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BEHIND THE BAR: 29TH APRIL 2010

 

Welcome back to our second Behind the Bar newsletter, bringing you all the latest industry news.

This week, we focus on two of the Bar.10 ‘Sharks’, Eric Yu and Richard Wynne, who are members of a Dragon’s Den-style panel judging the Shark Pool Competition during the London Cocktail Summit. They give useful tips about how to run a bar business.

Come and see them at th original and best Bar Show, taking place from 15-16 June at the Business Design Centre, London.
 

How to future-proof your bar

A revealing and sobering conversation with seasoned operator Eric Yu on the direction of the industry – in particular its relationship with food. Ian Cameron reports.

Hi Eric. What’s your general attitude to running a bar business at the moment?
I don’t think I’m alone in reviewing my sites to make them more efficient. We’ve all got to be open to ideas, to think and act laterally and very quickly. I’ve never known a time since I’ve been involved in the industry when customers decided their own terms so strongly over how they spend their money and how much they are prepared to spend. We’ve never had to work so hard.

What’s the focus of your efforts?
Any operator is missing a trick if he’s not spending a lot of time on technology – email marketing, Facebook, Twitter. And you can’t move for promotional material – that’s one way we are really behind the US, where people there take vouchers for granted. It’s an accepted part of going out. Most English people would rather die than walk into a restaurant with a voucher. That won’t worry the tiny proportion of super premium venues but I think in 12 months operators such as myself will be having to embrace it – looking for deals and doing promotions that don’t make us look cheap.

What type of deals?
The best one I remember was Belgo’s Beat the Clock – offering packaged menus that cost the time you arrived and ordered - £5.01 for a main course worth between £10 and £12 if you got there just after 5 o’ clock and so on. People were sprinting down there.

How are you reading the economy?
It looks as though the worst is over economically, but people have said there’s a potential double dip too, and in any case the upward curve is very slow and customers have got used to drinking cheaply at home.

Any thoughts of expansion?
If great sites come along then yes but at the moment there are still so many bureaucratic obstacles. The problem is a lot of places that are available are not in prime locations or are great sites, and if they are not the best there’s not really any point. And there’s probably a reason why they are available anyway.

What type of venue is best for the future?
I’m fascinated by casual dining. I’m absolutely convinced that casual dining in the next five years will improve to an extent that will not be recognisable from where we are today. Casual dining is still so far behind the US and the Far East. In New York or San Francisco, food in the most simple places is ten times better than many of the better places in England.

What type of experience are you thinking of?
Brasseries such as Pastis in New York – they can do that sort of thing standing on their heads and if somebody delivered that in London they will be a super hero. Dean Street Townhouse is probably the best example we have but that’s not as good as Pastis. Over here we are just scratching the surface of Mexican food. Wahaca is about as good as YO! Sushi was in terms of our first experience of Japanese dining. We now realise that that food on the conveyor belt was absolute shit. In America they are probably experimenting with Mexican fusion with other South American countries. Here’s it’s still all fajitas and chimichangas.

So you’re less interested in a purely wet-led business?
I can travel the world and come back and know that drinks in this country are better than anywhere else. Certainly London, and Manchester is better than most American cities and certainly better than most Asian cities. We’ve pushed that area so much I don’t quite know how it can get better. Food is the way forward.

What does that mean for Breakfast Group?
My thoughts in the future will definitely involve food. For me there will definitely be a move away from late night operations. I just don’t need the grief that comes with having a late night business – gun crime, drugs, the general feeling that club owners are dodgy. I’d like a venue like Punk to make money but without the grief those type of venues give me. My tapas  bar Salvador & Amanda doesn’t give me grief and the authorities don’t think I am encouraging drug taking or attracting people with guns and knives.

So you’d sell venues such as Punk?
It’s certainly a great option for us. I think there are other great things to be doing. Everyone loves Punk but for how long?

Is this you just getting older?
There’s an element of your wanting life to be slightly easier but in terms of shelf life, between somewhere like Punk and somewhere like Salvador & Amanda I know which will be here in 20 years. If I was a bank manager I would prefer to do business with you as the owner of Salvador & Amanda than the owner of Punk.
 

 

Behind the Bar with….Eric Yu

Eric Yu’s five steps to survival in the bar world

1) Embrace technology: Facebook and Twitter – or their successors – should be part of your marketing strategy.

2) Don’t look cheap: avoid brazen discounting and offer customers better value instead.

3) Focus on food: it’s going to define the next period of the industry.

4) Location, location, location: be wary about snapping up ‘bargain’ sites, there’s probably a good reason they went out of business.

5) Theatrical devices: remember, people can drink at home cheaply, so you’ve got to create a sense of theatre when they go out.


 

 

Key to bar success

Richard Wynne, owner and operator of award-winning Shoreditch bar Callooh Callay, looks back on why the bar has attracted so much attention and explains why he remains cautious for the future.

Of all the bars that have opened in the last year or so, Callooh Callay alone has caught the imagination of customers and the industry in equal measure.

In terms of its business model (where interior designers DTwo Design invested as partners, only recently divesting themselves), the design (a continually evolving budget affair that has already spawned imitators), its approach to drinks and drinks making (‘residencies’ of leading bartenders mixing with the regular award-winning team), it has set a benchmark as one of the most innovative examples of contemporary bar culture.

Its most recent innovation is its upstairs ‘bar school’. “Recently we’ve begun giving our upstairs bar over to guest bartenders each week – they have to work out the GPs on their drinks, put together a balanced menu, market it on Facebook and Twitter, then they man the one-station bar,” says Richard Wynne. “We started opening upstairs only on Fridays and Saturdays, now it’s open on Thursdays and we’re already thinking about Wednesdays too.”

From the industry’s point of view, perhaps the most inspiring thing about Callooh Callay is that its success has been born of passion rather than millions of pounds. “We didn’t have any money to spend. At all,” says Richard. “That meant we had to make a bit of money, then spend a bit, then make a bit more and spend a bit more. Working with DTwo meant that instead of having to plan any sort of refurbishment in the future, the design has just evolved all the time, day by day. It’s always kept the place fresh and means word of mouth marketing has been really strong.”

On paper, it all opened at the wrong time really. “Lehman Brothers closed the week we opened. But we had our record Friday soon after. Since then there’s never really been a dip in trading – our weekly takings are on the up, we’ve got an increasing regulars trade and some nights it’s like you look across the bar and recognise everyone in there. Food sales have quadrupled – the key to us is getting them in soon after work. We don’t do any offers or incentives but we’ve got a new menu.”

For all that, Richard’s all too aware that there’s no room for complacency. “To many people, we are already old hat – people have seen the wardrobe. Now it’s all about keeping people entertained, service and customers and staff staying on the same level – it’s not master and servant but about intelligent people interacting.”

There are no plans for a second bar yet though. “The best advice I’ve ever been given was not to open your second bar too soon. I would much rather have one fantastic bar than two quite good ones. I might start looking at the beginning of next year though.”


 

Be part of it!

Eric Yu and Richard Wynne are two of the Bar.10 ‘Sharks’ – members of a Dragon’s Den-style panel, alongside Embassy nightclub and hotel owner Mark Fuller, at Bar.10, 15-16 June at Islington’s Business Design Centre.

We want to hear from you about your ideas for innovative drinks lists, groundbreaking bar concepts and inspiring start-ups.