Micropubs are currently popping up faster than ever across the UK and proving to be a great success, with low start up costs for landlords and a unique environment & high quality ale for punters, it’s easy to see why.
While we’re seeing a large increase in micropub openings, we are sad to announce that a micropub located in Hanley, Staffordshire, has closed it’s doors for the final time after just six months of opening.
Landlord, Paolo Valente, expected more punters to visit The Ale Corner, with it being located in the town centre. While managing to build a small loyal customer base, Mr. Valente found the business hard to run with the amount of punters that visited.
He said: “I was hoping that with the pub being in the town centre it would attract more customers.
“I also thought that with the cinema and new restaurants being round the corner I would get more trade from them.
“Other micropubs are being set up elsewhere and doing really well.
“It is just here it seems that it is not working.
“No one comes in and it is hard to keep a business going with only a few customers.”
Try changing your product portfolio and you may get more customers do not just sell beer in need to go for lagers ciders spirits wines your portfolio doesn’t cater for women as well
I appreciate what you are saying but that goes against the ethos of micropubs really and micropubs in general are really flourishing. With regards to not catering for women, real ale isn’t just the domain of beardy fellas a large proportion of the female population drink real ale. I feel it is important that all micropubs stay true to themselves.
I’ve got to agree with landingnet. We have just visited Kent and called into a few micropubs. They all seemed to be thriving. They would be spoilt if they started to sell lager & spirits. Fruit wines might go down ok. One micropub we visited had 15 ciders on offer. The atmosphere in most was excellent, only one had music (which spoilt the atmosphere) the rest just people talking…..We will definitely be searching for more in the future.
Kent has a great micropub scene if you download our micropub app then you can find all the nearby micropubs around the UK. Links for the apple and android versions are on the front page.