Why do a lot of people seem to rave about Nando's?
My friends think I'm a freak because I very rarely eat Subway or Nando's; as far I can tell it's just, not especially good quality, grilled chicken that has been marinated in peri-peri sauce. Am I missing something here?
Seconded. It's nothing special, but it's cheap and satisfactory. Where else can you get a full English and a mug of tea with free refills for less than a fiver?
>Why eo other similar pubs struggle with this when it's basically all pre-made anyway?
It comes down to the fact that even in bulk, food is not that profitable. You need pub food prices to be low or nobody will touch it anyway - yet even proper restaurants selling you a burger for 15 quid aren't making massive profit.
Your next problem is competent staff. It's a challenge to find cooks that keep the place legal, that's still a lot of responsibility even if you're reheating stuff, and if they fuck anything up (burning bread, not rotating stuff properly, etc) then your already tight margins are even less realistic. Finding people willing to do all that (plus keeping the place clean - EHO is tough) for seven quid an hour is a major weak point, and paying more for better people is right back to square one.
The next issue is designing a menu that caters to a wide variety of people - majority of people eat in groups, even in pubs. So if you don't have a good veggie option, healthy option, few burgers, salad, sharing platters, nachos, a curry, fish and chips, a pie, etc etc etc, then you'll lose trade simply by people going somewhere else to eat because Fiona needs a gluten free veggie thing and so on. - But a broad menu means more space required, better operating procedures, the problem of wastage is still there - not everything can be frozen indefinitely, especially if you want fast service. So you lose money every week just by offering items people don't order. And with a chain it's even worse - your menu is the same everywhere, but your pubs will always be serving different people. London customers as a whole want something different to Yorkshire ones, and so on, so the entire thing becomes an exercise in risk mitigation.
There aren't many pubs that make money from food, if any. It's there to bring people in, and the alcohol is very profitable so it makes up for it. Wetherspoons does well with food, and their massive menu, because they can afford to make losses, as the bar is making money hand over fist, plus the economies of scale add up for such a juggernaut. They make up such a large portion of trade for industrial food manufacturers that they can play them against each other and potentially drive costs up for the rest of the industry.
>>12485 >The next issue is designing a menu that caters to a wide variety of people
I reckon the reason is simple; kids. Whilst Spoons has a children's menu you'll never go to a pub with a soft play area inside whereas most other chains seem to be aimed squarely at families.
The simple fact is that kids ruin everything. Spoons may have its fair share of no-hopers who have been drinking quietly since 10am on a weekday, but they're not going to ruin the ambience in the same way as a swarm of screaming snotbags.
>>12487 You need to not order any drinks at all. The soft stuff in particular is probably the most profitable item they sell. £2 a pint at a cost of pennies.
Most pubs use booze as a loss-leader for food sales, yet Wetherspoons still manage to undercut them on both. Their economies of scale must be incredible.
I know they have their own warehouses and distribution network, so they can buy product whenever it's the cheapest and store it for considerable amounts of times.
I sort of want to work for them just to see it from the inside.
One other thing I've remembered about Farmhouse Inns, most of the kids (at least the ones being shouted at by their parents), had double-barrelled names like Lexi-Mae or Kacey-Jo.
>>12485 > There aren't many pubs that make money from food, if any. It's there to bring people in, and the alcohol is very profitable so it makes up for it.
Well I'm a total prat because I've been telling people for years that it's the opposite; you can get a 4 person family fed and watered (1 meal and 2 drinks each) and back out the door and the table clear in an hour while an old mooch like me will take up an entire table for eight hours and only do eight pints.
Then again I was always told that pubs were barely breaking even on the booze, so - again - who knows. Bloke who told me this worked for Punch Taverns if that means anything.
If this connected to why sometimes you'll go in on a Sunday morning / lunch and all they'll have on tap is fucking Carling? They've bought the whole weekend's lot short dated and run out a bit quicker than they expected?
Tied and tenanted publicans have been complaining for years that they can't make a profit on their beer sales, hence the massive number of pub closures and the huge shift towards food sales.
This evening I had my first experience of Frankie and Benny's in well over a year.
The first thing that struck me was the music. Instead of the usual Motown and Rat Pack hits that you associate with Frankie and Benny's they were playing the likes of Justin Timberlake and Ed Sheeran. The second thing that struck me was how empty it was inside. When we arrived there was only one other party eating and a couple of men propping up the bar; why you'd spend hours drinking in a Frankie and Benny's when there's a number of decent pubs within walking distance is absolutely beyond me. There were more staff than customers. The third thing that struck me was that they've changed the menu. They've taken off the two things that I actually didn't mind eating there; the bacon steaks, i.e. gammon, and the Cajun burger.
