Radhost: the Sun Inn, and the pub group it carried

What has Benjamin Sawyer turned around?

The Sun Inn on Bethnal Green Road, in East London. In 2007 it was a run-down pub that had been through 17 tenants in two years. Benjamin took it on as the first pub of his own group, Radhost, and changed everything: the decor, the furniture, the music, the lighting, and the offer, adding food. Within thirty months its annual turnover went from about £10,000 to £800,000, and it carried a group of pubs across London and the counties around it.

Where it started

When I took the Sun on in March 2007, I was its seventeenth tenant in two years. It was the kind of pub people crossed the road to avoid, and the ones who did come in were not the ones a pub can build a future on. Most people would have walked away. I had very little capital, and I could see what it could be.

What I changed

Everything, because a pub in that state cannot be fixed one thing at a time. The room has to tell a new story all at once, or nobody notices it has changed.

• The look: new decor and new furniture, so it no longer looked like the pub people avoided.
• The sound and the light: music and lighting chosen for the people I wanted in the room, at each hour of the day.
• Food: a kitchen where there had been none, which gave people a reason to come in before they had a reason to stay. On Friday nights I ran the pass myself.

The result

Within thirty months, annual turnover went from about £10,000 to £800,000, and at its peak it was close to £1 million. The Sun became the engine of Radhost: its volume won supplier terms that every pub in the group benefited from.

The group it carried

On the back of the Sun, Radhost grew to include the Dew Drop Inn, a destination pub in the woods at Hurley, between Henley and Marlow, and the Half Moon at Cuxham in Oxfordshire, a small fine-dining pub. For years my week was a circuit: the pass at the Sun on Fridays, an early dinner service at the Half Moon on Saturdays, and Sunday roasts at the Dew Drop.

The one I walked away from

The Sun's success brought offers. A pub company asked me to take on the Waverley Arms in Nunhead, and I agreed on my terms: a pound a week in rent and no tie, the obligation to buy your drinks from the pub company at its prices, for as long as it took me to decide whether the pub was viable. It was, and for three months it earned well. But when we sat down to agree a proper lease, the tie, the repairs, and the rent would not move. Their numbers did not work for me, so I gave notice and handed back the keys.

I was told the company held all the cards. My answer was that holding the cards is fun, but less so in a closed pub with nobody to play them with. The operator who took it on after me, on the same terms, met the same wall and handed the keys back too.

Knowing when to walk away is part of running any venue. In Spain, the nearest thing to the tie is a supply deal with a brewery or distributor, often with a loan or equipment in return for buying only from them. It is a conversation I have with owners before they sign one, not after.

How it ended

In late 2013 the Sun was sold to a developer. A clause in the lease, one I had signed at 26 without fully understanding it, meant the new terms made trading impossible. With the Sun went the supplier terms, the credit, and the cash that had steadied everything else. I gave notice on the Half Moon almost at once, which was painful: the team was exceptional, and its reputation was earned. I fought to keep the Dew Drop, but the debt and the lost credit were too much to carry alone.

Had I not lost the Sun, Radhost would very likely still be trading today. That is the lesson, and it is why I work the way I do.

What it means for you

• Know which site is carrying the others. If one venue pays for the rest, plan for the day it can't.
• Give every site its own supplier terms. Terms won by one site can be withdrawn from all of them.
• Hold enough cash to survive without your best site for six months, winter included.
• Read the lease, and the traspaso, as though they could close you, because they can. Have them read by someone who has been caught by one.

If you are building a group, Grow is month-by-month help with exactly this. If one venue is struggling, start with Run. If you are about to sign a lease or pay a traspaso, start with Plan or the Pre-Opening Diagnostic.

The whole story, in my own words: Why losing one pub cost me three.

Talk it through

Tell me about your venue, or your group, and the one site you could not do without. A free 30-minute call will tell us both whether I can help.