Sponsored by
Bar review: Chapel Allerton's Zed
"I've got a saying here. We lock them up and we throw away the key."
* Click here to sign up to free news and sport email alerts from Chapel Allerton Today.
Lest you think Zed bar manager Chris Skipper is advocating a zero tolerance attitude to crime and punishment, I should make clear that the felony he's talking about here is the crime of allowing customers to walk out of the front door. "Once they're in, we do everything we can to keep them here."
Of course, it's a policy not without its challenges. Zed exists in a pretty saturated market with three bars – Hub, Angel's Share and Suburban Style – and three good pubs – the Regent, the Mustard Pot and the Nags Head – all close by.
* Click here to become a fan of Chapel Allerton Today on Facebook.
Vibrancy means good business, of course, but keeping the customers once they cross the threshold is a major focus for all of these licensed premises amid all this strong competition.
It's all a far cry from when this building was the much-loved Damn Yankee restaurant and the Regent, the Pot and the Nags simply divided the drink trade between them.
Each has found its own way to survive, and for Zed, the focus is very much on making the customer experience so good that they never get even half a notion to leave.
Young Chris has been here for six months, bringing with him the values for customer service which he picked up while working in a few of the other bars in the Arc Inspirations chain.
Whether it's been drummed into the staff, or the attitude is simply infectious, the service we received here was absolutely second to none, and long before they knew that bloke from the Evening Post was on the premises.
Once at the bar, the smartly-dressed staff were falling over themselves to serve me, and, after I'd ordered, the barman said he would bring the drinks over, which he did. Then when the food arrived we were asked at least twice if everything was fine, which it was. This was more than lip-service – you got the impression that if something had been wrong, they would have made it their duty to do something about it.
Ultimately, service is the real test of a bar like this, which relies on young staff – and where on a Friday and Saturday night it becomes crazily busy. They score slightly less well on beer prices – there's a great choice of interesting lagers on the bar, but some of the prices are eye-watering. 3.70 for a pint of Peroni? Er, no thanks. No real ale either, despite this once being the venue for a Cask Marque event celebrating Zed's strengths in the hand-pulled department.
But in terms of value, how about this? Between 6 and 9pm weekdays, Zed offers a 7.95 meal deal, with a choice of seven main courses, plus either a bottle of Heineken or a glass of house wine. Which means that two people can have a meal and a drink in a well-kept caf bar, be waited on hand and foot, and it won't cost much more than a takeaway.
Other offers include 30% off your food bill on Tuesday and Thursday evenings; two for one cocktails on Sundays and Thursdays; and a buy one get one free deal on the full English breakfast.
"This is the first of the Arc Inspiration bars which was really aimed at the young professionals," said Chris. "They started out in Headingley with a real focus on students.
"Here we have so many loyal customers and business is booming – we've completely defied the crunch by being 10 per cent up over the year."
It was raining when we called in, and we had to shelter under an umbrella on the short dash from Somerfield's car park. Crazily, one of our party, oh, all right, it was my wife, decided to close the umbrella once we were on Zed's pavement conservatory. It might have been a reasonable thing to do had the glass roof extended out this far, but it doesn't – so we got rapidly soaked while lingering over the menu.
Once inside we found a couple of deep leather chairs and I was
despatched to the bar. There's booth-syle seating along both sides of the pub, and an interesting colour scheme of browns and purples and creams – though it is so dimly lit, with low-wattage seventies-style light fittings and the occasional flickering tea light that it's hard to be entirely certain about the decor.
We did the two for 7.95 deal – I chose the big sizzling chicken fajitas, served with grated cheese, salsa, guacamole, salad and wraps for self-assembly purposes, while Mrs J had a sizeable cheeseburger and chips.
Chris came over for a chat – and then dashed back with a nice
surprise: "Try this". It was a bottle of the lovely, pinkish, champagne-accented Kasteel Cru, one of a great choice of bottled beers in the Zed Bar fridge.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Leeds
Saturday 19 May 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 7 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 7 C to 12 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: North east
