A national pub chain with six bars in Aberdeen and two in Inverness is toasting buoyant festive season sales.
Stonegate Pub Company said yesterday it enjoyed like-for-like sales growth of 7.8% during the month to January 1.
Christmas Eve and Hogmanay saw Stonegate’s sales rise by 8.3% on average, compared with a year earlier, and in the fortnight from December 17 they were up 12%.
Stonegate, which owns the Slug & Lettuce chain plus pubs including the Triple Kirks, Slains Castle, the Bobbin, the Foundry, Murdos and the Black Dog in Aberdeen, as well as the Caledonian and Lauders in Inverness, also did well on Boxing Day as punters sank pints while watching live football.
The company said it also reaped the rewards of its investment in pre-booking facilities, including creating a central call centre hub to handle reservations.
Chief executive Simon Longbottom said: “Our like-for-like sales have increased again – driven by our multi-format strategy, relentless focus on customer service and bolstering our market share in our local markets. Our success shows that there is value in a drinks-led, high street-focused strategy.
“Encouragingly, all of our trading formats and regions performed well and it was particularly pleasing to see the sites and brands we acquired in 2018 contributing to this.”
In 2017, Stonegate was embroiled in a takeover tussle with rival Deltic for control over Revolution Bars.
Both bids failed, with Revolution then exploring the possibility of taking over Deltic last year but that came to nothing.