Brighton Pier Group 'happy' with downsized Eclectic Bars estate

Brighton Pier Group chief executive Anne Ackord, who recently took responsibility for bar business Eclectic, has told MCA the remaining downsized estate was solid and profitable – though would not be the focus for growth at the group.

Ackord takes over the Lola Lo operator following the departure of managing director Lee Nicholson, who oversaw a rationalisation of the business from 25 to 11 sites.

She said the remaining venues were performing according to expectations, albeit in a challenging environment for late night bars, and said she would spend time examining the estate before making any firm decisions on its future structure.

Meanwhile, she said crazy golf business Paradise Island would be the greater focus for growth, and would see the addition of a Lola Lo style tiki bar at a forthcoming opening in Plymouth, with an eye to flipping the family attraction in the evenings towards a more millennial demographic.

Speaking after the departure of Nicholson which was announced last week, Ackord told MCA: “I’m going to have a look at [the bar division] for a while and see.

“They’re profitable, good locations, with decent managers, and in theory it’s a lot easier to manage, and too small to need an MD – particular if you’ve got good people on the ground.

“They’re solid businesses. The level we have are performing as we expected. We acknowledged the difficult trading environment that surrounds late night bars, and they’re performing as we hoped. Going forward I have high hopes we can keep them stable, and grow them were necessary.

“I see golf rather than bars as driving growth going forward – but I’m happy with what we have.

“I’m looking forward to spending more time with teams and we will see what sort of structure we put in to manage that. At the moment we are comfortable with what we’ve got.”

Ackord said concepts such as Smash, which has ping pong tables, were performing very well, which she said was indicative of the consumer demand for experiential leisure rather than just drinking.

She said there were no bars in the current estate which suited conversion to Smash, due to the requires size and configuration.

She said more live music was being introduced across the estate, such as Brighton Coalition, as well as recently renovated Brighton Pier bar Horatio’s, according to consumer demand.

She also spoke about amalgamating offers in the forthcoming mini golf opening at Plymouth: “Paradise Island, in terms of its theme, is quite aligned to our Lola Lo bars. So we will probably put a tiki bar in it and join those two together. We don’t want to lose the core family consumer, but flip it in the evenings, or special occasions. We don’t want to make it primarily a bar, but add an extra element to it.”

She added that recent renovations to Brighton Pier had made a “huge difference” to the F&B offering, though added that engineering works on the Brighton Mainline had led to 50% less visitors to the seaside resort