Businesses that go boom in the bust

THE owner of a string of bars and a nightclub in Cork City that have boomed through the recession puts his success down to customer engagement.

Despite Ernest Cantillon’s success in growing his empire from a single pub on the eve of the recession to two pubs, a nightclub, and a pancake house, he says it wasn’t all plain sailing.

“I bought Sober Lane in 2006, I bought it right at the peak of the boom,” said Mr Cantillon.

Pubs were one of the first sectors to see a downturn as the disposable income in punters pockets diminished, but Mr Cantillon said that Sober Lane got off to a booming start and has continued to do a strong trade through out the recession.

“When we opened we were right from the start because we were different, We embraced social media at a time that others weren’t doing it. We have about 22,000 followers on Twitter,” he said.

With the success of Sober Lane, Mr Cantillon expanded into a larger premises, Electric, at the bottom of South Mall. Although the venue is about three times larger than Sober Lane, Mr Cantillon sad he paid the same for both.

“The price of Electric and Sober Lane cancelled each other out. I bought them for about the same,” he said.

With Electric, Mr Cantillon aimed for a different sector of the market than Sober Lane. “You see a lot of businesses trying to be all things to all people, that doesn’t work,” he said.

Mr Cantillon believes that even in recessionary times, trying to concentrate too much on price and catering for all sectors of the market is a waste of time.

In fact, Mr Cantillon said that not going for the lowest price possible can work.

“People might only be going out once a month, so when they do go out they want something special,” he said.

One of the worst spin-offs of the recession has been the rise of the social vouchers which have led people to expect to only pay €15 for a three-course meal.

“We looked at Living Social, Groupon, and Grabone, but it has skewed peoples sense of value. People suddenly believe they should get a meal for €15 and that has tripped a lot of restaurants up,” he said.

For his latest venue, Mr Cantillon has gone as far as consulting his future customers on the design and layout of the interior of his nightclub, Voodoo.

He put up mood boards on the website Pinterest.com which allowed prospective customers a role in helping design the theme of the nightclub. This gives people an emotional investment in the final layout of what the venue will look like and makes it more likely that they will come in to see the finished product, he said.

“It is all about paying attention to customers and what they want,” he said.