The Reason why we set up “Barrel-Dregs”
I originally set up www.buyingapub.com, when I was working for the BII as Consultant looking after Membership in various Regions in the Southern half of the UK.
At the time the BII was a respected body in the industry.
I was horrified and totally fed up with meeting decent honest people who had invested their savings in buying a Tied Pub Co lease without having carried out serious investigations in what their profitability, responsibilities were in running a tied leased pub.
The real sting in the tail, what their responsibilities are when they assign their lease.
Most had no idea, their business plans were accepted by the Pub Co’s, in many cases the figures in the Business Plan, were complete fantasy in respect of that particular pub.
A solicitor told me that he had never had a pub Co refuse a Business Plan.
The lack of serious knowledge and experience by the majority was and is immense.
You cannot teach people to run a business after one or two weeks training, without additional back up and further in house training to say the least.
A learned colleague, said we have to set up something to expose the outrageous activities by a number of companies, most were technically legal at the greatest stretch of the imagination, but morally unacceptable from the larger and some small Pub companies.
We set up Barrel-Dregs, anyone who has a genuine sorry tale can send us the details and if we can help, we will.
We change the location, names are not mentioned, but the activities are correct, to make people aware and hopefully embarrass the Pub Co’s to mend their ways.
By changing the names and locations etc., the results have been amusing, two phone calls in the same morning from different Pub Co’s, threatening legal action for the same piece of villainy, one definitely related to one company, the other thought they recognised that it was one of theirs.
Neither knew which one was responsible, it was confidential info.
The stories on Barrel-Dregs are sad, humorous, chaotic, obscene, unbelievable, they should never be allowed with decent, honest people who think they can make a career change.
Before the recession one major Pub Co had 5,800 enforced closures in two and a half years, the majority described as Retailer Failure, the majority of these people were good honest people who invested their redundancies, life savings into a false dream, many to lose it all.
The Pub Co’s have the best lawyers, best professional advice and in the main are property companies, they have taken a good tried and tested system and in our opinion changed it for tied leases pocketing massive discounts, there are better ways of leasing pubs without making good honest people and good licensees expendable commodities.
The old Family Brewers trained people well, they knew that good successful licensees/tenants were the key to their profitability, they were and are in business to sell beer and any other products that they produced.
Pub Co’s in the main do not own breweries, they are property companies, they collect massive discounts on everything that is tied within the lease, these discounts are not factored into the divisible split and are never disclosed.
Without going on, anyone who is considering a tied lease with a Pub Co should read through a large number of Barrel-Dregs to get streetwise or take a Family brewer Tenancy or buy a genuine Freehouse, a Bistro or a Coffee/Sandwich Bar.
We cannot print the names of Pub Co’s that feature in Barrel-Dregs for obvious reasons, but we have a list that we prefer to avoid recommending.
Potboy
Please note, access to this site is totally free if you would like to subscribe (No Charge) on www.buyingapub.com, they are free to be read for your guidance and aimed to help you get through a time of considerable pressure and demand.
Barrel-Dregs has been run for many years, we change all the identifiable details, but give you an insight as to many of the sharp or bad practices by a number of companies.
We have a number of Pub owning companies that we will not recommend, their actions have featured in Barrel-Dregs too many times, we did hope that by highlighting their antics they might change, but in Barrel-Dregs terms “Leopards do not change their spots, they cover them with more Mud.”
The views expressed are not necessarily the editors and www.buyingapub.com accepts no responsibility for them, we do try to avoid offensive or litigious statements being made. They are written by concerned professionals in the industry who feel that these issues should be raised to ensure that all licensees are made fully aware of many hidden pitfalls.