A well-known publican believes he has come up a model which will help businesses, particularly those in the hospitality sector, to weather the cost-of-living crisis storm.
Coming hard on the heels of Covid, the soaring energy prices along with other costs, has had a huge impact on businesses - both locally and nationally.
Nick Howcroft, who owns Henighans Bar & Grill in Little Lever and Henighans Eat & Drink in Breightmet, said he has seen businesses close as a result.
Nick says he has heard how electricity bills have shot up to £2,800 a month for an electricity bill that was £800.
“It’s worse than the recession,” he said.
Nick has been running his establishments differently since he began in 2012, in a model he likes to call a “hospitality partnership initiative”.
He says this allows two businesses to share costs and help to ensure each other’s survival.
Rather than being responsible for a bar and a restaurant – the latter of which he freely admits he does not have the skills to do – he rents his kitchen out.
He charges a flat rate of £250 per week which helps cover his soaring energy bills and allows another other business to operate at a fraction of the price than it would if it were to go it alone.
“We franchise the use of our kitchen. You get a contract. And from that kitchen you can sell food throughout the business.
“There’s the opportunity to start your own business or the opportunity to amalgamate a business into another business but not amalgamate it into the financial accounts of another business.
“And the way that we benefit from it is if they’re coming in eating food, we’re selling more beer.
Quinn Cramond has been operating his fledgling restaurant business – Cramond at Henighans - out of Henighans Bar & Grill since November 2022.
His 25-year career has seen him work as a head chef at a “busy site in Manchester” as well as working in a two-rosette restaurant in London, and he said he saw the opportunity to start his own business in partnership with Nick.
He said: “We work as one unit and that’s the way that we’re going to flourish but we have separate tills and separate takings and I think it works well. Everyone’s happy.”
“I see restaurants that have been open for years and and they are shutting down. And these are successful businesses.
“It can be quite a scary time, to be truthful, but we seem to be prospering.”
Nick added: “If Quinn had gone, ‘I want to set up my own business up in my own building and I’ll do it all by myself’, with respect to Quinn – he’s an amazing chef – but he’d probably have struggled.”
Given he is also in the property business, renting places out seems like the simplest, most natural solution to Nick.
He is currently on the lookout for someone to take over the kitchen and 80-cover restaurant at his other site – Henighans Eat & Drink on Bury Road, Breightmet.
If you would like to enquire about the opportunity, email nick@henighans.com.
If you have a story or something you would like to highlight in the community, please email me at lewis.finney@newsquest.co.uk or DM me on Twitter @lewisfinney18.
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