John Loudon - Sponsorship Liaison Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 And plenty of poles for them to dance round Quote
Mark Stanton Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 QUOTE Yes, but will it feed a Westfield habit ? (..and a wife, 3 cats, a dog and a mortgage) Sure will Quote
scruffythefirst Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 Offshore surveying as an engineer - deploying kit, running the computers and fixing it all when it blows up. Last job was 2 months in indonesia, i'm in the north sea this time round, just about to have breakfast and so far this shift, i've read FHM, classic ford, been to the gym and done 2 loads of washing, and thats a busy day as were currently "on line". Makes you fat though. I was fat before I started, at least I'm not short About 5 minutes after I wrote that, everything broke. Which was actually quite good fun! If you are serious about the pub idea, don't get a lease, work for someone like punch or another "management" company. Yes its rubbish, but there won't be any financial risk and you get to see if its the life for you. Leasehold is a risk if the pub is crap as however hard you work, you might not always make the lease every month and then you'd be in the s**t. Its like building a westy, as soon as you've bought the pub you'll wish you'd bought something different and spend forever upgrading it. Quote
joff69 Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 As a drayman, I'd say STAY WELL CLEAR. The amount of places we go where a young couple/middleaged couple/bloke in midlife crisis have just decided to take on a pub is unbelievable. We do their first delivery and its all "Hiya lads, do you want a drink, bacon sarnie?" full of the joys of spring. 4 weeks later its " Leave it over there, where do I sign? grumble grumble!" Its suddenly dawned on them that running a pub is not what they expected. If you live on-site, its a 24hour a day job. Even on your day off, you're still in the place getting all the hassles. As for Enterprise Inns, Admiral Taverns, Punch, Publico all that lot. They ARE NOT interested in YOU! All they want is the rent from you, the money for you orders ( Which you will probably be tied-in so even if you run out of anything before your next delivery you cannot Buy-in) You will have brewline monitors so they will know by what you have sold and what you ordered whether you have bought-in! (We deliver 2 different types of Budwiser, Becks, Holsten, Stella bottles. It is exactly the same stuff, but the bottle labels are different so they know that you havnt been to the local cash and carry for your bottles.) A keg of Fosters to one pub is £50, Enterprise charge £200! And you have to pay it, because you cannot buy-in! AS long as they get their money, they are happy, they dont care if you're struggling. You have paid them a deposit which is in the thousands of pounds, and if you do badly they'll get rid of you and get someone new in, take their deposit off them and make money out of the new guys. and if owt else fails they will knock the place down and build flats and houses on the land because at the end of the day they are a property company! There are obviously happy landlords and landladies otherwise there wouldn't be any pubs open, but you need to go into this game with eyes wide open! Where we do see pubs that are ok are the places that concentrate on doing food. And good food. People will quite happily travel big distances to go for sunday lunch or for a dayout and have lunch out whilst they are there. We do a place called the Lion Inn at Blakey Ridge at the top of the North Yorks Moors. when you get there, you cannot see another building anywhere. It is right on the tops at the side of the road. Speaking to people when we get there, people have travelled from Hull Manchester, Sheffield just to go for lunch on a thursday!! As for the smoking ban that has just come into force, the vast majority of places have not seen a down turn in business. Some have lost custom during the week, but friday saturday and sunday nights are a lot more busy. Some have said that people are eating more instead of smoking and because they are eating they are ording more drinks! It is true that some places will suffer and some will benefit. I'm sure that you wouldn't go into it if you hadn't fully done your research into the place, to make sure it is viable. At the end of the day like a lot of careers/industries, there is money to be made if you want to put the graft in. But is the profit worth the effort?? Quote
Martin Keene Posted July 13, 2007 Author Posted July 13, 2007 As a drayman, I'd say STAY WELL CLEAR What's a Drayman? Quote
Blatman Posted July 13, 2007 Posted July 13, 2007 Drayman = old fashioned name for the bloke that delivers the beer... I think the itch you need to scratch is the one that any of us would have in your position. The itch that says "I'm worth more than this, you ungrateful b******ds. I'll show you...". We *all* have that itch from time to time. Trouble is, it's really difficult to rub someones nose in it when they couldn't give a s**t. I say sit back, let the agencies be fools and bide your time. The right thing will come along... Quote
joff69 Posted July 14, 2007 Posted July 14, 2007 Drayman = old fashioned name for the bloke that delivers the beer... I'm not old though!! But your right, we are just delivery drivers! Martin - Don't know if you're aware, but Eddie Stobarts are looking for drivers at the moment. There was an advert on our noticeboard at work. £32k for distance drivers. Upto £34K for Nights and upto £38k for weekends Cant remember the rest of it, but might be worth having a look on the Eddie Stobarts website. It not really our scene at work as we are all in Urban Artics as opposed to full scale!! Quote
Martin Keene Posted July 14, 2007 Author Posted July 14, 2007 Martin - Don't know if you're aware, but Eddie Stobarts are looking for drivers at the moment. I thought that might happen... I'm not qualified as a truck driver. I was just using it as an example of the bulls*** that surronds the job market. Although that said £32k for driving a truck is something I could quite easily do. Just a shame I not sure if, for reasons I won't bore you with here, I'm can have an HGV licence. Quote
oioi Posted July 14, 2007 Posted July 14, 2007 We do a place called the Lion Inn at Blakey Ridge at the top of the North Yorks Moors. when you get there, you cannot see another building anywhere. It is right on the tops at the side of the road. Speaking to people when we get there, people have travelled from Hull Manchester, Sheffield just to go for lunch on a thursday!! great booza - you can also camp there for a truly good session. the road out of hetton-le-hole across blakely is also a hoot - its almost flat out if you can see whats coming and miss the hares/sheep Quote
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