First retail ‘name’ to pop off 2018

[garagewidow]

Joey Deacon said:

Have to say I have never heard of Bargain Booze although having seen the logo it looks like the sort of place you would go to on a sink estate to buy your Special Brew.

Edited by Joey Deacon on Thursday 15th March 10:10

Yes,it's not the place to go to to get a firkin of your finest locally brewed real ale

[Sheepshanks]

Joey Deacon said:

Have to say I have never heard of Bargain Booze although having seen the logo it looks like the sort of place you would go to on a sink estate to buy your Special Brew.

I think the shops are all franchises. There's quite a lot of them, but mainly concentrated in the NW and central/Midlands.

[jas xjr]

Sheepshanks said:

I think the shops are all franchises. There's quite a lot of them, but mainly concentrated in the NW and central/Midlands.

I did look at buying the chain many years ago. There were no physical assets other than the brand.I also did not trust the previous owner.

It is an OK way to run a business of that sort if you have little to no experience

[Digga]

Sheepshanks said:

Joey Deacon said:

Have to say I have never heard of Bargain Booze although having seen the logo it looks like the sort of place you would go to on a sink estate to buy your Special Brew.

I think the shops are all franchises. There's quite a lot of them, but mainly concentrated in the NW and central/Midlands.

Often strategically positioned near unlicened curry/balti houses. IN and of itself, it wasn't a bad business model, but the supermarkets really seem to have got their teeth into the booze market these days.

[KTF]

Maplin in 'sale' prices costing more than non-closing down rivals shocker: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/14/maplin_pr...

Edited by KTF on Thursday 15th March 16:38

[PeetBee]

Couldn't see it mentioned, but what about Machine Mart?

Do they really get many people dropping in to get a welder or compressor at short notice?

[Camoradi]

PeetBee said:

Couldn't see it mentioned, but what about Machine Mart?

Do they really get many people dropping in to get a welder or compressor at short notice?

They get people go in and buy a welder and take 12 years to start using it



Hi Pete

[anonymous-user]

Camoradi said:

PeetBee said:

Couldn't see it mentioned, but what about Machine Mart?

Do they really get many people dropping in to get a welder or compressor at short notice?

They get people go in and buy a welder and take 12 years to start using it



Hi Pete

And a compressor, parts washer and engine hoist if my dad is anything to go by.

[Funkycoldribena]

Joey Deacon said:

bazza white said:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk...


seems a few chains may go this year.


The market is saturated though, the last few years a new restaurant opening in Cardiff every few weeks being reported by the local paper.

Frankie and Benny's, All bar one, TGI Fridays, Chiquita, Garfunkel's, Harvester, Beefeater etc. all selling the same reheated food from Brake Brothers.

You know Frankie and Benny's are in trouble when there is a 50% off voucher on their website. Ate there last week in London and even with 50% off it was overpriced rubbish.

All of these "gourmet, £15 for a burger" places must be in trouble. Ate in 5 guys a few weeks ago, overhyped and over priced will not be going back.

Planet Hollywood, Hard Rock Cafe surely they are finding it hard. Personally not prepared to pay their prices just because they have some fake movie/rock memorabilia nailed to the walls.

Even my local curry house is a joke, two cokes, 6 poppadoms, two curries with rice and the cost was £51. This was £30 a couple of years ago, again won't be going back.

I think all of these chains have been serving rubbish food for too much money for too long and people have had enough,

I mentioned F&B quite a few pages back,It always looks as if the lights are off.

[Alpinestars]

Currently working on Carillion, Maplin and Conviviality (Bargain Booze).

It's not looking good out there.

[DSLiverpool]

Digga said:

Often strategically positioned near unlicened curry/balti houses. IN and of itself, it wasn't a bad business model, but the supermarkets really seem to have got their teeth into the booze market these days.

I must be the B.B. target punter as I have a choice of three just on my way home from work.
(Birkenhead) - a lot of them changed to B.B. from Ashe & Nephew an upmarket sounding but rough as a dogs bum chain that was associated with Kwik Save.

[aaron_2000]

Funkycoldribena said:

Joey Deacon said:

bazza white said:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk...


seems a few chains may go this year.


The market is saturated though, the last few years a new restaurant opening in Cardiff every few weeks being reported by the local paper.

Frankie and Benny's, All bar one, TGI Fridays, Chiquita, Garfunkel's, Harvester, Beefeater etc. all selling the same reheated food from Brake Brothers.

You know Frankie and Benny's are in trouble when there is a 50% off voucher on their website. Ate there last week in London and even with 50% off it was overpriced rubbish.

All of these "gourmet, £15 for a burger" places must be in trouble. Ate in 5 guys a few weeks ago, overhyped and over priced will not be going back.

Planet Hollywood, Hard Rock Cafe surely they are finding it hard. Personally not prepared to pay their prices just because they have some fake movie/rock memorabilia nailed to the walls.

Even my local curry house is a joke, two cokes, 6 poppadoms, two curries with rice and the cost was £51. This was £30 a couple of years ago, again won't be going back.

