Smoke on the water

on the Irish smoking ban

The Irish smoking ban has been a great success. Pubs are as busy as ever and trade is hardly affected. People wanting to smoke are happy to stand outside and instead of smoke, the pubs smell of…

Bullshit

The Irish smoking ban has been a total disaster. The few pubs that haven’t closed have seen trade drop by as much as 60% and are suffering real hardship so…

Which is correct

Well…

It seeems to depend on where you are and who you listen to.

It’s true that pubs in major citites are still busy. We haven’t been to Ireland since the ban was introduced, so we don’t have first hand experience of the situation. The two points of view above are approximations of the Scottish Executive’s opinion and the Scottish Licensed Trade Association.

I’ve heard that in rural areas, the pubs have closed and people simply have a party at someone’s barn each weekend. The drink’s cheaper (you can buy it cheaper in your local supermarket than I can) and you can smoke.

So what’s going to happen here?

Well, first of all the pub trade is in decline anyway. Our Saturday customers are folk whose average age is 60 who have been coming here for decades. There’s no one to replace them.
But we’re not a pub. We’re a hotel with a public bar (and two other bars) and this helps.

A lot

After our renovations we will have as many as 13 rooms. Even assuming 50% occupancy that gives a decent income without any bar trade and for considerably less work. Food is profitable too, as long as kitchen management is good.

And it’s worth noting that paying guests will also use the bar. Sometimes so much so that the bar tab is more than the cost of the room.

On a totally unrelated note, We see that the Colquhonnie Hotel in Strathdon is for sale. It was for sale 8 months ago when we were looking for a place. The owners (John and Sally) were nice folk who apparently still live in the village. I don’t know what happened, but the new owners seem to have lasted the winter and no more.

A lot of people think “I’m fed up of the 9 to 5, let’s buy a hotel” You see them on these silly lifestyle tv programmes that I used to transmit in a previous incarnation as a (rather unsuccessful) tv engineer. They then buy a hotel and realise that it’s now 7.45 to 00.30 and you DON’T get a day off.

A lot of hotels get sold after a year.

Think about that if you’re considering it. We both worked silly hours in previous jobs, so it wasn’t much of a change. Do you want to be able to attend family parties? Do you want to have an evening out? You won’t be able to for the first 3 years anyway. I missed my cousin’s wedding a couple of weeks ago because it was on a Saturday night and there was no way we could get staff to cover.

We have been here for 8 months now. We’re just getting to grips with it and survived our first major function (a double 18th) without any major mishap. We’re also heading into the busiest season and that’s going to be an interesting learning experience.

Again, for people thinking of doing this - If you have no experience then look to take over the place in winter (unless you’re in a ski resort of course) because you’ll have the quiet period to learn the business and people and by the time it gets busy you MIGHT have just got a clue about what you’re doing.

We’ll see. Stay tuned for further developments.

A whiter shade of pale

The painters were in yesterday and today to paint the walls outside the back door. Dark glasses are now required before going outside. The back wall and the breeze block wall have also been painted white and all that’s required is some furniture and some plants.

Also here today were Q*** along with an electrical surveyor and D**. There’s going to be a planning meeting tomorrow when we decide what needs done, when and how. Then the planning application can go in and hopefully in 12-16 weeks we’ll get the go ahead.

Meanwhile, the surveyor says that the wall between the function room and the dining room is in a bad state. Looking at the plans, it’s clear that it is a brick wall supported on some fairly dodgy wooden beams. We need to take down the ceiling over the approach to the beer garden for some investigation. If rot has set in to the joists (probable) then the wall will need to be removed for safety reasons.

The present

For nine people I cooked 7 portions of bacon (correct), four sausages (two left) two pieces of black pudding (correct) and two pieces of haggis (half left). Mushies and eggs are cooked on demand.
“I’m getting better at predicting what people want for breakfast” I suggested
“Sheer luck” said Lorna
She’s probably right - she usually is:-)

I’ve finally identified what the the noise from the extractor fan reminds me of.
If you’ve ever sat right at the back of a DC9 - that’s pretty much the same pitch and level. We’ll be getting a new extraction system as part of the kitchen refit and frankly it can’t come soon enough.

