The Pint Shop
Benny Peverelli
After taking a huge hit under the combined stressors of lousy landlords and the Covid 19 pandemic, this multi-award winning and many times nominated beer house, the Pint Shop, is fighting back better than ever using Leafe.
Deeply rooted in the tradition of the old 'beer houses', where families would open up their homes, serving whatever they could from the seasonal ingredients available, co-founder of the aptly named beer house and restaurant, ‘Pint Shop’, Benny Peverelli tells us how the business first blossomed from a friendship. Benny describes how, on route to a training session for the corporate food chain they worked for at the time, his friend and now co-founder of pint shop dropped the bombshell that he was leaving to follow his dream of opening his own pub. “that's strange” Benny remembers replying, “I was thinking the same thing…”
From then on the two bonded over a shared passion for simple rustic food, high quality beers and the community feel of a traditional beer house. “you’re essentially inviting people into your own home,” Benny tells us. Located in a stunning grade-2 listed building, once home to E.M Forster, in the centre of Cambridge, Pint Shop has always had its roots in simple food and strong community. Benny describes how in the pre-pandemic world everything was going swimmingly. With impressive reviews and food awards rolling in, the business expanded, opening two new venues- “one in Oxford and one in Birmingham”.
Then disaster struck in the shape of a global pandemic. “we had to scale back”, Benny admits sadly. Funds were tight and “we had a really unsupportive landlord”. They closed their two new venues, leaving only the original Cambridge site. He describes how their prior subscription to the Food Alert app had to be cancelled because “we just couldn’t afford the cost” - it had become “too much for a single site business.” left to rely on a disorganised chaos of paperwork, the team struggled; they needed a streamlined way to manage their kitchen without having to fork out a tonne of money.
And then, you guessed it, along came Leafe…
In addition to the significant price difference, Benny tells us how Leafe has given them a “really simple” way to tailor their checklists to their specific business so that there’s no time wasting on unnecessary admin: ‘that you can go and find information really quickly is brilliant’. He explains how Leafe is especially helpful for businesses like Pint Shop who bring something exciting and new to the market, as it’s easy to “effectively write your own content” on top of the ”statutory stuff” that will apply to any kitchen.
“that you can go and find information really quickly is brilliant”.
It’s about “creating new habits,” he continues, increasing “staff awareness and getting them to not just tick things but to actually understand why they’re doing it.” For Pint Shop not only does the mobile app mean that the highest standard food safety can be maintained as food checks can be done ‘as close as possible to when it's happening’, but it also lets Benny monitor when the checks are being completed. He grins, you can ask them, “why are you doing all your temperature checks tonight?”
“staff awareness and getting them to not just tick things but to actually understand why they’re doing it.”
“food checks can be done ‘as close as possible to when it's happening”
We ask him about his future plans for Pint Shop and he looks excited, “we are looking to grow again, but more regionally, local to Cambridge.” “(Leafe) is gonna change our business” Benny continues, “we want to be more hands-on and close to the business” and so with Leafe, Pint Shop is “gonna evolve.”
“(Leafe) is gonna change our business” Benny continues, “we want to be more hands-on and close to the business” and so with Leafe, Pint Shop is “gonna evolve.”
Finally, we check in: Is he happy with his switch?
