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Having invested in this business before, the margin is entirely in alcohol. Typical drink costs <50p and sold for >20x. Food has nowhere near those margins give
by tamade 4y ago
Having invested in this business before, the margin is entirely in alcohol. Typical drink costs <50p and sold for >20x. Food has nowhere near those margins given the labor and materials required.
- jimjambw 4y agoNot saying I don't believe you but why would a Brit leave out the 'u' in labour?
- epicureanideal 4y agoMaybe adapting to internationalized (American at this point) English. Also, what they say is what I’ve heard anecdotally several times and it makes sense when comparing even retail prices vs per drink prices.
- thaumasiotes 4y agoOne obvious theory is that 'tamade' never learned British English; the username appears to be Chinese. I doubt you're required to be a British national in order to invest in British pubs.
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoTamade doesn’t sound in anyway like a Chinese username (maybe Japanese phonetically, but that could easily be a coincidence), but I would let them speak for themselves.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> Tamade doesn’t sound in anyway like a Chinese username Context is pretty much everything; the only Chinese username I can more or less reel off from memory is '基妮真特么老油条... sabibibi', and I may be forgetting parts of it, but certainly there's plenty of swearing.
- School-Cotton 4y agoIt is Chinese: https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?define=ta+ma+de https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary....
- thaumasiotes 4y agoseanmcdirmid surely knows that; I assumed he was saying it was unlikely to be used as a username. But I don't know why that would be.
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoAh, ok then. To me it looks like “your mom’s” and then cutoff.
- brigandish 4y ago> Maybe adapting to internationalized (American at this point) English. I suggest that in the highly unlikely event this is true that we (the rest of the properly educated British) hunt this person down and dispose of them. After imposing a number of spelling tests first, of course.
- RupertEisenhart 4y agoAs an expat Brit who has been living with ESL speakers for over a decade and gotten sloppy on many of these things, some part of me lives in constant fear of exactly this eventuality. Ain't been caught yet tho
- brigandish 4y agoWe are watching…
- martinald 4y agoA bit OT but American English is becoming very popular over here in the UK. It's very common to see z instead of s in words for example. I wouldn't be surprised to see the u dropped at all.
- mixmastamyk 4y agoMost “American” spelling came from Britain originally.
- brigandish 4y ago"z" has been a valid alternative to "s" since I was a boy (and I can no longer claim to be a spring chicken). What I have noticed more of is children saying "zee" instead of "zed". I beat those children and they come to realise that they deserve it.
- wincy 4y agoMore people in the world say “zee” than “zed”. I’m surprised to hear a British person wants to sound like they’re French. (I’m just kidding as I hope you are about beating children)
- brigandish 4y agoThanks to India, more people in the world say "w" like "v" but I feel safe knowing that Indians have a better accent and better spelling than anyone in North America, and I would never joke about anything this serious. ;-)
- david_allison 4y ago'colour' isn't a valid CSS property, and 'serialisation' is inconsistent within a codebase written by Americans. Over time it's natural to drift towards en-US spellings when conversing online, even with a spellchecker.
- tamade 4y agoNever said I was a Brit :P In fact, a big chunk of UK pubs are owned by global PE funds.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- photoGrant 4y agoHaving lived and grown up in this business (above a pub since a child) -- you're right.
- bko 4y agoDoesn't it depend on the absolute amount of profit per customer per hour? For instance, if a person goes out and has 3 beers over two hours at $6 each, say the profit is $5 per beer or $15. Instead if that person comes in and orders a meal for $30, with a 50% margin, he's made the same amount and likely didn't stay as long. Basically food is more absolute profit per customer per hour. And you get the benefit of not dealing with drunk people. That's why they they often don't let you take a table if you're not ordering food.
- oneoff786 4y agoA 50% margin on a meal is enormous. Expect single digits. Food requires someone to cook it, a lot more storage, a lot more tools and dishes and what not.
- willcipriano 4y agoI've worked in serval bar kitchens where the food was a loss leader and basically only there to allow the business to more easily aquire a liquor license.
- bko 4y agoFair enough. The customer may order some soft-drinks or alcohol drinks at the bar. Also I hear deserts are high margin. My point is that relative margin is not the thing you would want to optimize on. You'd want to maximize profit per customer per hour.
- safety1st 4y agoHis point still stands. Your original estimate of the margin was just not realistic. This obviously varies depending on many factors, but when you factor in labor, ingredients, equipment etc. 10% is a good margin on food. In your hypothetical example the customer who came in, had a meal and nothing else, and then left earned the pub $3 in profit. Someone who has a few drinks in the same amount of time will usually generate more profit.
- toyg 4y agoThat's how it used to be, but from what I understand, cheap alcohol from supermarkets has shrunk volumes to levels where overall profits are thinner than in food.
- jhugo 4y agoThat's not the case; the vast majority of a pub's margin still comes from alcohol. GP comment is just wrong.
- sen 4y agoYeah no idea what that part is about. The margins are absolutely in the alcohol, and the food is to get you to spend longer sitting there drinking with friends. Src: Ran a bar for 4 years.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- safety1st 4y agoSome pubs successfully transition into a sort of trendy, highly publicized concept restaurant which charges a premium for food and essentially attracts well off restaurant customers who tend to drink more than average. I think that might be the model he had in mind. Most pubs won't be able to do this however as the market for it is only so big and it will tend to alienate their regular customer base.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- brudgers 4y agoAnd a good kitchen is 40% of the total floor area of a restaurant.
- ludston 4y agoNot that I can claim to understand the business model at all, but usually people that buy food are buying drinks too. You ought to happily make a loss on food if it is guaranteed to be exceeded by increased drink sales.