Last week Rob Gamble visited the Restaurant Show at London's Olympia with two of his young charges - Ben Harrop, food and beverage manager, and John Macfarlane, trainee chef at the White Lion in Stoke-on-Trent. It's a nice change for his employees to spend a couple of nights in West End, visit the trade show, and enjoy a meal in Chinatown - especially for Macfarlane, who is 18 and on his first visit to London.
Although Macfarlane has been at the White Lion for just three weeks (he was highly recommended by the local catering college), Gamble says it's important that he comes to a trade show and experiences the buzz of the industry early on in his career. This will help build his loyalty and enthusiasm for his craft. "It's important to show them that there's more to life than mass-market nasty products," Gamble stresses.
All three of them could certainly do with some inspiration because business at the White Lion has been slow. "We've had a very, very quiet August and September. There's been a downturn in trade for everybody," Gamble reckons.
"I think the bombings in July, the oil crisis and the general doom and gloom in the newspapers just gets people thinking 'ouch'. Fingers crossed, in a fortnight everybody will start picking up because people will have been paid and the kids are back at school."
One consequence of the quiet period has been to get Gamble thinking about future promotions. He explains that when turnover is low it would be a temptation to do loss-leading two-for-one-style promotions to boost footfall. But that would be misguided.
Instead Gamble has drawn up a calendar of events and promotions to take place at all three of his venues throughout 2006. These include, Continental, Best of British, Oktoberfest, and rosé and sprouts promotions.
Hang on: rosé and sprouts? We are not talking about the unlikely marriage of Brussels and blush, but wheatgrass, bean sprouts, radish sprouts and other sprouting seeds and pulses.
There are usually one or two stands that capture Gamble's imagination at industry shows and this year it was Aconbury Sprouts, based in Hereford, a producer of organic sprouting seeds and pulses.
Gamble is keen to showcase a range of rosé wines matched with the versatile use of sprouts in stir-fries, soups, casseroles and salads. He is impressed by the nutritional content of sprouts, which are known as "living foods" because they are whole living plants rather than harvested plants. Aconbury Sprouts claim that a regular diet of wheatgrass can lead to better skin, better digestion, and increased energy levels.
Gamble is full of creative ideas about how to push his businesses forward. Next month he will combine a holiday in Abruzzo, central Italy, with a fact-finding mission to see if fresh Italian produce can be regularly transported back to North Staffordshire. He already gets olives and Parmesan cheese direct from Italy and wants to see if he can take things further.
But are sprouting pulses and Italian supplies what the White Lion really needs? After all, it is a pub that serves food.
Gamble admits that there are not as many pure drinkers in the White Lion as he would like.
"An element of it is just getting the locals aware that they can come in just to drink, and the food is not expensive. It's the chicken-and-egg scenario. You need to get people through the door to get the revenue to market and advertise.
For now, Gamble is pushing worries to the back of his mind. Alarm bells will start ringing only if things haven't improved at the end of October.
"I'm still very happy with what we've achieved," he explains. "We've only been open six months. It's a testing time, but the debt we owe is minimal."
The story so far
The White Lion is Rob Gamble's third pub/restaurant in North Staffordshire - after the Noah's Ark, Hartshill; and Red restaurant and lounge bar, Newcastle-under-Lyme. Gamble acquired the derelict and vandalised pub on an A-road outside Stoke for nothing earlier this year and spent £175,000 on its refurbishment.
Working on the model of his first venue, the Noah's Ark, Gamble has transformed the run-down property into a tastefully furnished neighbourbood food-focused pub with a menu split between traditional dishes and those "with a twist". The extensive menu includes steak and kidney pudding, chicken, ham and mushroom pie, Spanish lamb and salmon penne.
The venue has received favourable reviews from the local press. In its first two months of trading (April and May), the White Lion's tills took £53,000. From July, a 15-year lease commenced at £25,000 a year. Gamble aims to be hitting a monthly turnover of £30,000.