile as it is impressive. And it’s very loud.
“Listen to that sound!” Mitch’s excitement is infectious as he cranks up the volume, leaving our partners to roll their eyes and mutter something about boys being boys.

Mitch Adams picks up a cheque for his cinema idea

Be passionate, not negative. Moving, or rather being pulled away, from the cinema, Mitch groans as I ask him what frustrates him when visiting other pubs. “Signs that say ‘no’!” he says. “Why would you put up a sign saying ‘no muddy boots’? Why not put up a sign saying ‘we welcome walkers, but if your boots are muddy please leave them by the door’?”
Recalling a pub where the landlord had put up signs saying no, no and yet more no, Mitch shudders. “I’m sure they were all written with good intentions,” he said, “but it made visitors feel unwelcome.”
Similarly, he feels many simply aren’t passionate enough about what they sell. “Watching a publican tut and sigh when a customer comes in and asks for a coffee is depressing,” he muses. “I love coffee. I sell great coffee. And the margins are great on coffee. So why not make the customer think they are going to get the greatest coffee ever, rather than making them feel like they’ve committed a sin by asking for a non-alcoholic drink?
“If a walker comes in and orders a cheese sandwich and glass of Coke, make them feel like it’s the best cheese sandwich and glass of Coke ever. That way, the next time they’re thinking of somewhere to go for dinner and spend a lot more money, they’ll remember your pub and want to come back.”

Pub pro for life
Mitch has worked in the pub trade in one guise or another for 16 years, eventually going into business with his mum and dad in November 2006. When I ask him if there’s something else he’d rather do for a living, he simply shakes his head.
“I know how lucky I am to be doing something I actually love,” he says. Even though he’s still only 32 years old, that passion for every little item in his business is enough to keep him driving forward. “I have no plan to work Friday and Saturday nights every week for the rest of my life, but I can’t see myself being involved in any other trade, no matter what I might choose to do in the future.”


Mark visited: visited…
Mitch Adams at the Thatchers Arms

Location: Mount Bures, Essex
Style: Destination food/rural pub
Turnover: £400k p/a
Number of staff: 20
Wet/dry split: 55/45
Website: www.thatchersarms.co.uk

Mark Daniels is the licensee at the Tharp Arms in Chippenham, Cambs.