Did you notice a difference in the amount of visits you had this summer? Across the UK, pubs and clubs have reported that weekend visits dropped slightly, but weekday visits were up.
Food continues to draw people
If you offer an attractive, budget-friendly menu, you’ll be well aware of how good food can keep people coming back week-in week-out. Whether they’re couples on dates, families enjoying a meal together or groups of friends celebrating a big birthday, 1 in 3 visits to pubs in the UK are driven by the food on offer.
Do you offer breakfast, lunch and dinner? If you don’t, but would like to, you’ll have to increase the number of staff you have during these shifts as your punters will expect a fast service. If you’re hoping to attract workers, they often need to be in and out in less than forty minutes, if they get an hour lunch break. This means that your staff need to be on the top of their game and you’ll have to well stocked, so you can cope with demand. There’s little point having a ‘burger and drink’ deal on a Tuesday if you run out of burgers by half twelve, likewise, a full English breakfast can’t be lacking in bacon or sausages, if you want repeat custom.
Attracting more people at weekends
For many people, weekends are family time, as they’re so busy in the week, they find it hard to spend quality time together. If you want to encourage them to step over your threshold, why not have a dedicated family area? You could have a pool table for older kids/teenagers to play with their parents, board games and toys for younger ones, and if you have a large beer garden, you could consider putting up a bouncy castle on dry days.
Special events such as charity days, family fun days and BBQs might take a bit of organising, but the potential gains are huge. Battle of the bands competitions and pool competitions can be a way of drawing people in on a Friday and Saturday night, when there aren’t big sports events on. (If you don’t currently have a big screen showing sport events and matches, you should rectify this as soon as possible.)
If you want to get a pool table or juke box, quiz machine or tab machine, hiring one could cost less than you think. Click here to find out more and get a quote >