I think all of these chains have been serving rubbish food for too much money for too long and people have had enough,

I mentioned F&B quite a few pages back,It always looks as if the lights are off.

I quite like TGI, although I once came back from there with the true belief I was having a heart attack, not a good sign when I was 15 at the time.

[megaphone]

A few of those brands are owned by The Restaurant Group PLC. F&B, Chiquito, Garfunkles and others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restaurant_Group

Their share price and dividend has struggled over the last few years, tough times for them

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/the-restaurant-group/

[Robertj21a]

megaphone said:

A few of those brands are owned by The Restaurant Group PLC. F&B, Chiquito, Garfunkles and others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restaurant_Group

Their share price and dividend has struggled over the last few years, tough times for them

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/the-restaurant-group/

Hardly surprising. I don't know anybody who has been in any of them in recent years.

[eltawater]

We frequent Frankie and Bennys on a semi regular basis as it serves us well as a young family.
Their mobile app provides a rolling 50% off main meals voucher which brings the cost down considerably.

We like it as their kids menu provides good value for money for our two under-5s and the adult meals are a decent quality when you bring the 50% voucher into play.

[Digga]

DSLiverpool said:

Digga said:

Often strategically positioned near unlicened curry/balti houses. IN and of itself, it wasn't a bad business model, but the supermarkets really seem to have got their teeth into the booze market these days.

I must be the B.B. target punter as I have a choice of three just on my way home from work.
(Birkenhead) - a lot of them changed to B.B. from Ashe & Nephew an upmarket sounding but rough as a dogs bum chain that was associated with Kwik Save.

I still miss the Kwik Save brand.

They were early adopters at the recycling game; used to leave all the cardboard boxes out for customers to help themselves to.

[alangla]

Joey Deacon said:

Shares suspended in Conviviality (wine Rack, Bargain Booze) because they accidentally forgot they had a £30 million tax bill due on March 29th.

http://www.decanter.com/wine-news/wine-rack-owner-...

Have to say I have never heard of Bargain Booze although having seen the logo it looks like the sort of place you would go to on a sink estate to buy your Special Brew.

Edited by Joey Deacon on Thursday 15th March 10:10

I'm surprised at this one - they apparently bought over Matthew Clark Wholesale in 2015, so would have had a huge percentage of the UK wholesale market in their control. I worked for Matthew Clark back in the early 2000s when I was a student & it looked like a licence to print money back then - they had massive contracts for both soft drinks & alcohol with everything from small pubs, hotels & restaurants up to Wetherspoon's & the big hotel chains. In saying that, most of the stuff we were shifting was bottled beer, spirits and alcopops, the keg beer market was mainly controlled by the breweries, so maybe changing tastes haven't helped. Would have thought the increasing popularity of gin would have helped them though.

Either way, if Conviviality go bust, expect shortages of some drinks in your local.

[poo at Paul's]

KTF said:

Maplin in 'sale' prices costing more than non-closing down rivals shocker: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/14/maplin_pr...

Edited by KTF on Thursday 15th March 16:38

There's bound to be a few such incidents, administrators just applying broad brush % discounts to products in certain categories. Maplin have about 22,000 product lines.

[garagewidow]

Digga said:

DSLiverpool said:

Digga said:

Often strategically positioned near unlicened curry/balti houses. IN and of itself, it wasn't a bad business model, but the supermarkets really seem to have got their teeth into the booze market these days.

I must be the B.B. target punter as I have a choice of three just on my way home from work.
(Birkenhead) - a lot of them changed to B.B. from Ashe & Nephew an upmarket sounding but rough as a dogs bum chain that was associated with Kwik Save.

I still miss the Kwik Save brand.

They were early adopters at the recycling game; used to leave all the cardboard boxes out for customers to help themselves to.

Well I suppose they needed something to sleep in after downing a few bottles of white lightning.

[Digga]

garagewidow said:

Digga said:

DSLiverpool said:

Digga said:

Often strategically positioned near unlicened curry/balti houses. IN and of itself, it wasn't a bad business model, but the supermarkets really seem to have got their teeth into the booze market these days.

I must be the B.B. target punter as I have a choice of three just on my way home from work.
(Birkenhead) - a lot of them changed to B.B. from Ashe & Nephew an upmarket sounding but rough as a dogs bum chain that was associated with Kwik Save.

I still miss the Kwik Save brand.

They were early adopters at the recycling game; used to leave all the cardboard boxes out for customers to help themselves to.

Well I suppose they needed something to sleep in after downing a few bottles of white lightning.

I do remember, a very long time ago, when Mrs Digga (before she was even Mrs in fact) and I moved into our first house, were dirt poor, and had barely a stick of furniture - no sofa, no bed, just two duvets, one to sleep on, one to sleep under - that she took some boxes from the local Kwikkie to use as temporary bedroom drawers.

Happy days. When I saw what she'd done, I knew she was a keeper.