Punch and Enterprise should be seen as property companies that also happen to own pubs. It is their inability to realise and reflect local needs that has allowed Wetherspoons to flourish. It is a shame when a decent hard-working landlord/ tenant/ manager goes to the wall because of the inflexible greed of his owners.
They may well treat their pubs as property investments - meaning they have no real interest in keeping them as pubs (eg the Blue Ball) - but they are more than simply property companies as they still operate tenancy agreements and beer ties (and worse), just like the breweries that used to own the pubs. They are able to source cheap beer, just like Wetherspoons, but, unlike Wetherspoons they don't pass the saving on to their landlords and hence to the punters. Instead they force their landlords to buy supplies from them at inflated prices.
If the K.C. has gone tits-up then that's quite sad. I would have thought though that their regular crowd were not exactly the type that the DT were trying to attract. Seems odd, if this report is true, that the KC fell over in so little time.
I doubt that a tenant making a good living from the KC would have packed up and left quite so quickly - but, if the arrival of the DT meant that sales plummetted, then this could have prompted a struggling landlord to call it a day.
Perhaps Green King can find another tenant, or someone to buy it and keep it going - I hope so, but I'm not optimistic.
Do we know for certain that it's gone then? Threep.
"A spokeswoman for Greene King IPA, which owns the Cheap Street pub, Belinda Curtis, said that the present tenants were understood to be leaving, but added that there was no new tenant lined up for the pub. "
I very much doubt the KC was killed off by the Diamond Tap given the latter has only been open a few weeks and they're aimed at very different markets. One is cheap and cheerful whilst the other serves good food and has a great atmosphere, or should that be "had".
It does seem a bit strange given every time I've been in the KC it's been packed sometimes with 50 to 75 customer and whenever I walk past after work there were folk in there.
Was this a tenancy or a managed house. There is considerable difference. A Tenant has a lease from the owners, loosely called breweries, which normally means that he, the tenant, owns the stock in trade, and the fixtures and fittings. There is therefore some financial incentive for him to stay in place but of course his income depends on the trading profit of the pub. A manager is a fixed wage employee of the brewery and whilst he may have bonus opportunity can be hired and fired by his/her employer. Some managed houses allow managers to profit from the food sales but usually, not to the detriment of beer sales.
So, business gone bust or the manager sacked or absconded, with or without the cash in the till.
This is all alleged, but I've heard that the pub went through a lean period at the beginning of the year. I've also heard that he did spend some of his own money on the place, but he has thrown the towel in as he realises that he's unable to make a reasonable living. Rents just keep going up and it eats into any margin he makes for himself. The regular to the KC that spoke to Pat on Sunday who told me this, didn't mention anything about the Diamond Tap.
This is all alleged, but I've heard that the pub went through a lean period at the beginning of the year. I've also heard that he did spend some of his own money on the place, but he has thrown the towel in as he realises that he's unable to make a reasonable living. Rents just keep going up and it eats into any margin he makes for himself. The regular to the KC that spoke to Pat on Sunday who told me this, didn't mention anything about the Diamond Tap.
But the obvious popularity of a big, new pub only a few yards up the road must have been the last straw under the circumstances.
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