With a busy summer of trading under its belt, Chickpea Group co-founder Ethan Davids tells MCA that current cost pressures are forcing his team to refine the customer experience.
As it prepares to open sixth site the Silver Plough at Pitton, near Salisbury, Davids says the South West pub company is in a great position to keep growing and is trading well ahead of expectations.
However, like most hospitality businesses, the group have kept a keen eye on pricing. “Obviously, we need to bear in mind that our costs have increased exponentially across the group.
”Our energy costs have been a challenge for us and we’ve done our best to mitigate the effects that they’ve caused.
However he feels inflationary pressures have had a positive effect on customer experience.
”The flipside of that is that pressure is forcing us to really look at the way that we do things and ensure that everyone that walks through our doors is getting the kind of experience they’re paying for.
”In the current climate, operators can look one of two ways. Either you look to reduce your cost and perhaps reduce the quality of the offer. Or you do the opposite, and you really drive standards and make your offer premium.
The team’s biggest focus remains on making sure guest expectations are met, ”as long as people feel that they’re being looked after, and the quality of the product is there then people are happy to return”, David explains.
He adds that the group have made a pledge to ”really whittle down” its processes and become as efficient as possible. One of the reasons for bringing on board new finance director James Underhill.
”We’re obviously conscious that these are tough trading conditions and we need to be really on the ball.”
Despite a challenging climate, Davids said its outlook for the year is positive but the group is “keeping an open mind” when it comes to new acquistions.
”If the right opportunity comes about and operationally it is doable given its location, then we look at it quite seriously.
”For us it doesn’t make sense that to put an arbitrary figure on it and say we want to get to ’x’ number of sites. Things change and we need to be realistic about the current market conditions.”
Precis
