Publicans: stop moaning and start flipping burgers

Outlook There was a little extra froth on the top of Young’s results, thanks to the pub chain’s move into the burger business.

The trial of its “Burger Shack” in the beer garden of the Windmill in Clapham, south London, saw 2,500 shifted in just two weeks, and the company now has a couple of shiny Airstream catering trucks with which to take the concept on the road.

With the Rugby World Cup approaching, those figures may start to look modest when one of them is parked in the vicinity of its Twickenham outlet. The fact that the company is charging a shareholder-friendly £7 a go – you could get nearly two and a half Big Macs for the same price, although I’d rather not – doesn’t appear to have put punters off in the slightest.

Perhaps they’re just too merry to care. Perhaps the burgers they’re being served are just that good.

Whatever, while too many pub companies focus on how hard their life is – due to taxes, the supermarkets, the old-style pub going out of fashion – others are innovating. And succeeding when they do so.

Now, if Young’s could just be persuaded to try its hand at a burrito.