I have just discovered that the following post, which was written towards the end of May this year, was never up-loaded to the blog. Although these events are now history I have decided to post it anyway, just for the record:-
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Well, it’s a while since I posted about the Duncombe Arms. Things have moved on a bit since then and it was generally for the better, until two weeks ago.
Well, earlier this year things were definitely on the up. The interior had had a coat of paint and was now lighter and brighter and at the same time they decided to make some significant changes to the menu. They introduced a Comfort Food section which contained old favourites like Mac’n Cheese, Scampi & Chips etc as well as a Fish of the Day (which was always excellent and beautifully cooked) and a Weekly Special. The Bar Snacks were improved and seating changed again. All good stuff. There were more people eating but unfortunately still not enough to fill the old Reading Room, which on most nights was a dark area with the lights turned off. A far cry from the days of Chris & Kay when booking was required or you didn’t eat!
Tom and Inga had clearly decided that the abrupt changes from the previous tenants’ regime, that they put in place when they first arrived, were not well received by the customers. Not that there was anything wrong with the food when they started, it was excellent, it was simply that it was very different to what had been served before. The wide selection old favourites and value for money dishes, that had been the bedrock of Chris & Kay’s business, disappeared and in their place a relatively small, eclectic mix accompanied by a hefty uplift in prices. The food was very well prepared, cooked and presented, but dishes such as home-smoked fillet of salmon served with a roast potato, a carrot and a portion of an unknown, pesto-like sauce were only to the taste of a few and not regular pub food. Unfortunately I think the damage had been done and although they made changes it was too little, too late – about six months too late! There was also a telling change in the tagline of their Facebook page at this time. It changed from “A Country Pub” to “A British Restaurant and Pub”, which says something about the mindset of those running it.
Significantly, the one area that they did not improve, or even change, was the “front of house”. There was still only one person to wait at table and to run the bar. This meant that there was no-one behind the bar for a lot of the time, which is disastrous if you are trying to run a pub. Worse still, this person, who was there for the whole time that Tom and Inga ran the place, was someone with little or no experience of bar work and was clearly out of his depth behind a pub bar. No chat or banter and, not being English, he did not even understand the wry, dry humour of rural England. All rather sad, but from a business perspective, a total disaster! A pub with no barman cannot succeed. It perked up noticeably when Inga was behind the bar but she could only be there now and then and couldn’t fill the gap. This meant that there was no “buzz” in the pub and ultimately this was the death knell…..and so:
Well, a few days ago a notice went up to say that they had ceased trading. Enquiries addressed to Greene King implied that Tom & Inga were still in residence but not running the pub; that it would re-open with new tenants sometime in the not too distant future. Meanwhile the residents of Waresley have no pub. 🙁
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So there we are, a disaster for the village, but all may not be lost. Await the next post!
AWM