lil dave's lil life

[MANTIS01]

^^^^
Agree about photos, some good shots but the trick is capturing people as much as the facility. A group of smiling diners all raising a glass, bringing out a birthday cake to a celebrating group. When people think of going out for dinner it's the experience that draws them in, not the furniture. Pictures should portray the EXPERIENCE for max advertising effect. That said I've got the same bar stools and know they are $$$ so the furniture is cool. Strong emphasis on gin which is bang on trend at the moment. I do 4 gins with 4 different fever tree tonics and 4 different garnish including rosemary and cucumber, punters love it!! Your website, image and social media engagement are all pretty impressive mate.

[SuuPRlim]

What's your betting site's USP?

We intend to take bets.

yeah we're going to be pretty aggro on risk management, but most important its going to be straight up. If your business not welcome you get straight told none of this pathetic you can bet £20, no you can bet £11, no you can bet £7, no you can bet £4. This is from companies worth like a billion pounds too, honestly its fucking pathetic.

Click to see full-size image.

So where are you putting the FOBTs?

Haha Larry Lobster "lobstermania" slot machines, you remember them?



Had my greatest ever gambling win on one of them, 18 years old at merrion centre grosvenor, £5 in the larry down to 1p, one line, 1p, mega jackpot hit £48 return 4800% ROI

[SuuPRlim]

Kinda wanna replace tetleys cos it's so old hat but we're in Yorkshire and people like it and you can't go against the people!

Replace it with another Yorkshire pint and I'm sure you'll be fine.

Taylors Landlord just happens to be the greatest pint around, and fits the bill nicely!

Good idea, really good idea - looks a bit classier too.

[Tal]

What's your betting site's USP?

We intend to take bets.

yeah we're going to be pretty aggro on risk management, but most important its going to be straight up. If your business not welcome you get straight told none of this pathetic you can bet £20, no you can bet £11, no you can bet £7, no you can bet £4. This is from companies worth like a billion pounds too, honestly its fucking pathetic.

Click to see full-size image.

So where are you putting the FOBTs?

Haha Larry Lobster "lobstermania" slot machines, you remember them?



Had my greatest ever gambling win on one of them, 18 years old at merrion centre grosvenor, £5 in the larry down to 1p, one line, 1p, mega jackpot hit £48 return 4800% ROI

MBN!

[Karabiner]

Kinda wanna replace tetleys cos it's so old hat but we're in Yorkshire and people like it and you can't go against the people!

Replace it with another Yorkshire pint and I'm sure you'll be fine.

Taylors Landlord just happens to be the greatest pint around, and fits the bill nicely!

Good idea, really good idea - looks a bit classier too.

Sheffield brewery Kelham Island make some nice beers too, notably Pale Rider and Easy Rider(the cooking).

[SuuPRlim]

Hi Dave, I've got to admit it all looks and sounds really good. Having quickly glanced at this diary, yesterday before a meal out at some pub in Derbyshire, the only thing I fancied was the haddock and chips. It was great although strangely enough it was very non-greasy. Now I get that cooked correctly both the fish and the chips do not  necessarily get overly greasy but these were too dry. Do you have any secrets when it comes to the cooking you'd like to share?

BTW I like the website but the gallery section doesn't seem to run very smoothly and the pictures seem to be repeated quite a bit. Not a criticism just something that would annoy me if it were mine.

Hello!

It's all in the details, batter needs to be the right consistency, not to thick or too thin, and the fish needs to be rested after coming out of the fryer, 2-3 minutes ideally. If the batter is too thick then it will hold a lot more grease and there's pretty much no way to get that back, if it's too thin then it will not hold on the fish as well and its likely to burn or curl in the fryer. Lots of different ways to cook the chips and opinions on temperature etc but if you want them perfect then (IMO) just ever so slightly undercook them at a very high temp (180-190) and leave to rest in the box for 3-4 minutes, that way they are nice and crispy and most of the grease should have drained. It's not really practical to cook like this though in service and very easy to over-cook slightly and then if they sit in the box for longer than 4-5 minutes they will get dry pretty quick.

Were they beer battered? A lot of pubs do fish like this which is really nice but makes the batter a bit crispier and if they rest it for too long can dry out pretty quick.

Agree totally about the gallery section, I think we just need a lot more pictures?

[SuuPRlim]

Kinda wanna replace tetleys cos it's so old hat but we're in Yorkshire and people like it and you can't go against the people!

