It is many people’s dream to run their own pub – who hasn’t thought about it every so often? Being your own boss and creating your own success. As long as you are willing to put plenty of hard work into it, it is easier than you think!
The first thing, is to be realistic. From the customers’ side of the bar, you may not see how much goes on behind the scenes – there are endless lists of jobs to be done, and the locals will depend on you to open up and serve drinks – even if you are planning on taking the evening off but have no staff to cover, this will be your responsibility, so it is not all fun and games. But if you are willing to put the work in, a pub is a really rewarding business, and you will get to make some great new friends!
Work out what sort of an atmosphere you want to create and who you want to attract. If you love sports, and want to offer a local place for people to enjoy watching their favourite matches, then focus on attracting the sporty crowd. A selection of beer and lager, and very importantly some big screen televisions to enable everyone to watch the game! Many pubs do well from serving food and carvery lunches on a Sunday – if food is your passion, make sure that you have all the equipment that you need – commercial catering suppliers https://www.247cateringsupplies.co.uk/ can help with this. Also, ensure that you are up to date with any health and safety and hygiene regulations and that you follow them correctly, as you will be serving food to the public. Food poisoning is not only bad for the customer, but if word gets around, it is very damaging for a business!
Legally, the most important part, is making sure that you adhere to the Licensing act 2003 – this is a law that applies to all landlords and is focussed on these four things:
Preventing crime and disorder
Public safety
Protecting children from harm
Prevention of public nuisance
You must have a premises and a personal license to be able to run your own pub – you can find out more and get help with this here.
Employees and staff training are very important and ideally should be in place before you open the doors. If you can get staff in and trained a few weeks before, you could also have a few practise run throughs for making drinks, and cooking meals – just to make sure that you don’t run into any unforeseen problems, and if you do, you can resolve it before you open your doors up to the thirsty general public!
Enjoy yourself – Being happy in your work goes a long way, and certainly in this situation when you are a friendly face to the public, a happy smile goes a long way!
