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Audlem pubs


Annie cariad

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Was there a few days ago for the historic boats. Fly is closed. Bridge has a new licensee and are not yet doing food but apparently they intend to (one of the new people is apparently a chef). The Combermere closed on Sunday gone as the current (or now previous??? ) licensees are leaving/left. Don't know if there is a new licensee in yet but it is too good a pub to not be open.

 

The bridge did have 3 craft beers on as well as standard marstons fayre.

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28 minutes ago, PCSB said:

Was there a few days ago for the historic boats. Fly is closed. Bridge has a new licensee and are not yet doing food but apparently they intend to (one of the new people is apparently a chef). The Combermere closed on Sunday gone as the current (or now previous??? ) licensees are leaving/left. Don't know if there is a new licensee in yet but it is too good a pub to not be open.

 

The bridge did have 3 craft beers on as well as standard marstons fayre.

Spoke with the new Licensee of the Bridge about 10 days ago. He was hoping to do basic food for the transport festival (don't know whether he did) and at the time the kitchen was having a deep clean (not been used recently), he said that he was hoping in the coming weeks to slowly build an extensive menu. The Lord Combermere should have new licensees soon, it is to good a pub to have closed. Shroppie Fly has been a disaster for a few years mostly because of the pub company (Star Inns) who have screwed every licensee.

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12 hours ago, jam said:

Shroppie Fly has been a disaster for a few years mostly because of the pub company (Star Inns) who have screwed every licensee.

Ah, that explains a lot. I'm never sure whether I'm disappointed most to find it closed or open.  Open tempts me to give it another chance, only to be just as disappointed as I would have been to find it closed!

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The Fly is in a superb location and should be a famous canal side pub. It would be great if a group of boaters could buy it as a commonity thing and run it is a proper boaters pub, but I fear this is just my fantasy. Pubcos have a great record of wrecking good pubs, but I suspect they will hold on to it as ultimately it could be worth more as a private house.   The Barge Inn (K&A) was rescued from jaws of property development so it can be done, though in this case it was a sympathic local family who came to the rescue.

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On 06/08/2022 at 11:43, dmr said:

The Fly is in a superb location and should be a famous canal side pub. It would be great if a group of boaters could buy it as a commonity thing and run it is a proper boaters pub, but I fear this is just my fantasy. Pubcos have a great record of wrecking good pubs, but I suspect they will hold on to it as ultimately it could be worth more as a private house.   The Barge Inn (K&A) was rescued from jaws of property development so it can be done, though in this case it was a sympathic local family who came to the rescue.

And how long did it last in that form?

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On 06/08/2022 at 11:43, dmr said:

The Fly is in a superb location and should be a famous canal side pub. It would be great if a group of boaters could buy it as a commonity thing and run it is a proper boaters pub, but I fear this is just my fantasy. Pubcos have a great record of wrecking good pubs, but I suspect they will hold on to it as ultimately it could be worth more as a private house.   The Barge Inn (K&A) was rescued from jaws of property development so it can be done, though in this case it was a sympathic local family who came to the rescue.

Yep, should be spot on but has always been rubbish. 
I once spent a good New Year’s Eve in their, 2017 I think?

 

Now when you say a proper boaters pub....

do you mean a ‘proper pub for boaters’ or a ‘pub for proper boaters’?

 

 

 

 

 

8 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

And how long did it last in that form?

Til they mismanaged their money and went bust?

🤷‍♀️ Just a guess

or is it still going?

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2 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

And how long did it last in that form?

The Barge is still going strong under its new owners.

The brief period of community ownership has, to some extent, got an unfair bad press, though the "community" was partly local bussiness people and not the boater/crop circle community who used the pub. The community only had the lease, the property developer had already managed to buy the building and a cynic (realist) might say that it was in his interest that the community, and the tenants who followed, should be helped to fail. It was only when the current owners purchased the building itself that it started to do well. 

1 hour ago, Cheshire cat said:

The Shroppie Fly always struggled in winter. There are few boaters and fewer gongoozlers. I don't think it's viable if the Bridge and the Combermere are operating properly.

 

But if it was a good pub it should get some of the locals that use the other pubs, and then the boat trade in summer should be a bonus.

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16 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

But if it was a good pub it should get some of the locals that use the other pubs, and then the boat trade in summer should be a bonus.

True, but until they get a time hardened manager, which I would guess is very unlikely rather than starry eyed I want to run a pub ones I don't think there is much chance

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9 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

True, but until they get a time hardened manager, which I would guess is very unlikely rather than starry eyed I want to run a pub ones I don't think there is much chance

 

The pubco needs to go and have the pub owned and run by a proper "landlord".  Its unlikely that any good manager would want to run a pub owned by a bad pubco 😀

There are a small number of pubcos/chains that do a good job of running pubs with managers, but most are just a disaster.

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1 minute ago, dmr said:

 

The pubco needs to go and have the pub owned and run by a proper "landlord".  Its unlikely that any good manager would want to run a pub owned by a bad pubco 😀

There are a small number of pubcos/chains that do a good job of running pubs with managers, but most are just a disaster.

Exactly, The right person is very unlikely to take it on

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A supermarket would be handy, and, locally, would only compete with the CO-OP IIRC.  

A Majestic might even be better.

 

The complete absence of sensible car parking makes it unlikely a Supermarket chain will even look at it.

 

N

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4 hours ago, dmr said:

But if it was a good pub it should get some of the locals that use the other pubs, and then the boat trade in summer should be a bonus.

 

Possibly, but as things stand the locals would have to walk past The Bridge to get to The Shroppie. 

It looks like a sixties estate pub and probably doesn't fit the Audlem demographic.

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34 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

A dog welfare centre, comprising vet, poodle parlour, and kenneling for boaters.  Maybe I mean boater's dogs.

I like it, the modern equivalent of stables, but it should really be a boaters pub with the "doggy stables" round the back. 😀

1 minute ago, Cheshire cat said:

 

Possibly, but as things stand the locals would have to walk past The Bridge to get to The Shroppie. 

It looks like a sixties estate pub and probably doesn't fit the Audlem demographic.

 

I have walked past many bad pubs to get to a good one 😀 The Fly is a great canalside location and could be a great pub, but I suspect thats its problem, the owners think its location makes it easy money.   Do you mean the inside looks like an estate pub? I have not been in for years.

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I was referring to the extrior. The interior was smartened up just before Covid.

 

It's owned by Heineken. Here's the details if you fancy it. 

 

Shroppie

 

The expectations of the owning pub group are ridiculous especially given the customer base has largely melted away over the last five years. Who would run it for £17k a year anyway?

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11 minutes ago, Cheshire cat said:

It's owned by Heineken. Here's the details if you fancy it. 

 

Shroppie

 

The expectations of the owning pub group are ridiculous especially given the customer base has largely melted away over the last five years. Who would run it for £17k a year anyway?

 A wee dram of @mrsmelly wisdom could be poured here, methinks...?

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11 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

 A wee dram of @mrsmelly wisdom could be poured here, methinks...?

The paltry, in pub terms rent of 17k a year and ingoing of 10k says it all. A pub with any decent trade cannot be had for this kind or rent anymore. The big pub companies are at least reaping their rewards fo ripping tenants off for many years. A dear friend who still has a pub held Greedy King to a fifty percent rent reduction last year, completely unheard of for many years in the trade. My lads pub still takes good money but rent has been held at 60k for a while now, it would have been increased greatly if the crap hadnt hit the fan. I havnt seen thos particular pub for several years now but a long cold, dark winter is only round the corner.

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