Pub Tenant Lease - what do I need to know?

ACG

I am not suggesting you do not do it.

I am just saying go in to it with your eyes open. There are loads of negatives to owning a pub. The only positives are money and social life if your life is going to revolve around the one place.

If there is no money then you are doing it for the social life, my life does not revolve around a pub and the money stopped once the smoking ban came in.

You have the potential to take on something new and put your own stamp on it. But you need to go in there and put your stamp on it.

Every local head case will have been barred from all the other local pubs, so guess who will be knocking on your door. You need to have that aura about you which is basically I am really nice and friendly but I take no ****. If there are 2 of you, you can have good cop/bad cop.

Arguably women are better at being bad cop and kicking out the local head cases. There were 3 of us, 2 lads and a lady. If the 2 lads barred another lad or a group of lads - we were in line for a belt. If a woman does it, that is typically the end of it.

When we bought our pub, we were making about £13,000 profit a week (after expenses and staff wages). The smoking ban came in, the recession hit and we were losing £2k a week. We spent thousands of pounds on solicitors being sued and counter suing the pub co.

On the upside, the day we moved out we altered the price of bitter to 26p (an awkard number to have change for) a pint (all of our regulars were bitter drinkers). The stand in manager did not know how to alter it so all the regulars were getting 4 pints for a pound. We walked in on the Friday night and they were all cheering us with loads of pints around them. We must have cost the pub co about £3-4k that weekend.

As I said, we have a lot of good memories, but we had a few fights, a few robberies, 3 lads on the roof with hammers etc, long LONG hours - letting a cleaner in at 6am and then locking up at 2am on saturday night after a busy night - if you know about all of the negatives you can go in to it with your eyes open.

That is before you get disagreements with staff, staff not turning up for shifts, staff not being able to do shifts after being put on the rota.

I genuinely shudder at the thought of it.

Punch are one of the biggest pub cos going.

agrinnall

ACG wrote: »

We must have cost the pub co about £3-4k that weekend.

That implies you sold 300-400 thousand pints in a weekend, that is a very busy pub!

ADaffodil184

Thanks ACG, that's some experiences you've had there! Why were the pub co suing you? Because of losses (that were beyond your control given the smoking ban?)?

I have just read through a few bits and pieces, and it would be a tenancy, which is for a maximum five years with no right to renew at the end - I'm not prepared to put anything into that if they're not prepared to go long-haul with it. Perhaps if it were buying the lease I would look further into it, but I don't think it would be a good investment on any level if there is no security of keeping the business at the end of it.

I don't think my pub dream is over, but I am happy to wait until perhaps a Freehold/lease becomes available!

Takeaway_Addict

agrinnall wrote: »

That implies you sold 300-400 thousand pints in a weekend, that is a very busy pub!

No it doesn't...

lincroft1710

If this pub is in a residential area and has failed, then I am surprised it hasn't been converted to a Tesco Express/Metro (or similar) or demolished and 3-4 houses erected on the site. Which has happened to most of the out of town pubs in my home town and more than half where I now live.

ACG

agrinnall wrote: »

That implies you sold 300-400 thousand pints in a weekend, that is a very busy pub!

Closer to 1200 pints but yea I see your point, maybe more like a grand or 2 then then.

£2.50 a pint was sold at 25p a pint.
£2,000 / £2.25 - which would be 450 pints.

Although I suppose if you are working of the price they buy a barrel for rather than the amount it would normally be sold for then I am way out.

Im thinking about this far too much.

ACG

ADaffodil184 wrote: »

Thanks ACG, that's some experiences you've had there! Why were the pub co suing you? Because of losses (that were beyond your control given the smoking ban?)?

Long story but basically they were letting the outside of the pub deteriorate (which was on them to fix), we argued that the outside of the pub was reflecting badly on the business and so turnover was down partially for that. We then agreed informally we would spend £x on the pub outside if they waived the rent for the same amount.

It was agreed verbally so no record of it.

In the end, they argued we owed them £x and we had obviously paid for the f&f so they owed us £x and the 2 figures were nearly identical. We said to write it off as there was maybe £200 in it one way or the other (we were talking about £20,000 so £200 is neither here not there). They wanted us to pay them and they would pay us back we did not believe them. Long story but they applied a lot of pressure until we got a barrister to write them a letter which more or less told them FO (the O stands for off) - no word of a lie, this bloke did not mince his words - or we will see them in court where his fees of £200 p/h would be added to any claim.

We never heard from them again.

Just to note, it was not Punch we had the argument with.

agrinnall

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

No it doesn't...

ACG wrote: »

Closer to 1200 pints but yea I see your point, maybe more like a grand or 2 then then.

£2.50 a pint was sold at 25p a pint.
£2,000 / £2.25 - which would be 450 pints.

Although I suppose if you are working of the price they buy a barrel for rather than the amount it would normally be sold for then I am way out.

Im thinking about this far too much.

Ah well, that's different to what you posted, where the only prices you gave were 26p a pint and 4 pints for £1 (i.e. 25p a pint). That's a difference of 1p hence my calculation that a £3-4,000 loss would require the sale of 300-400,000 pints.

Smodlet

OP, have you ever watched "Bar Rescue"? OK, it is American rather than British but the principles of running a bar are largely the same as those of running a pub, cultural differences and possibly a few legal anomalies aside.

Every episode is a cautionary tale and illustrates just how easy it is to run a pub into the ground. I can recommend it purely for the entertainment value but it might be useful too. Used to be shown on the Spike channel so might be on Channel 5's catch up service or you could probably download it if you wanted to.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

lincroft1710

Although written over 30 years ago, there was a book called "A Year in the Drink", about a couple's experience of running a pub in Wales for a year. May make an amusing and interesting read if you can find a copy.