Licensees extend premium mobile catering business
Emma and William Jack, owners of freehold the Richmond Arms in West Ashling, West Sussex have acquired a deli in Bosham, near Chichester, to create a pop-up dining area to serve food cooked in a 1955 Morris J Van.
The Richmond Arms Mobile Kitchen is due to launch in April.
The van will serve soft drinks and snacks during the day and a set menu of a starter, one main and a dessert in the evenings.
Pizza van
A 50-cover pizza restaurant with dishes cooked from an old Citroen H van already operates at the Richmond Arms. The Jacks renovated the pub’s skittle alley to create the restaurant.
WoodFired offers pizzas focussing on quality local ingredients such as cockles, razor clams, wild mushroom and asparagus. The van features a wood fired oven which cooks pizzas artisan style one at a time at 500c degrees.
A range of sharing small plates prepared in the van are also offered such as herby wood roast veggies and smoked aioli (£6.95); wood roast aubergine parmigiana (£6.95); wood roast chorizo, onions, new potatoes and herbs (£6.95) and feta, golden raisin & cashews wrapped in fragrant fig leaves and wood roasted and Pugliese bread (£6.95).
The concept was launched to extend the pub’s covers but without putting pressure on the small kitchen which caters for the site’s 40-cover restaurant.
William Jack is the pub’s head chef.
Award finalist
WoodFired has been shortlisted as one of three finalists in the Business Innovation of the Year Award in the Budweiser Budvar Top 50 Gastropub Awards 2015, organised by the Publican’s Morning Advertiser.
The other two finalists are the on-site fish and chip shop of the Angel of Corbridge’s in Northumberland and New World Pub Company’s winter tepee at the Oast House in Manchester.
The winners will be announced at an awards lunch hosted by Tom Kerridge at Anglian Country Inns’ Hermitage Rd Bar & Kitchen in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, on Monday, 25 January.
