Oddbins: Farringdon Fine Wine shop

Quick trip today up to the Holborn Viaduct area of London to look at two contrasting Oddbins shops. Firstly Farringdon, the shop under the Holborn Viaduct, which was the original fine wine branch. This is one of the five acquired recently by Simon Baile's ExCellar chain. There were signs of activity inside presumably in preparation for reopening.

Other shots of Farringdon store (above and below)

The old Chancery Lane branch is just a short distance away – closed and for the moment it has no new owner. It would seem that the Chancery Lane staff and Oddbins' senior management did not part on the best of terms.

Staff choice – sin bin: Simon Baile and Henry Young

'When it's gone, it's gone!'

Bins Ends in Lambs Conduit Street recommended

A report (20th May 2011) from the administrators at Deloitte can be downloaded from their site here.

Subject: Message From EFB To Oddbins Branches Recently Acquired By EFB

WELCOME TO THE EFB GROUP OF COMPANIES

Late on the 25th April 2011 an agreement was reached and you have now become part of the EFB group of companies and we would like to welcome you to the team. EFB is a family owned Private Company that celebrated its 20th Anniversary this year.

The Group is one of the largest independent drinks distributors in the UK.

Whittalls Wines Merchants, a subsidiary of EFB Retail has acquired the trade and assets of 37 stores from Lee Antony Manning and Matthew David Smith joint administrators of Oddbins Limited effective from Monday 25th April 2011; we have now become one of the largest Independent drinks retailer in the UK with over 130 stores.

Please bear with us over the next few weeks while the transition takes place. We will work very hard to get to know our colleagues in the branches we have acquired and start the process of rebuilding.

It is not our intention to rush into widespread changes but we are acutely aware of the poor availability of key lines that you have been experiencing for many weeks.

We have already started work on restocking you with some essentials to enable you to trade as well as possible. By the very nature of the urgency to restock your stores, you will be shortly receiving your first delivery. Our intention is to ensure you are kept in a reliable and consistent supply of a basic core of Wines, Spirits, Champagnes and Beers overlaying this by continuing to source an exciting range at competitive prices.

You will no doubt have many questions and queries and to this end I have attached a question and answer sheet as well as assigning a temporary team of people to help.

There is also a list of names and contact numbers for you to call. In the first instance you have been assigned someone on a temporary basis from EFB retail as your first point of contact. These individuals will direct your calls to the right person in the business and this will improve the speed with which we can answer your questions. The Business Heads are also there to help during the transitional period and their numbers are there for you to use should you feel it necessary.

Closure notice on Monmouth Street Store  – one of the branches closed in March

From the number of messages I have received it appears that the remaining 48 Oddbins shops, excluding the one on the Royal Mile, Edinburgh and the ones in the EFB deal (37 shops), have now closed with apparently the loss of 300 jobs. It looks as though the 'imminent deal' as reported by the BBC* on Tuesday did not materialise.

* 'Deloitte said it hoped the remaining Oddbins would be sold soon.
"We are currently engaged in a range of discussions regarding the sale of the remaining 48 open stores and are confident of an imminent deal," said Lee Manning, joint administrator and partner at Deloitte.'

See article here in The Drinks' Business on unanswered questions over Oddbins.