Marstons' Ale House - a new "concept"?

I had a good chuckle when I read this report about Marstons rolling out a concept called "Ale House", which sound suspiciously like traditional pubs - remember them?
Morning Advertiser, 9th February 2011

Thanks to my old friend/fellow licensee Don Woods, whose catchphrase was: " I wouldn't have it in a (expletive deleted) Ale House!", I called my first solo limited company - back in 1988 - Alehouse Investments Ltd!

Ever want to blow up your own pub?

The Inflatable Pub Company

This made me chuckle!

Greene King's Food Fare

 Greene King make lovely beer - I have very happy, if rather hazy, memories of quaffing copious amounts of Abbot Ale from the wood in the Marie Lloyd Luncheon Club* back in my college days. From local brewer in the 1970s, the company has come a long, long way - but I couldn't help feeling rather uninspired by the relaunched "Food Made Easy" package for their tenants and lessees.
Morning Advertiser, 4th February 2011

* Don't be fooled by the posh name - the M-L, as it was colloquially called, was not known for its food but, for a fiver a year, offered the opportunity to carry on drinking through the afternoon when our archaic licensing laws forced the pubs to close at 3pm.
A favourite haunt of trade union officials,  I blame my Sociology lecturers - Penri Griffiths in particular, for corrupting me. (Ahem!)

Nutritious Red Tape

If you run a restaurant, cafe, takeaway - in fact, any food outlet - YOU PERSONALLY are responsible, apparently, for the growing number of lard-arses in the UK. The latest forum on food diktats centred on healthy-eating options  (Big Hospitality, 2nd February 2011) with one suggestion being that those dishes which meet the criteria should be highlighted on menus so that terminally-vegatative customers wouldn't have to think for themselves. I had hoped, with a cull of the quangos, that individuals would be obliged to act as grown-ups and take responsibility for themselves and their progeny.
Fat chance!

Paddy Wetherspoons?

Further to my report on 17th November 2010 about M&B (formerly Bass) selling 333 (why?) surplus pubs to Stonegate, the newest kid on the block, it's just been announced that the Oirish bars in the deal are to be rebranded from O'Neill's to Molloys. Morning Advertiser, 31st January 2011

Food at less than three-and-a-half quid a head for a main course - who does that sound like? Mind you, the colcannon mash is a bit tempting.......

Marketing via Social Media

Everyone and his dog are telling us that we mustn't ignore Social Media in promoting a business - everyone, that is, except a few strange people on LinkedIn who claim that it's detrimental to a venture and cite a handful of out-of-context examples (the fact that they're website designers can't have anything to do with it?) - but this feature Big Hospitality, 31st January 2011 told me precisely zilch.

Business Development Director Simon Beck, of PR Consultants Hill Balfour says, "Consumers today are able to research and digest information across a number of mediums – TV, print, online, radio and of course through social media." Erm, excuse me, but aren't social media part of online?

These purveyors of gobbledygook, with their argot of above-the-line versus below-the-line advertising, are facing testing times now that so many businesses can do their own marketing very simply and effectively. At the end of the day, after all the blue-sky thinking, pushing the envelope and going the extra mile the genie's out of the bottle and the Emperor's got no clothes.

Newcomers to the pub game

There may be fewer pubs closing now than a year ago, but to read this article in the Morning Advertiser (the daily bible of the licensed trade)  one would conclude that all those which are left all have roses growing round the door - and ex-sqauddies can deal with trouble-makers by shooting the bastards!
Morning Advertiser, 28th January 2011

Running a pub in any climate is not a walk in the park - in today's it's a very precarious existence and without proper advice too many of these hopefuls will simply p*ss their savings against the wall.