Run by Caroline and Darran Lingley, the Five Bells proudly overlooks the Colne Valley in Essex. A freehold that pairs exposed beams with colourful and uplifting window displays, BII’s Eleanor Kirby spoke to Darran about putting pubs on prescription.
“We met our lovely artist Juliet, who started drawing snowdrops on windows to cheer people up, people would send us messages asking for the snowdrop fairy, which turned into the bluebell fairy in springtime. We did over 120 windows just from local requests.”
Despite the cheer and positivity being spread, fairy dust couldn’t magic away the impact Covid had on the business. “Before the pandemic hit, we had four pubs. One was too small to work economically with restrictions in place as the seating went down to 36 covers with no outside space.” Making redundancies and selling two pubs was a hard decision to make for Darran and Caroline, but it offered them time and space to come back to ideas they’d had in the past.
“We’re down to the Five Bells and the Lion, and managed to borrow money to do the renovations we’d always wanted to do. We had to look into the crystal ball and thought about how to adapt to the changing industry.
“Investing in new outside spaces, beer huts, heaters, covered areas – they’re all things we would have done eventually, but at a much slower pace.”
This investment in the future has cost around £200,000, but Darran believes the pandemic has made him and Caroline more in tune with the needs of their staff, and in turn, their customers. “Last year was the hardest of our lives, but we needed to stay level-headed to support everyone. We are a lot more personal with the team now. We can adapt to customer needs too, whether it be easing anxiety about restrictions when revisiting, or being extra bubbly through all the masks and sanitisers.”
Embracing technology in the form of their in-house app that has helped the business move from takeaway off-sales, to table ordering through the stages of reopening (at a £6,000 development cost), Darran says, has meant that staff save time on administrative tasks, which could be better spent on making customers feel more comfortable. “There’s a lot of suffering going around, our customers have been stuck at home without their peers; Government should prescribe going to the pub – it’s about feeling part of the herd again. I would love to see our industry being socially prescribed for anxiety, depression and loneliness.”
A response to their own experience of sitting at home, wondering what to do, Caroline and Darran started an online event called “Darraline”, a cookalong livestream that peaked customer curiosity. “People watched it and regularly joined in the conversation, but they wanted to food and drinks too! We now sell 40-50 tickets for the events, charging £50 per head which includes food and wine pairings.”
Starting out with dishes like Caroline’s famous meatloaf or herb crusted salmon, Darraline are now famed for their paella takeaways that “put the sunshine back into home life”, selling 130 portions on a Saturday night in just one hour! When asked whether upselling was key to rebuilding their business after a hefty renovation, Darran says, “We upsell our time,” believing in “ethical selling”.
“Once you get people in your zone and they trust you, you don’t have to sell. We don’t push items, we give them a good reason to support us by anticipating their needs, meaning we’ve also been able to reduce our range because we’re tailoring to our people.”
Covid has meant holding stock isn’t an option, but it also sharpened the couple’s ability to sense what customers need before they ask for it. “People are coming back out for the nostalgia of the pub, and that means comfort food.” Roasts, fish & chips and burgers are part of the menu limited to eight dishes, with interchangeable twists like a choice of burger bun. As well as pushing the creativity of their chefs, these condensed menus mean customers spend less time making their choice, and more time rebuilding happy memories.
“Darraline” doesn’t stop there, as the duo have created a brand that has migrated from the pub’s Facebook pages and onto its own channel, where Caroline and Darran hope to take it on tour. After 19 years and counting at the Five Bells, the pair have yet to run out of innovative ideas (catch them on Instagram Reels for a true taste of the fun they bring to the business!)
Finalists of LOYA in 2008, and then winners in 2011, Caroline & Darran gravitated towards our Licensee of the Year Award as a way to be recognised by our industry.
“Ultimately you want to be challenged. I saw it as a self-help scheme, it helped me get on track so I could come back stronger and eventually win after being a finalist. LOYA is about the journey to winning, teaching others what you’ve learned along the way, and by doing so, you learn even more.
“Our teachings from LOYA were what we recognised we love about the industry, that it’s constantly changing and challenging us. We’re custodians of this pub, and we have had a responsibility to adapt it throughout Covid.”