I went for their fixed price menu, which offers two courses for £9.99. For the starter I went for 'Meatballs Italiano' which consisted of five meatballs of the strangest density I've ever encountered; if I'd thrown them on the floor then I'm almost certain they'd have bounced up to the ceiling. They were served in a 'Neapolitan tomato sauce' which had been nuked to the point of crusting to the sides of the bowl it was served in. I didn't even know it was possible to burn a sauce but they'd pulled it off.
For the main course I went for their cheeseburger. The meat itself was actually nice but would have considerably benefitted from being grilled. However that's a largely moot point to make because it was drowned in so much barbecue sauce to the point of being almost inedible. The cheese was 'Monterey Jack', which is one of those American cheeses which don't really melt, don't really taste of anything and are vaguely reminiscent of plastic. The chips were alright, though, even if some were served in mugs for whatever reason; I'd imagine that the wonks in charge have decided to start following a trend several years after everyone else has grown tired of it.
>>12527 Last time I went to Frankie and Benny's I had their maccaroni-cheese calzone. Total carb overload, couldn't finish it but at least it was memorable.
The last time I went to Frankie and Benny's the server forgot to put our order in for over an hour while we just sat there like fucking melons. I was only there because the local 'spoons had been shut down by the progressive Labour council and the only place serving pints within walking distance was this fucking shithole F&B. Fucking London.
You don't know London that well then. There's a whole stretch of the Finchley Road where there are no pubs from the North Star almost at swiss cottage all the way up to the Garden Gate in Golders Green. Nearby West Hampstead is devoid of pubs and full of poxy wine bars and Restaurants where you can oxymoronically buy mediocre "Street Food", but you need to venture down to Kilburn to really find a decent set of pubs.
Cineworld has changed their partner restaurants for Unlimited subscribers, so now I can't get 25% off F&B and Pizza Hut any more and they're changing it to 6 restaurants that don't exist in my town. However, Nandos apparently honour it despite not being officially affiliated so I'll probably start eating there and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
>>12535 Pizza Hut has an obnoxious menu, but the free salad bar and the topping selections makes up for it. The Vegi Hot One with chicken is a cracking pizza.
F&B wont be to much of a loss, I suppose. I'll give Nandos a try.
Mrs wanted to go to Wagamama today, so there we went.
The specialty, I was assured, was their ramen dishes. Now, I've always been sceptical of this ramen craze, because I remember being a poorlad. One of my staple meals involved a packet of super noodles, a packet of pre-cooked spicy chicken, some smoked paprika and boiling the kettle.
I found myself paying a tenner yesterday and a high end restaurant for something somehow less flavoursome than my £1.50 Gourmet Super Noodles. For my money, I got a bowl of bland noodles in slightly spicy water with a load of meat and veg dumped on top.
It was nice as an overall meal I suppose, and the sides were delicious. But it stood out to me as one of those things where people are clearly following the herd rather than liking something on its own merits.
>>12547 >Mrs wanted to go to Wagamama today, so there we went.
I didn't realise they did breakfast on a sunday.
Twatishness aside, I've never tried wagamama, but real ramen is wonderful. Even real asian instant ramen like Nissin is much more flavourful than super-noodles.
Their ramen is normally very good*, I don't think I'd be able to call it bland. Either they fucked up your dish or your tastebuds have died. I'd assume the former, but you never know.
To be fair I have been a heavy smoker for a lot of years, and my preference has drifted towards only the punchiest of flavours really working for me.
I mean the broth itself was lovely when I drank it at the end, the meat was well cooked and there wasn't excessive green stuff. But it didn't really "stick" to the noodles, it was too subtle to stand out when you had a big mouthful.
I think that just sounds like ramen in general, to be honest, it's always quite a thin broth and often light, even when they make it with pork bones and that.
Fuck, I love ramen though. To each their own, I suppose.
They've removed pasta and cous cous from the salad bar at Pizza Hut in an effort to make people order more food. They've also stopped serving standard Pepsi and 7up as unlimited refillable drinks, so you can only get the likes of Pepsi Max unless you buy a little bottle at extortionate prices, because they're concerned about the amount of sugar they're offering; for the same reason they're now using 'healthier' tortilla chips.
>>12556 The change on the drinks machine is because of the sugar levy. Taking out the options that attract the levy means they can continue to sell at one price.
