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14-01-2012, 09:50
Visit The Pub Curmudgeon site (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2012/01/thaw-in-tadcaster.html)
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Sam Smith’s have been in the news recently (http://www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/news-features/8/news-headlines/65093/pintsized-row-comes-to-a-head) for the wrong reasons, but it’s interesting that over the past month they have also broken the habit of a number of years and increased their prices above and beyond those increases dictated by changes in tax and duty rates. Beer seems to have gone up by around 8p a pint. Clearly, in an environment where costs across the board are remorselessly rising, a policy of freezing the pre-tax price is unsustainable in the long term, and even after the increase, Old Brewery Bitter is still only £1.60 in their two Stockport pubs, and £1.66 in the Vine at Dunham Woodhouses in the Cheshire countryside.
Sam’s are still a long way from that point, but if a key aspect of your business proposition is low prices, you have to be careful you don’t end up frittering that away. Going back fifteen or twenty years, Joseph Holt’s had the same reputation as Sam’s enjoy now, and their pubs were often very busy with a distinctive, boisterous, working-class clientele. Over time, they have slowly allowed the differential to erode, so that now many of their pubs are no cheaper than others in the locality, and in the process have lost a lot of that distinctive character and not really replaced it with anything else.
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More... (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2012/01/thaw-in-tadcaster.html)
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--l7Owzag7fQ/TxFbz8WjkLI/AAAAAAAAA5k/ukyMAvHZjAs/s200/white+rose.png (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--l7Owzag7fQ/TxFbz8WjkLI/AAAAAAAAA5k/ukyMAvHZjAs/s1600/white+rose.png)
Sam Smith’s have been in the news recently (http://www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/news-features/8/news-headlines/65093/pintsized-row-comes-to-a-head) for the wrong reasons, but it’s interesting that over the past month they have also broken the habit of a number of years and increased their prices above and beyond those increases dictated by changes in tax and duty rates. Beer seems to have gone up by around 8p a pint. Clearly, in an environment where costs across the board are remorselessly rising, a policy of freezing the pre-tax price is unsustainable in the long term, and even after the increase, Old Brewery Bitter is still only £1.60 in their two Stockport pubs, and £1.66 in the Vine at Dunham Woodhouses in the Cheshire countryside.
Sam’s are still a long way from that point, but if a key aspect of your business proposition is low prices, you have to be careful you don’t end up frittering that away. Going back fifteen or twenty years, Joseph Holt’s had the same reputation as Sam’s enjoy now, and their pubs were often very busy with a distinctive, boisterous, working-class clientele. Over time, they have slowly allowed the differential to erode, so that now many of their pubs are no cheaper than others in the locality, and in the process have lost a lot of that distinctive character and not really replaced it with anything else.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5623537812609722663-988568797156590534?l=pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com
More... (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2012/01/thaw-in-tadcaster.html)