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I think he has a point (especially the vanity publication) but so do you. It rather depends which of the fixed and variable costs you add to the burger meal's ingredients.
sterraman you are the *****essential pub bore. when two burger and chips are ordered, the pub has already made enough profit to sustain the ketchup, the vinegar, the bbq sauce and mayo being nicked. jdw wont be paying more than 50p per bottle of each. moving on to the coffees, are you saying reading enthusiasts do not 'belong' in the pub? the reason jdw is performing so well is because it is a broad church - accountants, lawyers, state pension and other benefit claimants all feel comfortable to frequent and spend some of their disposal income
What Americans used to do when car-manufacturing, and I suppose everybody else followed suit, was they would get their new-model prototype ready and on display, then the bean-counters would walk round it pointing things out and saying to the engineers ‘take a dollar out of there’ or ‘take a couple of dollars out of that’ meaning make the metal thinner there, or use ferrous instead of brass or copper here, or put a narrower tyre on, things like that. They might take out, say, a couple of hundred dollars before letting the model go into production. If they were planning on a production run of a hundred thousand units (cars), they had reduced costs by 20 million dollars just on this before the first car left the production line. In the end that reflected in profits and, hopefully, shareholder dividends.
We’ve got the bottles of Sarson’s vinegar and Heinz tomato sauce and brown sauce, all dear makes you might note, not the Branwell’s stuff from Aldi, all either on tables or in a rack so if you don’t like touching what somebody else has touched, you can help yourself to a new bottle. The difference between these bottles and the ones you buy in shops is that the JDW bottles have wings. And it’s flying out of the place, likewise handfuls of Tetley tea-bags, and the sugars. I bet the salad cream is getting a bashing now the better weather has arrived. Lately I’ve been informed by staff that someone was caught filling up a pint milk bottle at the drinks station.
The only things in racks that aren’t flying out are what you might term the Wetherspoon’s vanity publications. They resolutely stop where they are. Nobody reads them. That’s another thing for the bean-counters to look at. Oh yes, and the CAMRA beer bribe.
Get the profits up and you can put more staff on. That’s the worst thing about JDW’s, you sometimes are queuing to be served, because the staff are multi-tasking.
Adapt the drinks dispensers to take a metal token, which the bar staff give the customer along with the mug. One token, £1.50. Then the bums might return to their traditional haunts, the library or even the missions or the Cyrenians. Get free soup as well as tea there, and help to claim your benefits.
Don’t think that I don’t let the company know my views.
JDW will never be like Whitbread because Tim loves a building with historical importance within its town or city, rather than outskirts prefabs. If JDW competed with Whitbred I am certain they would win
However we have recently seen the holiday park tenancy so never say never
The Daily Express gave good friendly write up to Tim today. Must have helped the SP. Hotels are the way to go. I very much regret selling my Whitbread shares some years ago.
gret
Yes, developing their hotel estate makes every sense. Years ago I worked for a company that owned Crest hotels and, at the time, their standard room rate was £35 a night. The cost per night was booked at £5, some margin. That company today is Intercontinental Hotels (IHG).
“The gods of fashion have smiled upon Guinness, previously consumed by blokes my age, but now widely adopted by younger generations.”
“Wine has been on the comeback trail, with Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc, from New Zealand, popular among Wetherspoon representatives of the chattering classes.”
“The company expects profits in the current financial year to be towards the top of market expectations."
Yes a lack of dividend holds the share price down. However a lot of refurbishments were put on hold during Covid, the financing remains a cloud (although it doesn't bother me one jot) and Tim is clearly battle hardened and you would think is building a war chest to deploy in case of further government disruption
An aggressive approach by an institutional investor would boost the share price although I would be happy if they plodded along building their hotel estate
Yes I believe they do tiger, especially the long-term ones. That is another reason to get some divi paid, or they will merely encash.
Thought staff got shares and pretty sure most keep them.
IMO difficult times will come to an end and with a longterm view still an opportunity.
Accip, although I agree with bigpu in this commercial context, MY gran used to say exactly the same; was it on the syllabus at Granma School?
She left school at 12, while the thick kids who couldn't pass an English and maths test stayed to 13. Her job was at a main rail terminus, which in 1914 gave experience of troop movements, before and after. What a generation! 2 world wars, 1 world cup, votes for women, general strike, means test, atomic weapons. We really don't have it so bad; you can get four pints for hourly minimum pay, or, apparently, free coffee.
Yes thang, divi is the weak spot. I expect there will be some presently, given Tim's holdings. Agree bigpu, adding staff time to the coffee production cost would be out of proportion, and keep them from more profitable activity.
But...Sod all Dividends, Tim's using any profits to pay & brag about staff bonuses, ignoring share holders, not a good idea. Who's going to invest to get nothing back but a drop in SP?
