But, when general manager Evie Snook was quizzed on the student offer, it was clear the venue definitely is a student-led pub, albeit it one with a large dose of community wet-led trade to back it up. The clear reasoning behind this was to alleviate the term-time seasonality of the business in a university city – and it has managed to be a ‘best of both worlds’ venue.
The discount offer is available to all, not just students, and the entertainment, although marketed to a student crowd, is also welcoming to an older/different demographic. The attempt to ‘premiumise’ the student offer with cocktails, locally-sourced food and craft beer would appear to be working, based on Saturday night turnover in a suburban area of Oxford.
The pub offers a compelling, and complete, offer for the student population; not only of the nearby Oxford Brookes University – but also the University of Oxford. The passion of the staff and the owners for making it a place that will become part of the fabric of the university experience was clear to see – and the events and offer represented this desire.
It was less a ‘retreat’ and more of an experience – a venue which you can imagine in a decade’s time reminiscing about with your old university chums, asking, ‘Remember that night at the Cowley?’.