08 Jan Why do people choose to open cocktail bars over pubs?
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism that looks to seek out information that has not been disclosed to members of the public before, or hasn’t been formally written about in a publication. Investigative journalism has been more apparent, you could argue, ‘as the cost of publishing and duplication has dropped to near zero, a truly free press, and a truly informed public becomes a reality.’ (Revolution will be digitalised). There are a constant stream of new stories being published about both new and old events with journalists claiming to ‘to deliver the latest- but never claim(ing) to have or said the last word’ (writing for journalists). Investigative journalists will be constantly digging up facts and statistics to deliver new stories. One of the basic roles of journalists is to … challenge stereotyping and expose corruption.’(Ethics for journalism) This role is very apparent in investigative journalism, especially when it is reporting on matters that include the government.
Drinking has almost also been a part of society, even when it was illegal (the roaring 20’s). Over time it has just kept becoming bigger with more pubs and bars popping up. You can order a drink almost anywhere now with ‘one in five of the country’s on-trade venues now serv(ing) cocktails’. (Harpers) The competition is fierce between the drink establishments and some places have had to always think of the next best thing and keep on board with all the trends. Cocktails are certainly not a new invention but over the past few years their popularity has increased by quite a bit making the demand for them go up. This essay is going to look into and investigate why so many places are opening/becoming cocktail bars when they are a lot more expensive to run than the average pub.
The average pub seems to satisfy individuals of all ages with the basic drinks menu of serving beer, ale, cider, wine, spirits and soft drinks. These drinks are easy to stock, don’t require much skill in serving (so you don’t have to give your staff intensive training on how to pour a pint or change the barrel), and whilst it isn’t cheap to stock all of these drinks, the profit margin can be quite high. It’s ‘not uncommon to mark up an inexpensive bottle of wine by 3 ½ times its wholesale cost. Bottles of wine offer more actual profit than selling a few regular cocktails’ (Small business). So if you can get such a good profit margin on wine, much better than cocktails, what is the point of selling a more expensive drink. Also with these drinks you can have just the basics or you can stock loads of different and interesting ales and wines etc. You could stock only high quality or you could stock really cheap ones that you can serve for value prices for students for example. There are lots of different variations you could try depending on what you want your target audience to be. Pubs have always been in high demand and they have always served these kinds of drinks. However the craze for cocktails has increased with more and more people drinking them.
Typically it doesn’t make sense for an individual to want to open a cocktail bar over a pub in terms of cost and effort. A typical cocktail bar needs to have a range of spirits and mixers that need to be constantly replaced. They also need to have a range of different types of glasses for each cocktail to go in. Then the staff need to be fully trained on cocktail making, they will need to know how to make all of the cocktails of by heart (this can sometimes be up to 300), be able to take up to two orders a time and be quick at all of these. Training someone to do this is very time consuming and can be pricey depending on how much waste they cause whilst training. This also means that the typical staff in a cocktail place need to be paid more than staff working in a pub. So already the costs of running a cocktail bar are a lot higher than a pub and that’s just on staff and stock. In terms of gross profit for an average bar owner, it should ‘fall in the low 80% range’. One of the high losses of profit would be liquor that is wasted eg cocktails not made correctly, dropping bottles, spilling drinks, wrong orders etc etc. (Small businesses)
There is also a huge price difference between an average pint and cocktail. The average pint will cost you around £4-£5 where the average cocktail will cost you £6-£10. That’s a lot of money for an individual to be spending on drink, especially all night. So there is the added risk that once you have opened a cocktail bar, you wont be able to draw in as many customers as you would in a pub or even get the customers to drink all night. It also means that you are focusing on a more refined crowd, you wont get the mix of individuals that you usually get in a pub.
However, the popularity for cocktails has just kept growing and growing, despite the costs. Over the course of two years there has been an increase of popularity causing a sales growth spurt of 10.8 % (Harpers). A report done by First Drinks shows that in the next two years there will be more than a 10% increase in cocktail consumption and there will be an increased or equal cocktail sales for 76% of on trade establishments year by year (Berkley & Scott). Another report (by mixed drinks) has shown that in the past two years there has been an 11% increase in cocktail sales (Drinks International). The age group for this cocktail trend appear to be young adults. A report by CGA strategy showed that’s it’s the London market and young adults (aged between 18-35) who are responsible for the increased popularity in cocktails with ‘women accounting for 54% of the sales and men 46%’. Cocktails are becoming more normal to have on nights out and people are happy to only have cocktails for their night out and to continue buying them. In the past year there has been an increase from 36% to 43%, in the amount of under 35’s who have bought a cocktail in the last week, compared to last year. (Harpers). This increase in figures is not something you can ignore. They do show that there has been an increase in cocktail popularity and they suggest that people are happy paying the price of a cocktail, even though it’s a lot more than a pint. It suggests that maybe people enjoy the trend and that the money spent on cocktails has just become a normal amount to spend on a night out for some people. If the sales are increasing then that does give some understanding to why people are willing to make a risk and serve cocktails over pints.
An interesting point is also made about the service of cocktails and how the average individual doesn’t know how to make cocktails at home whereas beer and wine is so easily accessible from the supermarket. Beers are extremely cheap sometimes meaning some people would rather save money and drink at home, but with you cocktail this isn’t as easy to do. (Trend set). By going out to drink cocktails you are receiving something that you cant do yourself and therefore paying for a service aswell as drink. This could cancel out the competition a pub owner would have with supermarkets. Although as the cocktail trend keeps going I reckon more and more individuals will learn to ‘self teach’ themselves how to make cocktails, leading to the same style of competition between supermarkets.
An interview with, Catherine Sheehan, the general manager of the cocktail chain Be At One gave some insight into what it’s actually like running a bar and the profits/losses made. Sheehan talked about the idea that roughly twenty years ago there wasn’t any middle ground with elite, upper class drinking and lower class drinking. Drinking cocktails would be seen as something only rich people can enjoy but as time has gone on there is a definite middle ground with cocktails and members of the public have been drawn to this. She also talks about the profits made on an average night, stating that it depends on who is working (trainees can cause less profit) it is around £100. When asked about whether she would say it was a higher risk opening a cocktail bar she said yes as you are guaranteed more waste and the training standards for staff is a lot higher than in a pub. Duty manager of Be At One, Sophie Stevenson stated that there are a lot of hidden costs with running a cocktail bar and believes there is a bigger audience for pubs than cocktail bars. Although both Stevenson and Sheehan agree it’s a risk they both also believe that there is a big demand for cocktails and that the trend is only getting bigger. When talking to trainee at Be At One, Billy Patrick made an interesting point that although it’s a risk opening a bar, he believes that this is a trend that is going to continue and it’s a way of keeping up with the competition as must places serve cocktails now and that becoming a normal thing.
In conclusion, I feel that although there is a massive risk in opening a cocktail bar and that the loses can be higher, there is such a demand for it and people appear to be happy spending the money that I believe that most cocktail bars do end up being as successful if not even more than the average pub.
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References
Heather Brooke. The Revolution will be digitised: Dispatches from the Information War. Heinemann (2011)
Richard Keeble Ethics for Journalists, Routledge (2008)
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/average-startup-costs-bar-18667.html
http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2014/10/uk-enjoys-cocktail-surge/