Splitting hairs over coffees costing 5-10p each is penny wise and pound foolish
@milnrowmug. Yes a staffing issue in part but JDW management must be aware of this practise being widespread. I wouldn't know how to raise this to director level but it needs to be done if this is, or has the potential to become more than a minor loss on the bottom line.
My old gran used to say, "take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves". Take note JDW.
Weather is warming up a little outside seating picking up here in our 3 local Spoons,
Sterr & accip, this abuse could be cured if staff cleared tables sooner. You often go in to find used glasses, half-eaten plates of food (why do they order so much, smaller dishes available?) and, yes, beverage mugs that could be re-used fraudulently. Some of this is idle staff, more is bad management; but for profit reasons the staffing can be very thin, as the margins are thin. It's a fine line, what makes more profit, stopping beverage fiddles or a lean wage bill?
However, customers who might leave a chunk of cash behind would be attracted by clear clean tables and rapid bar service. A recent experience was of 3 bodies behind the bar only 1 of which served live customers, the others doing online orders stocktaking and clerical functions. Trade was light but it only took a complex food order to cause a big delay. Only customers with possession of their order are actually making us profit, until then they just use space for no return.
Sterr, a token system would require staff time. I think the reason for refills at all is that serve-yourself is cheaper than employing to serve.
That's disgusting! It's a form of shoplifting. You could maybe overlook a case of a kid on a zero hours contract picking up an empty cup from a table and bumming a coffee, as long as it's only one and he's not sitting there all day, but this disabled man will have his Disability Living Allowance (DLA), his Personal Independence Payment (PIP), his Attendance Allowance (AA), probably his rent and rates paying, one cost of living payment after another, in other words can afford his first cup of JDW coffee, before he hits the free ones following. The manager should have got the laws in and had the man and the carer's bags turned out, and they might have found bottles of sauce, vinegar, handfuls of sugar, teabags, all the stuff that JDW's have lying about. It's not cheap brand stuff, either. Only the best.
Don't get me on about not being able to get a table for ameal at dinnertime in a fairly small JDW, because of all the tables being hogged by tea and coffee bandits.
I saw the manager in an east London Spoons bar a customer for repeatedly nicking the coffee - it was quite the sight as the offender was in a wheelchair and with a carer. Everyone seemed impressed with how the manager handled the situation - tricky one that!
I get about a bit, and think the problem is pretty widespread, so I wouldn't like to stigmatise an entire county or region. Some Wetherspoons are so big and have so many odd corners they are impossible to supervise. And as for the type of customer, one could always mention the expensive cars and SUV's parked around the street corners from PDSA clinics and food banks.
What do you pay for a cup of coffee now in a cafe or coffee shop? In the local JDW now closed, it was £1.04 and as many mugs as you wanted till it was comng out of your ears. My answer is token tea and coffee machines, one token, or two if you've bought a meal.
That would seem to be a local management issue. I am sure Mr Martin and shareholders would not like to see this practice becoming common. Out of interest, in what part of the UK is this taking place?
One of my local Wetherspoons has just closed, and it always seemed full over the day. However, a lot of customers weren't eating meals or drinking beer, they were drinking tea and coffee. And really Wetherspoons should install token-operated tea and coffee machines, and just give one or maybe two tokens for the cash. I have had it on the good authority of a coffee burglar that people take the mug home in their pocket and come back repeatedly for free drinks. Others hand the mug to somebody else before they go. I've seen this myself. Others sit in groups, and then it's "your turn for the mug now". It is Wetherspoons that is the mug in these cases. The staff could try putting the mugs out at the beginning of the day, and see how many have come back at the end of the day. It's all right to say "it's only a pound or £1.50 a mug", multiply that by a thousand, and anyway it's the principle. Other pubs don't act as a shelter for bums in cold weather.
Own slightly more of jdw than they did a couple of days ago. That must account for the soaring quarter-percent rise. If you know better do say.
Accip, an example of a recent disposal is the White Hart in Todmorden. This surprised me as the nearest towns, Bacup Littleborough and expensive Hebden Bridge have no spoons. It always seemed busy to me, lots of food, and well-run; although few of my visits were midweek.
Oh well I never saw the books, it's gone now: I believe most staff were redeployed to Rochdale or Sowerby Bridge. Perhaps the Victorian structure had issues, some floors seemed uneven, especially after a few.
Wetherspoons operates on the old market trading principle of “pile ‘em high sell ‘em cheap” - next year Rodney……..
Yes, the margins are keen but every Spoons is a cash cow with any that don’t perform sold off in favour of new sites expected to do better.
Eating out is something that people do in increasing numbers where “can’t cook, won’t cook” is very common with GenZ and even older folk.
Same in the south matey...I use the one in deal alot it's on the coast ....rammed all day