Star Pubs and Bars is to open its first directly-run pub which will allow it to “pilot a new model” with managers paid a percentage of turnover.
The pubco, which has a c.1,000-strong estate of tenanted and leased pubs, said its first managed site would provide an experimental training facility for the benefit of the wider estate.
Star trading director Chris Jowsey told M&C’s sister title the Publican’s Morning Advertiser: “The key thing is that we’re not moving into that managed model. We have no plans to roll it out at this stage.”
He said the new site, which will be opening this autumn in the Nottingham area, would be a chance for the company to “put our money where our mouth is” and provide a training ground for head office staff, but also new recruits and potential licensees.
It will also allow the pubco to “pilot a new model” said Jowsey, in which the site will be run by a self-employed manager who’ll take a percentage of revenue and be “incentivised with a share of the profits”.
The pub will have a traditional feel, but with “21st century technology” behind the scenes, he added.
