Vianet : Case Study – New River – Winwick Taverns

The business

Experienced pub operators Paul Gabbutt and David Morse are advisers to Winwick Taverns, which has a seven-strong pub portfolio in and around Wales and the North West, three of which are with NewRiver.

The pair, who have a reputation for turning around challenging sites, are helping Winwick Taverns achieve its modest ambition to grow the estate to a maximum 10 pubs. Paul and David work closely with the managers who run the pubs, which include NewRiver's The Corner Pin, in Flintshire, Wales; The Black Horse, Chesterton, in Staffordshire; and, most recently, The Armchair, in Moreton, on the Wirral peninsula.

A specialist leisure and retail property company, NewRiver is one of the UK's largest owner/managers of convenience-led shopping centres, with assets under management of £1.3 billion, principally comprising 33 UK-wide shopping centres and 340 pubs, together with further nationwide retail and leisure assets.

Paul said of NewRiver: 'They've backed Winwick Taverns, and the Corner Pin is a good example of them investing to refurbish what was a run-down pub. It's the same at the Black Horse, where the company has spent money to resolve a number of issues after we took it on.'

The challenge

Paul, who began his pub career as a Carlsberg area manager in 1993, describes Vianet's iDraught bar and cellar management system as a 'crucial' and 'invaluable' tool to the day-today running of their portfolio. He says it comes into its own the moment he takes on a new pub: 'What people say a pub turns over in sales is often very different from the reality, and we want to know as soon as possible what it's doing in a week.

'Having analysed the data, we're then able to establish what it should be doing every week, which enables to plan marketing and promotions accordingly, and to order the right levels of stock, so it's absolutely crucial when we take on a new pub.'