Turning a wet-led pub into a food destination is no mean feat, yet Marstons tenant Sam Dainter has cajoled the number of dishes coming out of his kitchen from barely over the single digit mark to a healthy four figures.
The landlord has grown up in the pub trade, for his parents always owned pubs. As a result, the life-longer admits he accidentally fell into his pub career, but hasn’t looked back.
“I started working in the trade through default,” he recollects. “It was after years of being brought up in pubs and it was just a natural thing and now me and my mum run the Old Court House and have been doing so for about six years.”
Before Dainter took on the site in 2010 the pub was mostly about drink, but taking action to deliver affordable, yet good quality, food has led the operation to become a popular local, as well as a destination venue for consumers from miles around, he explains.
His pub’s most popular dishes are meat-based, including a carvery, steak, lasagne and Cajun chicken, all of the ingredients for which – and every other dish on the menu – come from his local Booker.
Most popular dish
Dainter, who has 14 staff including four in the kitchen, says steak is one of the more popular dish in the pub, which he puts solely down to price and quality. “At the moment we offer a good deal on steaks, which are flying from the kitchen.
“We think it’s brilliant value for money as we charge £9.99 for a 10-ounce steak with all of the trimmings including chips, onion rings, mushrooms and tomatoes.”
Rump is the most popular cut at the Old Court House, but the kitchen also offers sirloin. It costs around £2 per steak and all of the other ingredients add up to about £1, he estimates. “We’ve never had any problems with the quality of the cuts and I have a close working relationship with the chief butcher at Booker, who makes sure we get the cuts we want at the quality and price we need.
“We also find it useful that Booker publishes a price guide with serving suggestions, which helps us to keep our margins in line.”
Another popular dish on the menu is the Cajun chicken, which also comes with chips, onion rings and mushrooms. This dish, which is sold for £7.99, costs Smith £2 to make. Each chicken breast is bought from the butcher for just £1, he adds.
The pièce de résistance of the Old Court House, though, has to be its carvery, which Dainter is proudest of. Four meats are served from the carvery, which runs all week, along with 18 different vegetables, he says.
600 served each Sunday
So popular is the carvery, that about 600 are served from the 100 cover pub each Sunday. “Our car-very is unique and sets us apart from competitors – such as another well-known carvery in the ar-ea.
“We do topside of beef, turkey, leg of pork and honey-glazed gammon. It’s set up like a regular carvery – we carve the meat, serve the Yorkshire puddings and the stuffing and the customers do the rest.”
During the week it costs £5.99 a plate, which rises to £7.99 on a Sunday. Dainter reckons it costs him between £2.70 and £3 for each plate, depending on the meat and the amount of vegetables his customers have.
For the future, Dainter is watching food trends with an eager eye. Barbecue and American food are cuisines the operator is predicting will grow in popularity in his pub and so he is working with Booker on some dishes at the moment.
By reacting to changing trends Dainter believes he will see his wet:dry split increase from the current 70:30 to food that it is. He has already managed to double his covers from 750 last year to the current level and thinks he can improve on that further.
Dainter adds: “For now, though, it’s more of the same. We’re just going to carry on working hard to give our customers what they want and hopefully our food offer will grow with that.”