Robin Davidson, Pub partner

Pub Partner, Robin Davidson, co-owns 18 pubs, four of which are with Greene King. He says the help he received during the pandemic was impressive.

I’ve been a leasing tenant for over 25 years and during that time I’ve had more than 40 pubs. Now I’m a co-director of 18 sites, mainly in the South Birmingham area and we work with a few pub companies, Greene King being one of them.

Greene King has been very good to work with right from the beginning. We kind of inherited the relationship because of the Spirit acquisition and started with three pubs, but we took another one on. Pre-Covid each pub had received significant investment from both Greene King and us to turn them around from not being particularly good trading outlets, to pubs trading very healthily.

But of course, we were hugely impacted during the pandemic. In spring 2020 it was very worrying and there were times when we thought we wouldn’t be able to survive. We received government grants for some of our pubs, but not all.

Large measures

At the start things were looking bad, what with the food and stock disposed of or donated when we mothballed our pubs, plus electricity, gas, water, insurance and fixed loans to pay and no revenue coming in.

We usually pay our own wages from pub profits, and of course we didn’t have any. So, when Greene King announced that we were to receive a 90% rent discount early on in the crisis, it was a huge relief. Greene King also introduced other financial measures that were really significant for us. For example, when we reopened in July 2020, we received a discount on our beer. In the first month of reopening, we received an additional discount per barrel and continued to enjoy discounted barrelage in the following months, too. This meant we were able to settle our Covid-related debts – which was a huge boost to us.

There was help on a practical level, too. I deal with a few other pub companies who sent templates for Covid-safe posters for us to download and print. But Greene King sent packs of actual properly printed posters and floor stickers that we could use immediately to help customers and staff stay safe and socially distanced. The level of support was faultless. Greene King sent PPE packs with hand sanitiser, gloves and face masks, too.

Scotch egg-gate

During the first lockdown there were certain pubs that we couldn’t see surviving. But having gone through that first reopening period, and seeing the trade that was there, it gave us a lot of confidence to carry on. And with Greene King’s support, my relationship with my regional manager and government help, we were able to keep our heads above water and see a way out of the pandemic without too much of a bloody nose.

But as 2020 progressed it was difficult to keep up with all the complex and changing regulations. Much of it was nonsense, and so very little of it based on science. You could only drink in a pub when you had a substantial meal – and did that, or did it not, mean a scotch egg?

Curfews meant pubs were all emptying out at the same time, creating bottlenecks in town centres. And the idea that a pub is a hotbed of infection, but only when people were drinking alcohol, was just naïve. So, you could sit in a pub all day drinking coffee or Coke, but you can’t nip in for a quick pint? And the tiers system was mind boggling.

Old-school appeal

We came out of the pandemic thinking that perhaps our traditional way of planning our business had gone out of the window. People used to come to the pub for karaoke evenings or quiz nights, but when we initially reopened in 2021, there was none of that. It wasn’t allowed. And yet, still the people came. And they came, not for entertainment, but to be with other people. So, I was left wondering if the public really want the pub to be just more of a traditional meeting place once again, without the Sky Sports and a disco night? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.