Well connected

Nick Yates finds a perfect marriage of the traditional and modern aspects of the successful local pub at our latest pub to be proud of, in Buckingham

The New Inn in Buckingham is like Dr Who's time machine, the TARDIS. First impressions are of entering a 1950s institution. Go deeper inside, however, and you enter a den of high-tech wizardry. The main bar area is a picture postcard view of staff and customers, young and old, interacting with the kind of quiet, genteel conversation that some believe has died out in pubs nowadays - mostly to a music background of war era crooners. Its homely decoration is a million miles from the sanitised style of homogenous chain bars.

Downstairs, in what used to be a low-ceilinged extra bar, is an internet café run by the licensees' son David Hall. A bank of monitors buzzes with people checking their email and youngsters playing online video games. David, who works in IT, built the computers at a cost of about £5,000. Charging £2 to use the internet for the first half hour and £3 an hour thereafter, they are steadily making this figure back.

It is a clash between a bygone age and the 21st century. Licensees Deirdre and Michael Hall had the computers installed as part of a drive to turn the New Inn into a family pub that has lasted over 20 years. Since moving in as tenants in 1984, they have positioned the pub as somewhere to cater "from the cradle to the grave". To do this, they have had to adapt.

The changing landscape​

Over time, the pub's whole situation has changed. Where once it was in a prime location, it became way off the beaten track. "The economic idea of moving here was being near an outdoor swimming pool, a cinema and a petrol station," says Deirdre. Slowly, one by one, these disappeared.

It got worse, as Deirdre explains. "Around three years ago, our car park was taken away and a bypass was built. We lost our most important passing trade - the families with young children."

Deirdre and Michael, runners up in The Publican's Family pub of the Year 1989, had begun their family mission by turning the downstairs bar into a children's play area. Here, childminders looked after kids and took them on afternoons out while parents had a drink upstairs. However, with this latest development, drastic action was needed.

Deirdre says: "We thought 'we need to do something'. We had an idea to convert the downstairs from a family room to an internet room. Now we get people bringing their youngsters in to use the internet, so we've got our families back."

This is an example of the no-nonsense policies with which the Halls have shaped their trade. They have a crystal-clear idea of the direction in which they want to take the New Inn. Resisting the excessive change of fads and trends promoted by big pub business over the years, they have tried to maintain "an oasis where there is some sense of normality and tradition".

"Our formula has stayed the same these 21 years," says Deirdre. "Greene King has often advised us to try and do certain things, but we're completely dictated to by our customers."

Taking the alternative route​

Michael talks of conventional pub draws like Sky TV and pool tables: "There's no real need for any of it. You've got to gauge what you have." The New Inn TARDIS indeed seems to have its gauges finely tuned - the Halls have an accurate barometer of what their customers want. And ignoring conventional industry wisdom is not a naïve approach, with Deirdre and Michael believing their attitude has allowed them to outlast other pubs in the area.

"We're still a business," says Deirdre, "but it's not a living to the extreme where you go in, get what you want and pull out. We've seen so many instances where licensees have come and gone and done basically that. I don't think the community deserves that."

The whole ideology of the New Inn is that it is a community venue in which an individual could feel at home in every way. Deirdre argues that the internet café is another initiative to facilitate this. "We've evolved from one thing to another now," she says. "We've dipped our toe into the 21st century and now we've hopefully formed a mixed generation of responsible drinkers.

People have graduated from our children's room to become customers at the bar and even members of staff."

Deirdre and Michael say they have risen to the legislative challenges thrown at them in over two decades working in pubs and it seems they have successfully adapted with customer tastes. However, they believe that the new wave of reforms will change the industry in the months and years ahead more than anything that has gone before.

Granted a licence to keep the pub open 'til midnight from next Thursday (November 24), Michael says that they "personally won't benefit from the reforms. It's all involving more and more bureaucracy, fees and paperwork.

"It wasn't like this 30 years ago. With the change in licensing, what's going to happen is big pubs will be able to afford to spread their hours. A large brewery pub can stay open whatever hours they like because they have the staff. For us, staying open much later would just be impractical."

The future, as any Dr Who fan will tell you is an unpredictable thing. Whatever it holds, the New Inn will no doubt cope admirably.

Refusing to shut their kitchen​

Deirdre and Michael are pledging to continue serving food and outlaw smoking when a ban comes in, despite the fact that food only accounts for a fraction of their sales.

The decision may seem an odd one, given that their business is divided 5/95 between their menu and wet sales. "We have a great many heavy smokers who come here," says Deirdre. "Does it warrant us continuing with our food?"

But the Halls are adamant that "the food is a service for our beer drinkers. It is a goodwill thing that we refuse to have taken away".

Michael adds: "I'm not in favour of a ban, but if we're told we have to ban smoking, we have to stop smoking. A blanket ban would have been better, but it's been decided and we have to get on with it."

The Halls plan to adapt their beer garden as a smoking area.

Pub:​ The New InnLocation:​ BuckinghamLicensees:​ Deidre and Michael Hall

A pub which has moved with the times, first turning its cellar into a family room and then transforming it into an internet café. Through innovation after innovation, licensees Michael and Deidre Hall have continued to keep at the hub of their area while other businesses have failed.