Friday and Saturday look after themselves. Monday to Thursday, you’re stood behind the bar working out whether the heating’s worth it.
I run Teal Farm in Washington, Tyne and Wear. On a quiet Monday with no football on, there could be as few as three people in from 8pm, and the night dragged for everyone, staff and customers. With nothing going on we couldn’t sell an experience. We could only sell beer, and let’s face it, the supermarket sells that cheaper.
Here’s what we’ve tried. None of it cost a fortune.
1. Give every night one reason to come in
Not five offers on a chalkboard. One thing people remember. Tuesday is quiz night from 7.30pm. Thursday is when we crown our weekly quiz winner. Carlsberg and Foster’s are £2.95 a pint all day Monday to Thursday, and each weekday has its own food deal: pizza Monday, burgers Tuesday, curry Wednesday, steak Thursday. If a regular can tell their mate what’s on tonight without looking it up, you’ve done the job.
2. Look after the quiz night you’ve already got
Our Tuesday quiz was a battle for a while. Our quizmaster, who had a huge following, emigrated, so I took over. I don’t sound it, but I’ve got a very thick accent, and that did cause problems. Luckily my crowd have a sense of humour and I love a joke.
The fix was putting every question up on the TVs as well as reading it out. No misheard questions, no arguments about what I said, and the screens get looked at all night. After a slump, Tuesday is coming back as strong as it was.
3. Put your big moment on the night that needs it
We already knew our customers love a quiz, so we added a short phone quiz on the TVs every 20 minutes, every day. The top scorer each week gets a £20 bar tab, and we crown them on Thursday at 7.45pm on purpose, because Thursday was the night that needed lifting.
Yes, it costs us £20 behind the bar. In return our email list is growing, and people who’d only ever been to Teal Farm once are coming back at least one more time. They can play at home, but they get 25% extra points for playing in the bar, which is the bit that gets them through the door.
You don’t need any tech for this. Whatever your weekly moment is, a meat raffle, a bonus ball, a bar tab, put it on your weakest night, not your busiest.
4. Cheap beer on its own won’t do it
Alongside the £2.95 pints, Cruzcampo and Estrella are 2 for £8 from 4pm to 7pm, Tuesday to Thursday, for people finishing work. Honestly, I don’t think cheap beer brings anyone in by itself. Cheaper beer plus an atmosphere does. We’re seeing new faces who wouldn’t normally have come to our bar. Work out what each pint costs you before you start, because a deal that just makes your regulars’ usual round cheaper isn’t a win.
5. Make the tellys earn their keep
Most pubs have TVs sitting on a news channel all midweek. Ours now do the selling, and they’ve made a huge difference: a countdown to happy hour, “kitchen closes in 30 minutes”, that night’s deal, the football scores. And the one I hear most: “we’ll just stay for one more quiz round.” Something new comes up every 20 minutes, so people actually look at the screens, and the offer is there when they do. No printing, and I change it from my phone when something isn’t working.
6. Put the offer where people actually look
When we launched the phone quiz, most of the people who joined came from the QR code on the table posters, not from our Facebook posts. The table code got 31 scans on launch day alone. If your midweek offer only lives on Facebook, plenty of the people sat in your pub don’t know about it.
7. Kids’ offers: you need one, don’t expect miracles
Over half term, kids ate for £1. It did okay, and most importantly it wasn’t a loss. The big chains all run kids’ offers now, so if you don’t have one, you get left behind.
What hasn’t worked
Music bingo. A grand total of two people turned up. Pure nightmare. A format that works somewhere else won’t automatically work for your crowd, so test it small before you spend on it.
And newness wears off fast. That table code got 31 scans on launch day and 4 the next. Anything new needs a reason to come back built in from the start. For us that’s the weekly prize and the Thursday crowning.
The common thread
A Wednesday will never be a Saturday, and it doesn’t need to be. You want a few more people in, staying for one more. Pick one reason per night, put it where people can see it, give it a few weeks, then check the till, not your gut.
Shaun McManus is licensee of Teal Farm in Washington, Tyne and Wear. He built StockTap TV, the screen system Teal Farm uses for its quiz and offers, and other practical tools for pubs at stocktap.net.
