Last Friday, the SFSS executive board debated the structure of the Highland Pub’s Wednesday Wings Night, specifically the issues of allowing event bookings, and subsequently allowing cover to be charged.
The current Wednesday pub feature offers discounted wings at 25 cents a piece with the purchase of a beverage, non-alcoholic or otherwise. Wings Wednesday has become an institution on the Burnaby campus, often drawing the most students out of any night of the week, and boasts a host of regulars from the campus and SFU Residence community.
Recently, the Highland has begun regularly accepting bookings by SFU clubs and departmental student unions to host events on Wednesday nights. This entails the club or group helping to pay for security personnel fees in exchange for the right to charge cover at the door.
This semester, two of the three Wednesday pub nights have had events, and have charged cover. On Sept. 11, the SFSS Events Committee hosted a concert with a $4 cover, and on Sept. 18 a new SFU fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi, hosted an event with a $10 entry fee.
SFSS board members Moe Kopahi, Member Services Officer and Brandon Chapman, Business Representative, argued in the meeting that allowing a cover fee to be charged on Wednesday nights was repelling regular Wednesday patrons who aren’t accustomed to paying a cover charge.
Wednesday sells a lot, yes. Does it make any money? No.” – John Flipse, SFSS Food and Beverage general manager
“I don’t think we should have any charge on Wednesdays. I’ve been under a lot of pressure from other student groups and they’re raising good points,” said Kophai who oversees clubs and student union groups on campus. “We’re a student society pub, and most of the time we’re operating, we’re charging an entrance fee. It’s driving people away from our pub, to other sources, such as Club Ilia and Mountain Shadow.”
Chapman echoed the same sentiment. “The last couple weeks at the pub, I’ve heard a lot of students in residence being extremely disgruntled that we’re charging cover,” said Chapman. “The Highland Pub has been known as having a free cover Wednesday night for years, and students are used to that. By us adding a cover now and charging for events, it’s not attracting people to the pub.”
The problem is one of cost, John Flipse, SFSS Food and Beverage Services general manager, argued; booking events on Wednesday nights is a good way to try to reduce the high deficit that the pub has carried for several years.
According to Flipse, the Highland lost $500,000 last year, and currently for every dollar they sell, there is a loss of 23 cents. He said, “Because of the structure of the operation, it’s not likely . . . to ever make any money. What you’re trying to do is mitigate the loss.” Flipse also pointed out that with the Wings Wednesday deal, with the requirement of a purchased drink, the pub breaks even.
Flipse stated, “Wednesday sells a lot, yes. Does it make any money? No.”
It was presented at the meeting that sales on pub nights for the beginning of the fall semester have decreased in comparison to last year. In 2012, the first three pub nights of the semester saw sales of $15,657, $11,883, and $13,071 accordingly. The first three pub nights of this semester pulled in sales of $13,115, $9,408, and $6,936 in comparison — the later two being the nights during which a cover was charged.
Flipse pointed out that an analysis hasn’t been done of other week nights, and it could be the case that the loss is consistent over nights other than Wednesdays. He also pointed to the fact that operating losses have steadily increased over the past few years.
“The operating processes that are in place and continue to be in place for the last three or four years, allow you to have greater and greater losses,” said Flipse. “You want to continue doing the same thing, and you’re hoping for a different outcome.”
Chapman countered by saying that there are other ways that those losses can be lessened, including increasing prices. “Charging cover on Wednesday nights is going to scare away a lot of our clients, and we’re not going to be making money if people don’t come to the pub,” Chapman said. “This is the one day a week we think cover should not be charged.”
Kopahi brought the discussion back to the idea of the pub as a service, saying, “If we’re operating five days a week and we’re charging over three days of it, are we actually offiering it as a service to the students.”
At the end of the discussion, a motion was passed that recommended to the Commercial Services Committee to review and evaluate the structure of Wednesday Wing Night for door pricing and bookings.
While this was a good read, I will have to side with John Flipse on this one. the primary reason for this decision is because it was my first time at the pub. While I love going downtown for events every weekends, coming to a pub on a mountain on a weekday isn’t my cup of tea, especially a wednesday. I’m sure with a student population of 35,000 quite a decent amount agree with me especially if this article speaks to the 100 – 300 that attend the pub. The only reason I came to the mountain was for the fundraiser the fraternity was doing. What this article failed to highlight was the fact that Club Ilia was not a competition during the previous years. One of the primary reasons why club ilia is becoming such a strong competitor as well is because they are affiliated with major groups on campus, most notably the Athletic community. My friends on the Rugby team bring business their after their games, same with basketball and swimming team Once their is a competitor, it only makes sense that profit decreases by 50% especially if one is lucky that the competitor isn’t a monopolizing transnational corporation. One thing I remember with the shadow’s Wednesday nights were that a group of SFU students initially wanted to start an open mic night to promote their music but the pub would not allow them to have their event on Wednesday. They moved to the Shadow and the shadow became successful. People eventually get bored of cheap wings, these events bring SFU’s niche communities to the mountain through personal marketing through word or mouth and often Facebook event pages. I think that if the pub expects to make any type of profit it needs to understand that the mountain will only become more competitive and if it needs to make any type of profit should promote students taking advantage of it’s space because that itself is the only way profit can be made.
It seems that the demand that resides on the hill isn’t as isolated as this supply may think. It’s just as easy to go to the Shadow or to Club Ilia, or even further off the hill for my pub needs. The Highland has upset the cost:value balance to a point that, for me, prompts looking elsewhere. The measly quesadilla that costs me between 10 and 14 dollars if I want some chicken on it (I can’t seem to find a menu online, but I recall the base price being $10 and the chicken add-on being between $2-$4), the quiet dismissal of Toonie Tuesdays due to it being “unhealthy” for all the minors who are apparently coming into the pub and binge-eating, the cover charges, and the fact that it’s incredibly expensive for me – as someone who cannot drink beer – to get a drink.
A double whiskey and coke approaches the cost of a pitcher of GI the last time I checked, and a tiny bottle of Strongbow runs me 7-8 bucks? Really? Not to mention that Strongbow is the only cider offered that isn’t a wine cooler. So you have the options of a) expensive hard-bar, b) Growers, c) the cider equivalent of Coors Light, d) going teetotaler, or e) going down the hill to the Shadow and getting a whole pint of better cider for the same price as a bottle of (c). (e) seems pretty appealing to me.