MY PUB: The Rose & Crown, Wolston, Warwickshire

Located in Wolston, Coventry, it is a Just Add Talent management agreement site from Star Pubs that has recently had an external overhaul to make it even more appealing.

Here, operator and industry stalwart Darren Guy tells The Morning Advertiser about the pub and what customers can expect when they visit.

The pub

The Rose & Crown is a family friendly village pub – the beating heart of the community. It is one of two pubs in the Wolston area, the other being a gastropub.

As a Star Pubs’ Just Add Talent (JAT) managed operator community pub, it offers great value food and drink, shows live sports and live entertainment and puts on regular events. The Rose & Crown offers something for everyone ensuring it has broad appeal.

The building itself is 1960s style and has just had an external facelift to improve its kerb appeal. Inside, there is a huge central bar, a lounge, a foodie snug space and a sports area with pool table, table skittles – which is popular locally – darts and sports TVs. Upstairs is a three-bedroom flat where my family and I live.

Outside there’s a huge garden, three times larger than the pub itself, which has won various awards from Coventry Live and TripAdvisor. It has a huge decking area with a retractable roof, which allows us to host functions, a play area with children’s play equipment, TVs in the garden and a marquee for weddings and events.

The publican

I have been in the industry 27 years. I started out as a chef when I left school, which was what I really wanted to do, but ended up helping out at front of house and then moved on to running pubs.

I worked as a manager for pub companies and had a leased & tenanted (L&T) pub in the City before deciding to get out of the rat race and move to a quieter environment, where my partner and I could bring up our children.

I had also got tired of working crazy hours for someone else.

I took on The Rose & Crown, as a managed pub operator eight years ago. Shortly after, Star Pubs took it over and it became one of the company’s Just Add Talent pubs. The model works for me because I pay staff costs and they cover everything else, including energy bills. I receive a weekly percentage of the revenue and a quarterly share of profit, so I am incentivised to build the business.

While running the Rose & Crown, I also ran an events company renting out inflatables and gaming vans for corporate events and had an L&T site. However, when Covid struck, it hit businesses hard. I got a lot of support from Star Pubs at the time, but not from the pub company from whom I leased my other pub. So, I decided to keep things simple and gave up the other pub.

The trade

The Rose & Crown has a mix of customers – anyone and everyone. The result is we have a steady stream of people visiting throughout the day and week.

Older people tend to come in during the day, either men enjoying cask ale or those wanting something to eat.

At the weekend, we get more families as our food and garden are a pull and every other weekend we put on live entertainment.

We attract lots of walking groups, and from 3pm, after school finishes, children and their parents come in.

I make a real effort to tap into lots of different markets and I am a school governor, which helps. The local craft group come in every Monday and have tea and coffees. There’s a book club and every other Tuesday it’s Day Bingo.

In the evening, lots of sports teams tend to come in. On Monday, it’s women’s skittles, Wednesday is men’s skittles and on Tuesday, we host two pool teams.

Our eight TV screens also attract sports enthusiasts.

The team

I have 12 members of staff, including two students in the summer and at Christmas when we’re busy, seven front of house, a cleaner and two working in the kitchen, a head chef and myself. The head chef works five days a week and I do the other two days because it is hard to find kitchen staff and I started out as a chef.

I am also currently helping Star Pubs open another JAT site, the Paddox in Rugby, as the operator who had been due to take it on had to pull out for personal reasons. I have a great relationship with Star Pubs and so am happy to help. I will oversee that pub from here until the new operator takes it on.

The drink

In the daytime, we sell mainstream lagers such as Carling and cask ale, like Hereford Pale Ale.

At other times, we upsell to drinks like Birra Moretti and Neck Oil. We have Heineken on tap and this year introduced Inch’s cider, which is going down a storm and has taken over from Strongbow in popularity.

The JAT set-up also includes really good wines. We have a Chilean and a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, and from Thursday to Saturday, we run a promotion for premium wines like our Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc whereby customers buy two large glasses and get the rest of the bottle for free. It’s proved really popular.

Our drinks are competitively priced and hard to match. For a beer like Birra Moretti we’ll charge £5.15, elsewhere it would be about £5.65.

The food

When I first took on the Rose & Crown, it didn’t offer food and took £3,000 a week. We now take £4,000 to £5,000 on food alone.

Our food offer is the JAT standard community menu rather than the premium option.

We run lots of food offers such as Monday to Thursday two meals for £16.50, or fish day Fridays where you get fish & chips and a drink for £11.

Our best-sellers are beef and chicken burgers and our upgrades like our Chicken Platter main meal – a Hunters’ Chicken breast, onion rings, wings and goujons, or our Fish Shop Platter which consists of fish & chips, scampi, fishcake, curry sauce and bread & butter.

The other dishes that are popular are the small plates, which groups watching sport love. Typical dishes include duck spring rolls or breaded mushrooms. These cost from £4.70 to £6.20, or you can order three for £16 or five for £24.

The events

Having a background in events, I am passionate about making ours stand-out occasions and Star Pubs provides a budget for entertainment.

We hold a monthly quiz, which is hugely popular and has raised £65,000 over the years. We also have karaoke, a disco or singer every couple of weeks. It’s important to leave some weekends more low key.

We put on events like a silent disco with UV lighting and face painting in the garden in the summer for free. It’s great fun – 100 adults dance like crazy to their preferred music. A JAT supplier does all the work for £350, resulting in a £2,500 evening turning into a £4,000 one.

For kids, we host a pool tournament and convert the marquee into a mini ravers disco for the end of term. We provide the food, glow sticks, UV lighting and bubble machine.

Calendar events like Christmas and Halloween are all about bringing people together, so we go big on these.

For Halloween, we rig the outside of the pub with lights and put on a computer aided light show with music and special effects. Hundreds come to watch the twice nightly 10-minute shows. Inside, the pub is decorated from head-to-toe including coffins on the ceiling.

Activities include a trick or treat kids’ spooktacular fancy dress party with disco, and evening fancy dress adults’ party with a band, karaoke and a best costume competition. Coming to see the lights is now a local tradition. People come in for a meal before the light show and return at other times.

And at Christmas, as well as our light show, I have been known to dress as the Grinch, giving out sprouts to people who haven’t dressed in fancy dress.

The future

I am very happy with how I have grown the business, with the JAT business model, and the support.

Turnover has gone from £3,000 a week when I took on the pub to as much as £23,000 a week in the summer.

However, I have created my own headache on the back of this success. The kitchen is only 4x4 metres and the layout of the pub limits what we can do foodwise. In an ideal world, it would be great to extend the kitchen and relocate and enlarge the decking area.

As for where I live and the pub itself, it’s ideal for the family life and a work-life balance.