My Pub: Chainlocker & Shipwrights in Falmouth

Jonathan Pearce, manager at the Chainlocker & Shipwrights, in Falmouth, Cornwall, tells Ian Boughton how he makes the most of running a harbour-side pub with a nautical theme.

How I got here​

After uni I took a stop-gap job here as a bar person — that was 1999, and I've been here ever since. I've worked in pubs since I was 18, as a part-timer. When I went full time I went to a neighbouring pub as trainee manager, then came back here as a relief for nine months, without getting the permanent position, but 18 months later it came up again and I got it.

Orchid Group are the best I've ever worked for — I can pick up the phone to anyone and get a question answered. And as we're so isolated, I'm very lucky in being left to my own devices, because they have the ethos that they will let local pubs do what they're good at. You always go into a pub and think "this is what I want to do with this place" and they let me run with my ideas.

Historical character​

The pub's old signage used to say "established 1740", but now we know that was because a previous owner just made up a date. We're sure it's 1660 — the harbour commissioners helped us set the date through their records of the old prison across the alley. It was built there because of the number of customers the pub used to send across.

The place may well have last been redecorated inside in the days of sailing ships, but we haven't changed it much as we don't want to change the character of the place. When we were handed a budget to redecorate, all I asked for was a couple of tins of paint. The character of a pub is what people talk about, and we're told that we are spoken of around the world.

The artefacts on the wall are too many to count, but we have a binnacle, an old ship's compass, which I'm told is very valuable.

Everything is pretty much "fixed down", or it will "walk" — we had an entire framed poem, "Why a ship is called 'she'", which disappeared last summer. It is surprising what lengths people will go to, to try and remove the memorabilia.

Our food offer​

The big Cornish food is pasties, and yet we only brought them in this year. I fought against it because I thought they would be too expensive to buy in, and that £4 for a pasty in a pub would be too much, when you can buy one for £2 in any shop up the road — but I was wrong. We decided to get the very best we could, from Proper Cornish, as a bake-off pasty. We found that a combi-oven can be too hot for them, but our old convection oven, on low, heats them nicely.

The other Cornish speciality is a cream tea, which can be a problem for the catering staff, and I was very wary of it — could we spare someone out of service for two minutes to put it together? But they've gone well, because they turn out to be an afternoon sale, with a good GP. We make the scones ourselves, which is why they vary in taste and size. We threw out two batches yesterday because they varied too much, but it's still better margin than buying them in.

All our staff can make an espresso coffee. I asked a couple of baristas from an Italian restaurant to teach them. The coffee is Fairtrade, from Cafeology, but people just don't seem to notice that.

What they do notice is whether our food is local. It's often the customer's first question. I can guarantee our crab is local, not frozen and packed in Korea. Sometimes it comes from the north coast, but that's only 15 miles away, so it's still local. Crab, scallops, and mussels are all from nearby. Oysters are not difficult, so long as you know how to open the lid and free them from the shells. I'm not an oyster fan myself, but all the local oyster men drink in here, and I keep getting accosted with demands that I try one — but I can't stand them.

Our real ale offer​

We stock local beers — Skinner's and Sharp's — and they complement each other as Skinner's is hoppy and Sharp's is malty.

I've made some terrible mistakes with guest beers. We once had a

Valentine's beer that was absolutely horrible — we poured eight gallons away. But Heligan Honey, which is a Skinner's beer, is a successful one. The honey makes it sweet, and it's a very easy way to get into real ale. It appeals to students, and we've got a lot of them. We've occasionally lined up half a dozen ale samples for them to try — it gets them understanding real ale.

In fact, we have a lot of customers who have never tasted real ale before, and so we'll always explain about it and maybe give a taster. We're a Cask Marque pub and proud of it.

Our customer base​

We have a big local base, but this is also a very busy harbour and dock — when the shipyards are doing well, we get a lot of workers in here. A lot of travel is influenced by the exchange rate with the euro, so at one time we were full of the Irish, and now it's German, French and Dutch sailors.

Any fishing village or seaport can be an edgy place, but our staff are very good at discouraging the rougher element — only once have I been in danger of physical assault, and this was a guy in his 70s who took his false teeth out before taking a slow and laboured swing at me, so it was fairly easy to get out of the way.

We're generally known as a place without any intimidation, which is why we have a lot of older people, women and children among the customers as well.

You can only do that by having the right staff — it's the staff who make a pub a welcoming place.