Pub dining for today’s millennial market
Millennials – that is, those people who attained adulthood at the beginning of this century – comprise a large chunk of the consumer population, which makes them an integral part of the foodservice customer demographic. And with studies showing they tend to dine out at least three times a week and prefer more casual dining, it’s not surprising that the pub market is one of their key dine-out destinations. To find out more about how pub dining is evolving to meet the expectations of today’s millennial market, we spoke to Gary Johnson, National Executive Chef for ALH Group which operates more than 340 hotels nationally.
Gary johnson - NATIONAL Executive Chef - ALH Group
“The millennials are driving us towards a new emphasis on personal preferences and dietary trends”
“Having a 20 year old and 19 year old at home myself is a big help for me in being able to put myself in their mindset – when we go out together as a family, they show me what that demographic is interested in.”
Gary makes the point that many millennials don’t drink as much alcohol as previous generations – “they’d rather have a couple of good quality drinks than a bucketload of lower grade ones, which we all recognise is a good thing. Quality tends to be more important to them than quantity – although the price also has to be right.”
To attract this demographic, and in response to the fact that we are all being encouraged to drink less alcohol, pubs are increasingly focusing upon offering sophisticated food at affordable pricepoints. “This is a bit attraction to the millennial market, as is the increased flexibility of today’s pub menus,” Gary says. “Gone are the days when you’d go to a pub and see 500g T-bones and double stacked burgers on the chef’s specials board. We have seen the rise of the flexitarian diner, and many millennials are very health conscious as well as focused on issues around environmental sustainability, so all that plays into their dining choices.”
Rather than a huge steak, millennial customers more likely to want a meal which showcases the chef’s creativity and at the same time offers a balanced nutritional intake with lower quantities of red flag ingredients like salt and fat. So today’s pub menus are replete with dishes like smoked duck salad with vegan gnocchi topped with vegan Persian feta.
“Once upon a time you’d have said this type of meal was targeting the female market, but today it’s set to appeal not only to those diners seeking a vegan meal but also the flexitarians among us who are seeking to cut down on the heavier proteins that were formerly a big part of the Western diet.”
Strong emphasis on fresh ingredients and locally sourced produce
Gary believes that while millennials make up an important component of today’s customer base, pubs nevertheless need to continue to appeal to all generations. “The seniors have always made up a large portion of our trade during the week, and certainly people of my generation are still going in to dine, so the menus have to have enough variety to cater for everyone. I might have a steak and three or four schooners, whereas a millennial might go in and order some bar snacks and some of the seltzers which are popular right now – they’ve got low sugar content and high quality alcohol, so two or three of those rather than half a dozen beers or something off the rack.”
There’s also a strong emphasis on fresh ingredients, sourced from local produce wherever possible. “People today are far more educated, aware and interested in where their food comes from,” Gary says, “and they are quite happy to pay more for higher quality. You only have to look at seafood – cheap imports can be a bit nasty, but there are plenty of customers who are prepared to pay $25 to $30 for a great Aussie barramundi or salmon. People appreciate the quality and they understand it costs more – so as long as you’re not trying to rip them off, you can charge a fair market price.”
The rise of social media and its widespread use among millennials has also generated a new emphasis on meal presentation, service and waiting time – not just in pubs but across the spectrum of the market.
“All of us as foodservice professionals need to be aware that millennials are always communicating with each other via social media, and it can be as soon as 30 seconds after they’re out of the bistro or restaurant. When my wife and I ask our own millennials where they want to eat, they immediately go to Instagram to check out the look of the food being served and more often than not they’ll choose a venue based on that. What we find in those cases is that the food might be highly Instagrammable, but when you get there the service might be poor. And of course that can lead to an immediate bad review or negative social media post!
“But they do love to photograph food and send it to each other and this gives them a large amount of influence as a group, so we all have to be mindful of that. This is making everyone up their game as far as presentation goes, but we can’t afford to lose sight of the fact that the food still has to taste as good as it looks – from the quintessential parmigiana right down to the sweet potato gnocchi, the quality has to be there.”
Catering to customers’ dietary preferences
The typical menu across ALH’s pubs features some 35 to 45 dishes, including share plates. “We try to ensure a balance across different dietary choices – we offer a certain percentage of vegan meals, in fact one of our most popular burgers is a plant-based vegan burger – but having said that, it’s not specifically targeted to those people who want to come in and have a vegan meal, it’s more for the flexitarian diner. I do think that in today’s menu you need a certain amount of what I call ‘healthy halos’ – green choices, sustainable ingredients, vegan dishes which can be standalone or to which you can add an animal protein if you want.
“Gluten free, of course, is another very popular dietary choice. And the other thing we do is plan an allergen chart for our menus. All our meals are obviously made to standard recipes, so we can quite easily map out all our offerings and categorise them – everything from gluten free to low FODMAP to shellfish or peanut allergies, along with dietary preferences. This way our team members can check and advise customers accordingly – if there’s a request for a particular dietary choice they can say, ‘Here’s half a dozen dishes we can make or modify to suit that preference’. In saying that, we also review our menus regularly to make sure all those customer expectations are covered, while maintaining our core items.”
With food having become a key attraction of today’s pubs, the dining footprint within each venue is much larger than in the past. “Today we like to say that the whole pub with the exception of the Designated Outdoor Smoking Area (DOSA) is activated for dining. In the public bar you’ll typically have tabletops which are more suited to handheld food or shared dishes like pizzas and dude food platters. In the bistro or dining rooms there’s usually a more extensive menu, built around mains and derivatives which then fold out to other areas like banqueting, or large tables which are derived from the main menu choices and provided at a package price for groups of 20 to 30 people. Our share plates and snack choices can usually double up as canapes or grazing boxes for cocktail parties as well.”
Capitalising on the importance of connectivity
The growing sophistication of millennial consumers is also leading to an increased willingness to move away from the typical pub beverage preferences of older generations, especially in inner city areas. “Thirty kilometres and more out from the CBD we still sell a lot more of the established beer brands, and XXXX is still the number one seller in Queensland, but the closer you get to the city the more choice in beers you’ll find. In inner-urban areas customers are keen on craft beers and will pay $10 to $12 a schooner, as opposed to $5 for a Great Northern. The latest Heineken ad, where the waiter is delivering drinks and puts the cocktail in front of the girl and the beer in front of the guy, only to have them swapping them around, is something we see a lot of in our pubs now. There’s no distinction anymore between what used to be considered male and female preferences – if a man goes out he’s just as likely to have a Negroni as a beer off the tab.
“We’re also seeing a growing interest in spirits – specialty vodka bars, gin bars and rum bars are predominating and they can guide you through some pretty educative journeys. Some of our bars, like the Miami, have a really extensive range of gins – which is a good fit being given its location on the coast. The whisky and bourbon bars of old are being replaced with cleaner white spirits.”
Looking to the future, Gary says there’s likely to be an increasing focus on how to capitalise on the importance of connectivity to the current generation. “The 24 to 40 year olds of today are focused on experiences, and the experience we offer in our venues has to match the promise of our marketing,” he points out. “If we’re saying ‘this is the place to be, this is how you’ll feel when you’re here’ in our marketing, we have to make sure we deliver on it. It’s all about understanding the millennial market and making sure you fulfil your promise each and every time – because they as the predominant generation are going to be your brand advocates in the social media space.
“If you get it right, it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more of the millennials you can attract, the more they will advertise on your behalf, and bring in more of their kind, and then you end up with a brand that really resonates with them.”
