O'Hagan's suspends beer challenge

BASHI LETSIDIDI
Correspondent | Friday July 16, 2010 00:00

Customers have to drink a total of 20 beers within a month to win the challenge. O'Hagan's general manager, Lefa Pheto, said the starting point is customers filling out entry forms and chugging down imported beers specified on the list in subsequent visits to the pub.

A former waitron at the pub, who served at least 10 contestants said there were some really dedicated people who were able to successfully complete the challenge in a day. Among the best performers was a Motswana woman in her 30's. Another, a male European imbiber, successfully participated twice.

Two participants in the group she served had a really tough time downing the last beer on the list - a potent one-litre kicker from Denmark that knows its way back out if it can't find a place to settle in the belly. On the whole this waitron said that very few Batswana entered this challenge.

In terms of reward, the challenge is a two-way street. Pheto said the idea is to market imported beers by getting customers to try them.

Customers who successfully complete the challenge are rewarded by having their names engraved on a small plaque that is put on what is called an Honours Board. Before the requisite imported beers ran out, 40 customers had been honoured. One is a former manager at the pub. The pub foots the bill for the plaque and the engraving. More than two-thirds of the plaque has yet to be filled.

Cheating in any kind of sport is quite common. In the case of the beer challenge there is the possibility of a customer breaking the rules because the waitrons don't supervise the actual drinking.  Pheto's conviction is that their customers don't cheat and that even if they did, it would not matter terribly. 'As long as they pay for the beers we have no problem because we benefit in terms of sales. I don't think they cheat though. These beers are quite expensive and I'm sure the customers wouldn't want them to go to waste,' he said.

The pub may not have seen the last of the challenge. 'We are still looking for suppliers and the challenge will resume once we have the imported beers back in stock,' he said. Regarding low participation rate by Batswana, Pheto said that this may have to do with the fact that the beers are imports and not agreeable with the local taste buds.

'But some Batswana who have lived overseas and drunk those beers seem willing to participate in the challenge,' he adds. Experience from funerals, weddings, cocktail dinners, breakfast meetings, conferences and workshops point to the fact that food-based gluttony is as popular a pastime as binge drinking.

It would seem therefore that a food challenge would increase retail productivity and revenue per square metre. However, Pheto said that there are no plans to introduce that sort of challenge. He gives the scenario of a food-challenge customer returning the food because it was not well-prepared.

'Each time that happens, the pub would lose money,' he said. O'Hagan's is a franchised Irish-themed gastropub concept. It was founded in the 1990s by Basil O'Hagan, an Irishman who lives in South Africa.