If you thought pubs were dying, you’re going to the wrong places

PUNCH Taverns is a significant employer right here in Oldham, being indirectly responsible for around 450 jobs.

Hands up how many of you of heard of these guys? Uuuumm, that many, eh?

For the uninitiated, it’s a pub company. They have around 7,000 managed and leases premises nationally and, right here in good old Oldham, they have 44 establishments.

The area bosses decided I should visit some and so it came to pass that on a Monday lunchtime I found myself in The Snipe, Henshaw Street, the one facing the indoor market hall.

I have to confess it has been some time since I visited this particular tavern and I was astonished to find it chokka. People were sitting in large groups, enjoying each other’s company, a far cry from the picture painted by many lunchtime drinking places where sad old men sit alone with a pint of best.

This was clearly a thriving pub and landlord Nico, a Lithuanian, has a success story on his hands.

Our next stop was the Blue Belle, in Royton, which some of you may remember as the Travellers’ Rest.

New landlady Joan Wright, who runs the pub-restaurant with her daughter Joanne Diggle, has transformed this place. The ambience and decor is astonishing and the food spectacular.

Having said that, the chef, Gary Spencer from High Crompton, is on a furlough in Oldham, having left the Burg al Arab, the self-styled seven-star hotel in Dubai, where he spent three years as a chef, en route to his next job in Australia.

Gary was wearing his kitchen gear from the Emirates while training chef colleague Karen Mears, from Springhead. I had rag pudding, mushy peas and proper, home-made chunky chips, the blackboard special. Oh boy, was it good . . .

Punch Taverns was persuaded to spend £280,000 transforming what was a run-down boozer into a quite superb eaterie. I will definitely return, no question, to sample more of the culinary delights.

Joan is also licensee of the nearby Marston Tavern, which is in direct contrast to the Blue Belle but finds a regular clientele five nights a week. Only two weeks ago they almost ran out of lager having sold close to 200 pints in a little under three hours.

Who says pubs are dying?

Our next port of call on our whistle- stop tour was to the Grapes, in Lees, which I confess I did not recognise when I walked through the door. Landlord Dave Finnerty took over two years ago on leaving another Lees pub, the Angel, and has transformed the place.

Gone are the raised nooks and crannies I remember, replaced by a welcoming open space, a new-look bar and there is a wondeful-looking carvery every lunchtime.

I was very tempted . . . but the rag pudding was barely digested so this is somewhere else I have on my list of ‘must visit’ pubs for lunch.

The point of this tour de force was to dispel the myth that pubs, post-smoking ban, are in their death throes.

Regional operations director Mark Chapman, my chauffeur, and Oldham area business relationship manager Sandra Paterson, from Shaw, tell me that pubs, when managed well and presented better, can —and will —thrive.

The key is getting the premises right, which is where Punch Taverns play their part, and getting the right landlords/licensees into the businesses.

Nico and his partners from the Snipe are about to take over the Coach and Horses, in Waterhead, another Punch house, and the odds are that this, too, will soon be thriving.

As I travel around Oldham, and see so many fine old taverns closed and boarded up, and others sold for alternative use, it is good to know that many others are not only surviving, but actually thriving.