Bringing Northern hospitality to Dublin’s Capel Street

With revenues of £31 million (€36 million) and 750 people employed across a raft of pubs, hotels, restaurants and food chains in Northern Ireland, Bill Wolsey’s burgeoning hospitality group Beannchor has grown at pace over 40 years.

For Wolsey, however, the first step on the path to success was an unlikely one. He went into business in the early 1980s with the acquisition of what was at that time, he said, “one of the worst bars in Northern Ireland”.

Wolsey bought the Trident Tavern, a rundown pub in Bangor popular with paramilitaries in that area.

“It was on its knees, but it was the only bar I could afford. My vision at that stage was to be able to work for myself. I thought I was unemployable,” he said.

“I hadn’t been attentive at school and I was repeating exactly the same policy in my early career as an apprentice printer.

“Then I got into hospitality and, for the first time in my life, I had an epiphany. I thought ‘this is something I really love and want to do’.”

Running the pub was “hell” at the outset, but 12 months in, Wolsey began to see a turnaround in the business. “Getting rid of the existing trade was difficult. Northern Ireland was a completely different place then, but we put back into the community by sponsoring boxing clubs, old people’s homes – you name it, we did it,” he said.

“We eventually turned it into a good bar and then we bought a second bar up the road and turned that around.”

Wolsey’s hospitality empire has since expanded to include 25 bars in the North, a chain of eight pizzerias trading under the Little Wings brand and Yardbird restaurant on Hill Street in Belfast.

Beannchor’s first hotel, the 62-bed Merchant Hotel, opened in Belfast in 2006, followed ten years later by the 74-bed Bullitt.

Wolsey runs Beannchor alongside his children Conall, who is managing director of traded venues, Luke, who is managing director of Little Wing, and daughter Petra, who is group marketing director. Beannchor’s group finance director is James Sinton.

“Early on, I realised that if you kept good people – talented people – with you, and could involve them in the business, that was a way you could grow. That was what really laid the foundations for us,” said Wolsey.

“About 16 years ago, we decided we were too dependent on the pub business, so we moved into restaurants and that turned out to be successful.

“Then, 13 years ago, we decided to get into hotels – again, so we wouldn’t be too heavily dependent on alcohol – and that has underpinned a significant shift in the business.

“It was very important that we got away from the traditional pub, because people are drinking less. The whole pub industry is changing and we were at the forefront of that change.”

With Beannchor’s business North of the border in robust health, Wolsey has now set his sights on expansion in the South with plans to open a second Bullitt hotel on the northside of Dublin. The property will be situated in the former Riverdance headquarters on Capel Street acquired in 2017 from Tyrone Productions.

“The biggest investment we have on the cards now is the Dublin hotel,” Wolsey said, “we’re just about to submit that for planning. It’s probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever done, because it is an absolutely amazing building on a laneway off Capel Street that hasn’t been open to the public for 90 years.

“Aside from the horrors of Brexit, we are catering for a market in the North that we feel there isn’t much growth in. For us to keep growing, we needed to move outside Northern Ireland.

“Capel Street is an area with a sense of community. It hasn’t been taken over by the Starbucks of this world. That was the main driver for us moving into Dublin. When we found this building, we absolutely fell in love with it.”

Wolsey decided to enter the Deloitte Best Managed Companies awards programme to help market the Beannchor brand. “We entered the programme initially for the publicity, but they ask absolutely piercing questions about your business,” he said.

“They make you assess where you’ve come from, what you’re doing now and where you’re going.

“The process has been well worthwhile in making us reassess what we’re all about. Having Deloitte giving you this advice and guidance is hugely beneficial.”