Rumour has it that the bar and catering contract comes up for renewal at The Mowlem later this year.
At present the current bunch - Badger? - Hall and Woodhouse? - aren't reapplying.
Posted by Anonymous to swanageview at 1:09 PM
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What a perfect opportunity! The Mowlem can keep the bar and restaurant in-house, and keep all the profits.
The lure of more profits will encourage them to put on more events that will attract more people.
D'you reckon they've got the skills?
Bearing in mind the remarks we have seen on here about the ability of the trustees to run the theatre I was a little surprised to see a suggestion that they take on the operation of the restaurant as well. Its reassuring that someone has faith in their abilities. In fairness to them I doubt that the snipers can point to an example of a theatre of this size in an isolated town that manages to balance its books and keep the theatre filled with high quality productions without masses of public money. I don't notice many of them coming forward with ideas for things that will attract a decent audience either.
Bingo?
An IMAX conversion?
Yes quite, bingo. Not exactly my idea of a high quality theatre production but it was the fate of an awful lot of theatres, many long demolished now to make way for shopping centres. But in any case bingo is dead on its feet now because of the smoking ban.
We are talking about a 300+ seat theatre in to town of 10,000. Imax was a flop in Bournemouth in a conurbation of 300,000. Perhaps they should take a deep breath and hire someone who is really good at marketing.
Ok so sell the Town Hall for a tidy sum to a developer, and move the council into the theatre area + a large community room. The old community room can become a gallery and extend over the restaurant flat roof. The sea rowing club would probably fit under there somewhere. The restaurant and bar need to be sold off to a national chain willing to pay something like £80000 p.a.
Now, stop it.
You're using your imagination, and that's dangerous.
We'il have no change here thank you.
Quite right, I'll go take a cold bath.
The last thing the Trustees should do is have anything to do with running the food and beverage operations. They need a national chain that will indeed pay a rent around £80000 a year or more for the two outlets. They would then be able to comfortably borrow £1.5M or so against the rental income to do the place up. Lets see some "best practice" you Trustees.
Why do you think it would be worth £80,000 a year?
Rent in catering should be about 10% of turnover. A bar and a restaurant of these sizes must be turning over at least that
(£800,000), and managed properly I would expect a turnover of say £1.5/2M.
Is there a reason why the ice cream parlour and fashion surf shop are closed suddenly ?
They are becoming one "milk bar"
The Mowlem's restaurant and bar are up for rental at £30,000 per year, see www.corbensproperty.co.uk
Any of the critics feeling brave? Its your chance to make a difference to Swanage. Personally, the prospect of dealing with the trustees and the great British public is a little too much.
If Hall and W. are walking out their must be issues. Perhaps there is some access or health and safety stuff requiring major investment. Else perhaps they just see Swanage as a lost cause. They are obviously prepared to spend £M's at the Granary in Wareham however. At Upton they have again decided the pub has no future. How nice to be a fly on the wall at board meetings.
Re 10:20
I wonder how many of the "critics" have £150,000 in venture capital.
Thats a strange thing 2.36 has said. There cannot be many businesses of this sort that are not capitalised to a great degree by borrowing. In normal times someone with a track record in the restaurant business and a decent business plan would be able to borrow most of what they need from their bank. In the present climate on the other hand..........
This is all rather curious. A full repairing lease makes the tenant responsible for the condition of the building and for keeping it in good repair. At the end they have to hand it back in the condition they originally took it in. There is no allowance for wear and tear.
Are we to take it from the parlous condition of the outside of the building, including those parts occupied by Hall and Woodhouse, that the existing lease is not a full repairing lease? The alternative suggests they have not met their responsibilities.
By the way the Anchor was advertised in Daltons Weekly on such a lease with an annual rent of £37,000 and a premium of £180,000. Turnover approx £595,000 with a net profit of £140,000 according to the ad. It has 4 bedroom owners accommodation though.
Also available in Swanage:
http://tinyurl.com/56gh3y
By the way the Anchor was advertised in Daltons Weekly on such a lease with an annual rent of £37,000 and a premium of £180,000. Turnover approx £595,000 with a net profit of £140,000 according to the ad. It has 4 bedroom owners accommodation though.
And Red Riding hood married the wolf.
Talk about over sell a bussiness.
The scuttlebut is that the mowlem needs 200k spent on it to bring it up to the standard that plus ingoing costs make it a BIG investment to much perhaps for a lease?
Thats quite right. The numbers do not make any sense. Hall and Woodhouse took it on as a shell and will remove everything of theirs. Why would anyone go for this proposition with the cost of re-equipping and the joys of dealing with the trustees when for the same sort of premium they can take over a functioning business elsewhere. That may explain why H & W were always able to negotiate a favourable rent on previous lease renewals.
The fanciful language of the advert in Daltons for the Anchor might be explained by the fact that the estate agents act does not apply to business sales and the agents are at liberty to use their most florid terminology. I had some difficulty recognising the Swanage we know and love, warts and all, in their description of paradise on earth.
Maybe Jamie Oliver, Rick Stein or the like will take it. They would certainly want to start from scratch with the refurbishment anyway. Harry Ramsden's, a Harvestor, one of the Italian chains, even Pizza Express would be better than the current sad state of affairs.
Hall and Woodhouse owned a couple of flats used by the manager and other staff along the road from the Mowlem but they put them up for sale some months ago. Draw your own conclusions.
Re 2:41
"Not eneough chimney pots" as they say [for the large chains].alt
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