I Have A Pub!

 

This isn't my place. It's just a generic pub image I nabbed online.

 

    Well, hello there!

    I know I've been a bit on the quiet side lately on my socials, including Youtube, Twitter and so on. I hinted that there was a big announcement to come a while back, and now the dust has somewhat settled and the things have been signed, I am now able to confidently say what's been going on. You saw the title.

                                                                           I Have A Pub!

    That's right, after many years of working behind the bar of a pub, I now have one to run of my own- as the manager. So yeah, I don't own the the place, but I'm now the guy in charge of it. For full disclosure, I'd been helping to manage pubs for most of my 20 odd year career- but I was third in line to the throne, so to speak. With my (now) former company, I had tried to ascend the greasy pole at least four times- each time ending in disaster and dissapointment. 

    You see, there are great advantages to working in a Big Pub Company when it comes to maintainence, beer supply, legal stuff getting covered and so on and so forth. But the flipside is that you don't get a say in a lot of things either. And because PubCos are overseeing business in the thousands, you tend to get lost in the shuffle. Anyone who has worked a big corporate gig will tell you the same. The Higher Ups tell you to jump, and you HAVE to. 

    Now when the Covid Pandemic hit, and I got furloughed for months, I instintively knew that The Shareholders would want that money back somehow. I knew that the Pandemic was Crap, but what would follow would be equally so. I was not wrong.

    You see, as much as they like to paint a picture of how caring and wholesome and cool and groovy they are, a PubCo exists for one reason- to make money. And the big ones with shareholers really care about that. I knew they'd want that furlough money back. I knew they'd start to employ some Big Brother Crap to claw those costs back. And sure enough, they did.

    This leads me to this year, 2023. The company I worked for had in essence, lost it's soul. When I joined it in 2015, it had a brand vision that I could get on board with. It was a great mix of the corporate and the spirit of Pubs of Old. We were "A Pub That Did Food". A local watering hole that was aimed at a certain demographic I was now part of- the sort of person who has moved on from the partying of their youth and prefers a calm place to do their boozing. But it was still a Local Pub- something I can't really explain to those outside of UK Pub Culture. Apologies to my American readers.

    After Covid though, this all changed. It was a slow change, but I noticed it. A subtle shift in policy. Lots of little decisions led me to the point where I was getting fed up with corporate heavy handedness. My pub began to lose it's soul, and my heart wasn't in it any more. It wasn't the people I worked with, it wasn't the job per se, but being there felt like a slog. I wasn't even part of the upper management, but I could see the pressures put on my peers to do things which now I'm out of that game I can see as just pointless busywork. 

    The thing that got me though, that final straw, was money. An obsession with Costs and Profit. I got why they made the decisions they did. I understood. But it didn't make it less crap. Saving money on labour became a massive focus, often to the detriment of service and the wellbeing of the team. But as I said, it was the money that got me. Christmas is a big deal for us in hospitality. For us barfolk, it means a big payday at the end of it, as you tend to get double time or something. But thanks to the cuts in labour hours, my post Christmas pay was less than a regular months worth.

    So naturally, I went looking for something else. I didn't expect what happened though. On one of the last days of my holiday, I cracked open a can of Jaipur DDH, expecting the only thing I'd get done that day would be ironing shirts for work. I happened across some notes I'd made with a number on it for a company looking for team. I figured I'd ring up and see if it interested me.

    Hours later, I was stood in what is now my bar, being offered the chance to run a pub of my own. I was presented with, let's be honest, a life changing decision. I asked for some time to mull it over. I rang up a couple of days later and asked a million questions. I asked for the advice of my peers. One of them told me that the decision was pretty much made in my mind. They were right. That night I phoned up and said yes.

 

Me on my first day as a Pub Landlord with an appropriately named pint of Landlord

    So, to today. I am now the General Manager of a small village pub in the English Countryside. It is a vastly different experience to what I'm used to, but here's the most important thing- I am loving being in hospitality again. I've had a lot of things to unlearn and habits to break from my many corporate years. One of the common phrases I'd say was "I just want to run my pub" and now I get to do just that. 

    Obviouly, there is the YouTube Question. What about that? Well, there's been a fair bit of disruption in my life as I transitioned from one job to another but the dust is slowly starting to settle. I haven't had a proper day off in about three weeks, but that's because I chose not to have them, and instead fix something in the pub. For instance, last week I spent the day sorting out my cellar, removing junk and getting it to a standard I was happy with. Silly things like that that once done, only need a small amonut of work.

Now a lot of these little jobs are done, I can afford myself some free time- which is why I'm posting this today. I actually have the chance at some time away from my business. This means of course that I can get back to writing and recording. One of my jobs, now I've worked out when my I have some free time, is to finish off the script for Beer History 1700's part two. If I get a chance, I might even record the audio for it. 

I'm hoping that once I get into my groove I'll be able to make regular content again. And well, let's be honest, now I have my own pub there is potential for loads of video ideas. I got interruped writing this to go help a member of team change a barrel. That's an idea right there.

I'd like to end this by thanking everyone for being patient. I know I've chucked out some cryptic tweets and such but I didn't want ot make this reveal until I knew everything was secure. So yep, that's it. That's my news. I run a pub now. Content is coming. But until then...

 

What can I get you?