The beer talking
Richard Jones discovers the weird and wonderful beers of Utobeer in Borough Market, London
You don’t have to read Who Moved My Cheese? or The One Minute Manager to know that it’s good to communicate with your customers, but few businesses are quite as attentive as Utobeer.
“When we started our price list comfortably fitted on one sheet of A4,” explains Richard Dinwoodie, co-owner. “But then we began to get lots of requests for things we weren’t stocking. Many of those products have gone on to become core lines for us. Conversely, we’ve also been known to delist beers on customer recommendation.”
Utobeer, a rather iffy play on the word ‘utopia’, was founded by Richard Dinwoodie and Mike Hill in the latter part of 1999. Its home is Borough Market in London, a Mecca for food and drink lovers across the land and recently voted ‘Best Market in the Country’ at the Observer Food Awards.
The success of ‘Borough’ can be judged by the fact that Utobeer operates a thriving business despite only opening 12 – 6 pm on Thursdays and Fridays, and 9 – 4 pm on Saturdays. According to Richard Dinwoodie, on a typical Saturday the market receives around 20,000 visitors.
Several years down the line from that single sheet of A4, the pricelist at Utobeer is significantly heftier but remains in a constant state of flux.
“Predominantly we sell British beer and we probably have around 300 lines at the moment,” Richard remarks.
“However we’re always on the look out for new beers and travel all over the country to get them.
“Quite often we’ll buy things in small quantities just to see .....
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By Richard Jones
Section : Spotlight
Page number : 51
