Andrew Coath is managing director of Unique Hospitality Management, the home of Epic Pubs and Heroic Pubs, which comprises six pubs in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire. He worked for 20 years in hotels, at properties such as The Grand Hotel in Brighton and Malmaison, before moving into pubs. He talks to Hospitality & Catering News about how he made the leap from hotels to pubs, making pubs part of the community and the importance of brand standards whatever your business.
Can you give us a brief overview of your business?
We got our first property the Golden Ball in Maidenhead in 2015 and we are now at six properties (185 Watling Street, The Knife & Cleaver, The Wheatsheaf, The Anchor and Mill Street) located in counties like Berkshire and Buckinghamshire up to the Leicestershire area. Our central office is based in Bedfordshire, so we try and locate our properties about an hour and a half drive from there.
Your pub business has grown rapidly in two years, how have you achieved that?
It’s been a bit of a crusade, but I have enjoyed it. I have a bright young team around me that has worked tirelessly from 2015 to get us where we are and I like to think we’re going places. We’ve been very well-received in villages with pubs that have historically been wet-led. We’ve put in a good food and drink offering and reignited the communities again by bringing lots of people together. In Aspley Guise at The Anchor, for example, we took a Charles Wells pub on that was taking about £500 a week. We’re now trading more than £20,000 a week.
We do lots of community events in the villages we operate in and we’ve concentrated on this model. A lot of pub operators shy away from destination places, because they want to be on the high street, but we’ve got some lovely villages in Bedfordshire and Berkshire and we are targeting these affluent villages to put the pub back in to the centre and bring the community back. It’s been working well for us.
What are your plans for the year ahead?
We’ve got another three properties that will be opening between late August and early September, so we’ve got a busy summer working out the design scheme and food offer. Our plans are hopefully to do four pubs year, but they’re like buses, they all come at once. It doesn’t matter how planned you try to be.
You say you have to have a special skill set to operate community pubs, what’s the secret?
You have to find the right general manager and they have to be central to the community and understand the area. We don’t allow them to live out of the area, they are the face of the business and need to make make friends from the launch – and have fun doing it. Our GMs become stars of the village and the area, but it’s vital that they know the area and understand the competition around. That’s what makes it work.
You previously carved a career in the hotel sector, what led you to make the leap to pubs?
I was approached through a friendship circle in Warwickshire in 1992 and asked to come in as a partner with Peach Pubs, so I took the plunge and went on to successfully look after five properties for them, going on to be awarded BII Licensee of the Year. Hotels are great. I worked at Malmaison and had a really good mentor in Robert Cook, but gastropubs were new and exciting and I loved the informal nature of them. They weren’t so stuffy. I left Peach in 2015 and I started my own venture. That’s how we got to Epic Pubs.
What did you take from the hotel sector into your pub business?
Brand standards from Malmaison. They have great brand standards that I’ve tried to put in to the pub market. We try and keep our pubs individual but in terms of themes on menus and websites, you need continuity. My hotel experience has also been useful in our two pubs with rooms. The bedrooms are kitted out just as you’d expect a Mal bedroom to be kitted out – from mineral water, gifts on the bed and great toiletries to fluffy towels and quality bed-linen – everything you’d find in a four star hotel. I’m a stickler for all properties being well-maintained and clean. My team knows that when I’m in the building everything has to be well-looked after.
Where does your inspiration come from?
I’m like a magpie, I watch what everyone else does and see how we can adapt it for our business and I read a lot of the trade press. I’m one of the oldest members of our team, so it’s up to me to motivate my team and inspire them. I do that through training and developing them. We spend a lot of time with our general managers every month training them, so that then it will trickle down to the rest of the team.
Who in the industry do you most admire?
I like the Wagamama creator Alan Yau. What he created there is super. I have watched the brand grow and I just find him an inspiration in what he’s done. Also Robert Cook, who was the MD of Malmaison when it took over Hotel du Vin. I learnt a lot from seeing how he merged the brands and how he took Hotel du Vin on. I was inspired by what he’d done and how he turned those hotels round in their look and feel and their food and drink offer in such a short space of time.
Where do you like to spend time on your day off?
I like to go to London and have an overnight stay. I love hotels and still get very excited to see how hotels and bars operate and how they’re evolving. One of my favourites is The Rosewood in London. Their bedrooms are super. I like to visit pubs too. I tend to drink in our own as well as those of our competitors. I’m not a fan of fine-dining so you won’t find me in a high-end restaurant, I definitely go in for a more relaxed venue.
Emma Eversham
Hospitality & Catering News, Interviews Editor