Poynton is a large and fairly prosperous commuter village that only has one other pub and one bar in the centre, so there is obvious potential for trade. However, as I have pointed out before, Wetherspoon’s business model is very much targeted on sites with a lot of pre-existing footfall, and they have tended to avoid locations such as this where a substantial proportion of customers would be expected to arrive by car.
However, they have shown signs of tentative expansion into more suburban locations, such as their acquisition last year of the Gateway in East Didsbury, so it will be interesting to see how this one goes. At the same time, Joseph Holt have just bought the monumental Fiveways at the southern end of Hazel Grove, a couple of miles up the road, from Spirit Group. This was also originally a Greenalls pub. Do I foresee a bit of rivalry between the two?
One day all pubs will be Spoons. Like all restaurants will be Taco Bell
ReplyDeleteThe only other place to get a drink will be a a brewdog craft bar.
Poynton has the Vernon, the bulls head, the farmers, the workies, the legion and the red rock. Although most Poynton folk would class the miners and the boars head as one of their own too. All of these serve real ale.
ReplyDeleteThe fiveways is too far out of the village to interest most.
"One other pub and a bar" suggests you don't know much about this area.
*** pulls up a chair and cracks open a beer ***
ReplyDeleteI love it when gritty Northerners start asking each other outside for a scrap.
Game on !
The Farmers and the Red Rock are the only pubs/bars actually in the village centre. The Bull's Head and the Vernon Arms are half a mile away along the main road in either direction; the Boar's Head and the Miners Arms at least a mile through the back lanes.
ReplyDeleteBe ready at dawn gentemen. Bring your handbags.
ReplyDeleteI always run away from a fight, and luckily Curmudgeon'll never catch me if he thinks half a mile is too far away to matter.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually well-established that, for the vast majority of people, half a mile is the maximum distance they're prepared to walk to a pub.
ReplyDeleteGood God, is it? We live in one lazy, fat nation.
ReplyDeleteThere's extensive discussion about the reopened pub on the Poynton forum here.
ReplyDeleteI had a look in today - all very new and smart, and the usual Spoons offer, but even for Spoons a spectacularly unpubby interior more like a modern refurbished McDonalds.
ReplyDelete