The growing popularity of pub with rooms

Can you tell me about the history of Shepherd Neame?

Shepherd Neame will turn 325 years old this year. It was founded in 1698 in a place called Faversham, a lovely part of Kent, on a creek, which was the water source for transportation of beer, which went up and down the river, but we actually founded the brewery on an artesian well.

So, we draw up that water from underneath the brewery, from foundations and rocks that are chalk, and we have this wonderful, natural water source, which for 325 years has been a source for our beer. This was really the start of Shepherd Neame. The business was founded by a family, and the fifth-generation descendant of that family, Jonathan Neame, is our chief executive today, 325 years later. Five generations later, it’s still going strong with the story really born and raised on this brewery site, where we still brew beer today.

Did Shepherd Neame always have lodging at its pubs?

Well, I can’t go back very far, unfortunately, having only been around for nine months with Shepherd Neame. But we haven’t always had pubs or ‘added rooms’ to our pubs. We started off as brewers and gradually added pubs to our business, some of which had rooms; we currently have 301 pubs in Kent and the South East. If you also look at pubs, the sort of inn in a village or town has always served many functions, and the pub and everything that goes on in the pub have been at the centre of our psyche in the UK for hundreds of years.

It’s when tourists come to the UK and decide they need to go and have an English breakfast somewhere and then have a pint of English beer at an English pub, often, that pub has looked after people even after the bar is shut. So traditionally, it has always had, to some extent, rooms surrounding it.

What has also happened since the smoking ban of 2007 is that pub operators have invested quite heavily in unused spaces in their pubs. And whilst I think perhaps the focus had been on the bar more generally over the last four or five decades, and then food post-smoking ban, the focus has now shifted to including a nice dining room and bedrooms to encourage people to stay.

What led Shepherd Neame to add rooms to its pubs?

Well, if you think about the customers, I believe that more and more of them are searching for accommodations that may be unique and are more adventurous and experimental. In the broadest sense of the word, people used to be more content or satisfied to stay at hotels a couple of generations ago. I believe social media has given businesses a boost that they previously lacked from a marketing perspective. And following the smoking ban, pubs, which have been able to develop and change for hundreds of years, have, in my opinion, recreated themselves. That’s why they’re still around today. But they’ve reinvented themselves around this. And that’s come at a time when customers are a bit more adventurous and looking for new experiences. So, I think those are the two drivers really behind it.

60% of consumers stated they were likely to stay in a pub with rooms, according to data from CGA Strategy and Stay In A Pub. Given that Shepherd Neame operates both boutique hotels and pubs, have you also seen this change?

For me, the most important thing is to have the pub bar at the centre of a business, whether that’s a hotel, as we may call it, which generally features more than 15 bedrooms, or a pub with rooms, which might typically have something less than 15 bedrooms.

For instance, The Royal Albion, Broadstairs is a beachfront hotel with 21 rooms. It has been called the hotel for almost 200 years. However, it does offer an excellent pub on the ground floor, as well as a garden bar along the beach. So, in my opinion, that is the essential component, instead of having a small, ancillary hotel bar like some of the branded hotels might have.

And I have definitely seen this shift of customers opting to stay at pubs. From my own experience, we’ve been investing in bedrooms in pubs for some time, and we will continue to see demand as customers are looking for something that’s a little bit different from a typical hotel; they’re looking for individual touches and a sense of history and character in the building. Maybe they’re just a bit more gregarious and adventurous, and they’re wanting to walk downstairs and find a warm and cosy bar to sit in a corner and have their food. So, I think that’s all part of the public experience, which is a bit different from what might be called a sort of standard hotel experience.

Considering Shepherd Neame has been in business for over 300 years now, do you think the history of the company has also played a role in attracting more customers to stay?

Absolutely. I think that’s right. And I believe that the company’s position contributes to a clear trend that we are all aware of these days: storytelling. In whatever line of work we choose, I believe we must be effective storytellers. With pubs, you often have a couple hundred years’ worth of tales to share. And all of it contributes to the difference. In fact, the Duke of Cumberland, a new development with eight boutique bedrooms above it, will begin construction on site on Monday in Whitstable. And this is a pub that has hosted a market in its garden over the years and has served as a concert venue. It has also experienced some fairly violent times, particularly in the 1890s, and went through a whole phase where it was a hotel and then wasn’t a hotel. But one of the joys of reviving these businesses is being able to share that tale and give a sense of history to the customers.

How do you think the atmospheres of pubs with stay and hotels differ from one another?

Yeah, I think the pub has like, two-to-three hundred things going on. At the same time, you know, tiny bits of stimulus and atmosphere that all add up to something that’s different, whether it’s the crackle of a roaring fire, whether it’s the lighting that might be dimly lit around certain corners of the pub, maybe it’s the candles that are lit, maybe it’s the local beers on the bar, maybe it’s just the wonderful, friendly, warm welcome you’ll get from pub people.
I believe as humans we sense and feel such things intuitively, and that is how we are wired to react when we walk into a place like that. I believe that the sense of uniqueness, individuality, and the combination of all these elements lead you to believe that this experience is, in some situations, very different from staying in a hotel.

Has this shift also prompted Shepherd Neame to acquire and convert more pubs into pubs with rooms?

We have undoubtedly grown our bedroom business over the past five years; that much is evident. We’ve given ourselves the goal of acquiring anywhere between four and 500 bedrooms in the medium future. So that’s how we managed the estate as a whole. We currently have around 220 bedrooms. In addition, we just reopened The Crown in Chislehurst with seven new boutique bedrooms thanks to an investment of £1.4 million. Then, as I previously mentioned, we begin construction on site at Whitstable, which will feature eight luxury boutique bedrooms above the pub and is only a few yards from the beach. These are our big investments, and we are quite excited.

What plans do you have for this type of offering over the next few years?

Well, we wish to expand our pub estate by adding more rooms. We aim to make some of our operations a bit more premium, which includes not just the guest rooms but also the kind of food, drink, and service we provide at our establishments. Thirdly, we are considering how we might use any additional land we have near our pubs and are looking at ways to use that land. It might not necessarily be a finished hotel, but rather eco lodges in beautiful locations where we can provide a unique, possibly family-based, more rural experience for guests looking for a staycation.