Big news in my part of north London as @FullersBrewery buys @TheGNRTavern (@harringayonline / @CrouchEnd)
Connecting Crouch End and Hornsey with news, views and information
I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing. Good for Fuller's perhaps,as it's a popular pub, but what do Fuller's do to a pub? The Flask in Highgate is an example.
Thanks to Glynn Davis for the news
Big news in my part of north London as @FullersBrewery buys @TheGNRTavern (@harringayonline / @CrouchEnd)
I'd go with good news.
The main threat these days is closure. Fullers bought the Holly Bush in Hampstead at the same time as the Flask back in 2010. The Holly Bush is now one of the few survivors over in NW3, so many others having closed (Jack Straw's Castle, Nag's Head, King of Bohemia, the Rosslyn, Coach & Horses, White Bear, Horse & Groom, Haverstock...). So clearly a better bet than Punch.
I'm quite partial to ESB too.
How does this affect the proposal to turn the upper floors into flats?
Crouch End and Hornsey seem to be a blessed oasis of decent ale. Pub closures to the right of us, pub closures to the left of us, but from time to time we even get new ones, such as the Earl Haig.
What are the upper floors at the moment? A place of assignation? Staff quarters? Sell of a few flats, offset the cost of the trading premises - seems like sound financial management. Buy shares in Fullers? EBITDA is up 8%!
The upper floors are currently let out, the consented planning was to convert them into s/c flats. The problem, as I remember it, is that the pub may lose the kitchen, leaving the business on shakier ground.
Still, it now looks as if the planning application was at the very least partly to increase the sale price before the offload to Fullers. And as Fullers is only interested in running pubs, the threat to the business should dissipate.
I'm being uncharacteristically positive here.
You're right about the blessed oasis though. Hornsey, Crouch End & Highgate seem to be hanging onto the pubs. The beer belt of north London.
Agree Fullers could keep the pub going with their kind of funding and expertise. But I fear for the ale. GNRT were always creative in their choice of real ales, and there was always some interesting guest ales on. The Holly bush used to have a great pint of Harveys on, but when Fullers took over, that went and, was replaced by what I expected in the Fullers range, London pride, ESB and the paler Honey Dew.. that was that. Hope they can keep a guest ale slot open and support London based independent breweries. But I doubt it.
Thanks for that; looks promising.
I owe you a pint!
I dropped fullers a line last week about their plans for the top House and this came back .. looks promising.
We purchased the pub a while ago and have just recently started work there as you may have seen. It is a big old building and so the work is going to take at least 10 weeks, therefore we are hoping to reopen at the end of March. The focus of the project is to restore the pub to its former glory rather than try and recreate it and there are certainly some great original features to work with.
I very much want to create a pub that is part of the community, that sells great beer and a plate of food in a relaxed environment.
Thank you David,sounds a good plan!
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