Replace it with another Yorkshire pint and I'm sure you'll be fine.

Taylors Landlord just happens to be the greatest pint around, and fits the bill nicely!

Good idea, really good idea - looks a bit classier too.

Sheffield brewery Kelham Island make some nice beers too, notably Pale Rider and Easy Rider(the cooking).

Checking it out!!!

[SuuPRlim]

^^^^
Agree about photos, some good shots but the trick is capturing people as much as the facility. A group of smiling diners all raising a glass, bringing out a birthday cake to a celebrating group. When people think of going out for dinner it's the experience that draws them in, not the furniture. Pictures should portray the EXPERIENCE for max advertising effect. That said I've got the same bar stools and know they are $$$ so the furniture is cool. Strong emphasis on gin which is bang on trend at the moment. I do 4 gins with 4 different fever tree tonics and 4 different garnish including rosemary and cucumber, punters love it!! Your website, image and social media engagement are all pretty impressive mate.

Awesome, which ones? It's all about the garnishes, we've got blueberries grapefruit, cherry tomatoes, thyme, basil, orange peel, cardamon, apples and such, gotta be served in nice glasses too

Great point r.e people and people having fun - we took a lot of pictures like that the other night and from our other music evenings I'm going to get them up this weekend.

Thanks for the nice comments on the image/SM/website etc, it's been a real struggle actually because my partners don't really appreciate the value in this stuff, and certainly don't understand just how delicate and time consuming it is. I've had a strong vision for the place since we started and it's starting to take form, it's not a case of us trying to build an image from scratch, which in itself is really difficult but we're trying to replace an existing image that has been built up over 25 years, and severely damaged over the past 3-4. It's going to take a lot of time and a lot of work. Got miles more to do, and I'm going to have to bring in some help soon as i think it needs "pro-ing" up a bit and also the time it takes is just intense, haven't even really kicked off on twitter or instagram or any of these things either.

[EvilPie]

Don't overdo it with the 'fun' pics. Personally can't imagine a worse dining experience than being surrounded by people singing and dancing.

You can't please us all....

[Tal]

Don't overdo it with the 'fun' pics. Personally can't imagine a worse dining experience than being surrounded by people singing and dancing.

You can't please us all....

Massively this.

"Let's all go to TGI Friday's", said no one you'd want to eat with, ever.

[bobAlike]

Don't overdo it with the 'fun' pics. Personally can't imagine a worse dining experience than being surrounded by people singing and dancing.

You can't please us all....

Massively this.

"Let's all go to TGI Friday's", said no one you'd want to eat with, ever.

Think I have to agree. Not sure what kind of atmosphere you are trying to portray. As someone who eats out quite a lot I'd rather see pictures of how clean the place is, how nice the food is and how tidy the staff are,

[MANTIS01]

what a bunch of mood killers!!

[EvilPie]

These sort of things can work as a once a month thing but unless you're in a holiday town in the high season that's the best you're going to get.

Might even work as an every weekend thing but it'll be a fad and it won't last long.

In my opinion of course.

[SuuPRlim]

These live music nights we have twice a month, it's not like there is a lot of money in them - given we have max capacity when the band is there of about 65 and only one sitting all night and include the cost of the band, promoting it some likely food waste etc the biggest financial upside is probably about £250-£300, so these aren't money spinners - what they are great for is they bring people into the restaurant who have never been in before, and they create a buzz about the place too - so many people come in and say "when's your next evening" "I heard you had a jazz night" "I drove past last night the place was full" we've even had times when people have turned up at one of the nights not realising that its a music night and us being full, which is annoying to turn customers away but defo leaves a good impression - fully booked on a tuesday.

Also it's on a tuesday night which is always a crap night.

I think it's really important to have different things on, try new things and basically show your customers, even those who dont want to eat when live music is on, that we care, we're always trying to bring new experiences to the customers and imrpove the restaurant. We've also done a Gin tasting evening, charity coffee mornings and I did lobster month in June which was really popular.

The real crux of my vision for the place is to create a fun friendly dining experience, the food is good, lots of nice drinks but it's not too serious, you know that you come to the fisherman's lodge, you'll have fun. Staff are up for a laugh,the place is spotless, nice warm friendly decor and you know you're going to get good service. Fish and chips are the star of the menu and we're not trying to be anything we're not, just trying to do it really well. Trying to reach as many new customers as we can.

[DMorgan]

Any tables about for lunch this week?