Wed 16th Oct 2013 - Breaking News - UK’s ‘best pub licensees’ secure second site UK’s ‘best pub licensees’ choose Enterprise for second site: Richard and Loren Pope, who are often cited as the UK’s best single site licensees, have taken an assignment on The Joiners Arms in Quardon, an Enterprise Inns site, for their long-awaited second pub. The Popes have turned The Bull’s Head in Repton, Derbyshire, from a closed pub to a £3 million turnover-a-year site. Elements of their retail offer have been “borrowed” by many other operators – Marston’s has installed the Popes’ pizza offer in a number of its Revere premium pubs. Now the Popes have acquired the remaining 18 years of a 20-year lease at the Enterprise pub ten miles from Repton where they are tied on beer – they bought the freehold of their Repton pub from Punch Taverns several years ago. Richard Pope told Propel: “We are looking forward to a different relationship with Enterprise Inns from the free-of-tie one we’re used to – and if it works there is no reason why we can’t repeat it. The cashflow benefits of taking on a leased site ought to accelerate our growth – and get us to site number three sooner. We needed a second site that we were totally confident on – and this is a great site. It’s been closed during the day and our first interim plan is to start serving food within six weeks – and stop losing money at the site. We plan to spend many hundreds of thousands of pounds with an increased trading area and a new kitchen. We would hope to have the fully refurbished pub open by November 2014.” The village of Quardon offers, along with Repton, the best demographic profile in the area surrounding Derby. Added Pope: “The situation is uncannily similar to Repton – the demographic is similar, the site is similar and the position of the property is similar.” General managers have been appointed for each site with Susan Rae overseeing The Bull’s Head and Kevin Pickles the new general manager at The Joiners Arms. At the Propel Multi Club Conference in June, Richard Pope said: “ We have aspirations of running more than one pub and we have spent a long time now with processes and systems making sure we can manage The Bull’s Head without having to be there every day. We want to get two sites performing well and then we want to go all the way to 12 sites.” The Bull’s Head has a team of 90 staff and has 1,500 to 1,600 bookings each week. In addition, the website gets 200 to 400 visits per day. Pope told delegates he imported his wood-fired pizza oven directly from Italy, from where he also imports his pizza flour. “We sold 700 pizzas last Saturday and Sunday, and now pizza is about a third of our food offer.” The pub also makes its own ice cream, gelato, sorbet, chocolate and bread. Gelato now accounts for around 70% of puddings sold. Spirit chief executive Mike Tye has referred to The Bull’s Head as a good example of a brand because of its many and varied points-of-difference. Richard and Loren Pope were chosen as BII Licensees of the Year in 2010.