Pub Awards: Best Family Pub – The Jolly Sailors, Norfolk

With a little something to offer everyone, from great food and drinks through to pirate themed playgrounds with an added fancy dress option, this pub is the ideal spot for families to while away a few hours during the summer holidays.

Never one to miss a promotional opportunity, the pub took the opportunity to welcome the arrival of the new Princess Charlotte with a special pizza offer, the Jolly Pizza Royale, featuring steak, Charlotte potatoes and mushrooms, to name a few ingredients.

The Jolly Sailors' pizza’s are a key signature of the business, and hugely popular with visiting children - so much so that the pub is now offering the opportunity for families to hold kid’s pizza birthday parties at the venue.

The family market is vitally important for the pub sector, and the Jolly Sailors is a great example of a pub which is ticking all the boxes, not just for visiting tourists, but for local families year round, and doing a great job of it as well.

Judge Vincent Crump added: “The beer garden at the Jolly is full-on for families: the exceptional pirate playground (complete with dressing-up box), the ice-cream shack, the deckchairs and funny-face board all bring the North Norfolk seaside into the pub. Kids know it as the "pizza pub" (they get to design their own), and the new smokehouse is adding to the finger-licking food offer -- everything's available in child-sized portions. Most of all I was impressed by manager Heather Tidd's deep-seated connection with the community: she grew up in Brancaster Staithe, knows everyone here, and loves the local she now runs. The inn is even hosting the school fete these days!”