Joinery and electrical work

A new door was fitted to the kitchen corridor and the new lights were installed outside on the route to the beer garden.

Some before and afters are here

For possibly the first time in 30 years, work has been carried out by skilled tradesmen meeting at least some of the required standards instead of being lashed together by pub customers after a few pints.

That’s pleasing. And it shows just how badly all the rest of the work here has been done over the years.

Even more pleasing was the fact that it rained heavily yesterday and the roof did not leak.
Roofing:
Tradesmen recommended: Finlaysons of Galashiels.
Tradesmen NOT recommended: Roofing Direct of Edinburgh

Electrical
Tradesmen recommended: Scott & Foggon of Jedburgh
Tradesmen not recommended: Almost anyone who’s worked at the hotel in the last 100 years.

Lux

Otherwise lumens per metre squared. A measure of illumination. We need about 200-250 lux in our beer garden. We hope that the wee stainless steel lamps will provide this. The electrician is drilling through the (very thick) walls to install them now. And the paving’s continuing and beginning to look really good. The beer garden should be open by the weekend.

The Future

Let’s be clear. The future of the Spread Eagle does not lie in the public bar. If we’re going to be successful we need to have residents who are doing more than “passing though” and who are staying more than one night. Fishermen, Golfers and people interested in blowing the heads off small furry animals. We also need to do food and this is becoming more apparent than ever. We are going to get the kitchen refurbished (one of the few things Historic Scotland will allow us to do without planning permission), we need to do all meals (teas, coffees, bar meals and dinners) from the start and we need to do them well. In short, we need to recruit a competent team for the kitchen and we need to do it soon.

Organisation

The office is being taken over by paperwork. I am afraid to go in in case I am engulfed.
L is trying new filing, organisational and time management techniques and we’re trying to find a system that works for both of us - not an easy task given that we work in very different ways.

Decked out

The decking in the beer-garden-to-be is finished and looks pretty good. They’re coming back on Monday to start laying slabs on the rest of the area. Lighting’s starting then too, though the nice stainless steel fittings we’ve chosen won’t give a huge amount of light and a SON floodlight may be necessary too.

Q**** s on holiday this week, but returns on Monday and an electrical surveyor’s coming on Tuesday to see what needs done to the wiring. Lots we suspect.

It rained last night. The roof still leaks:-(

A moving tale

I was in the Glasgow flat on Sunday night to let the removal men in first thing on Monday morning. I never slept well in the flat and Sunday night was no exception. So by the time the removal van had headed off I was barely able to stay awake. A double espresso at Harthill kept me going until Lauder where I stopped for 40 mins kip.

The furniture’s all in the residents’ lounge. Well, what did you expect? EVERYTHING’s in the residents’ lounge (probably including Lord Lucan).
The woodstove has accidentally ended up in the residents’ lounge too (it was meant to go into one of the outbuildings) so we may have it installed there.

Roofing - the saga continues

The repaired roof also leaked like a sieve. “Not our fault” cried the roofers. “B**ll**ks” we wittily replied. It seems that having repaired a fault in the lead valley, the water was now being correctly channelled down… into another big hole that was really obvious - you couldn’t miss it.

We’ve been here before (see postings passim) but with Q***** in charge (and not paying a penny until we’ve had several days of heavy rain) we are confident that we will eventually have a watertight roof.

The planning department of the council have issued a stop notice preventing our doing any further work until a detailed planning application has been submitted. That doesn’t hold up the beer garden which is well under way and looking pretty good. But it does prevent us starting any other work for at least 12 weeks.

While you’re waiting for that to happen, have a look at http://runningspreadeagle.blogspot.com