King Billy on the beer


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Nice to see a pub on the up for a change. Trade is hard but some landlords only have themselves to blame.

One city centre pub I was in last week has, in the two years since the present landlord took over, been turned from a pleasant place for a drink into a dirty, smelly tip - with half the pumps off, the heating on the blink, most of lightbulbs in the bar blown and a soiltary candle for illumination in the gents.

Funny that the landlord should object to my calling him incompetent.

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Tick Tock Tick Tock

Would that be the King Billy across the road from the City Corporations bus depot? If so I have mentioned it before that it had been turned around from having been closed to opening with Micro beers for sale, it is owned now by a friend of mine, I say a friend because whenever the wife and I walked into a pub he owned and he has owned quite a few he would kiss my wife on the cheek and shake my hand, he’s really is a nice chap to know. He still shakes my hand whenever I pop in there for a chat and a drink.

He owns the King Billy, he is by the way a millionaire but to look at him you wouldn’t draw that conclusion. The pub itself is in his son and daughter in-laws name.

When he got bought out from the last venture he turned his hands to there was a clause in the sale agreement that he shouldn’t open another pub or bar within five hundred yards from the previous one, hence the king Billy being in his sons name. He has owned the The Bunkers Hill the Moot Hall, which is now The Moot the King Billy or to give it its proper name King William IV, the Fox and several more I can’t recall.

By the way while I’m blowing his trumpet so to speak he does all the renovation work himself.

Bip.

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  • 6 months later...

from todays post 1/7/08

Jeff Blyth was born in a Nottingham pub, and knows them through and through. He knows how hard running a pub can be, and how it's changed over the years. ERIK PETERSEN heard from him and others about the challenges faced by today's publicans

When Jeff Blyth's parents wanted to wet their baby's head, they didn't have far to go.

Mr Blyth was born in The Fox, a Sneinton pub dating to the 1750s. It was later run by Mr Blyth's grandmother, then his father, then Mr Blyth himself.

To hear Jeff Blyth's views and see photos from the past, click here

A quarter of a century ago he moved a few blocks east and bought a disused Barclays bank building around the corner from what was then the Ice Stadium and turned it into the Bunker's Hill Inn.

He sold that to Punch Taverns. But just a few years ago, he went back to his roots - opening the Old Moot Hall in Sneinton. When he sold that he thought he might have been out of pubs for good.

But then, several years ago, the King William IV pub in (where else?) Sneinton became available. Mr Blyth was eventually able to get it as a freehold - a pub that he owns in entirety, with no ties to a brewery or pub company - and the opportunity proved too good.

Today Mr Blyth runs the King Billy with his daughter-in-law. A freehold is about the only way Mr Blyth would want to be in the pub business today. Licensees get a rough deal, he says.

"They've got the thumbscrews on," he said, of licensees. "As soon as (pub companies) grab the money off you, that's it. They're not brewery people any more ?they're like estate agents."

"That's blunt talk, but he finds plenty of agreement from others in the trade about the difficulties these days.

"It's at odds with those conversations that happen every night in the pub: hey, wouldn't it be great to actually run one of these places? The dream job can conjure up images of the perfect pub - the place you'd run just so: perhaps a bit of live music; maybe some sport on the television; a few of your favourite hard-to-find ales on the bar.

"For the people who get involved in the industry, the reality quickly becomes clear. The reasons are varied, but centre on one key fact - running a pub is expensive, and getting more so all the time.

"Taking pubs on, it's not easy at all," said Andy Crawford, operations manager for the East Midlands based Pub People Company. "Not in the current climate."

"Simon Townsend, Enterprise's chief operating officer, noted that everything from rising utilities costs to Government legislation had made the basic cost of doing business a tough game for publicans of all sizes.

"Pub companies and their tied pub landlords are hurting in this environment, particularly as a significant proportion of pub company income comes from sales in their pubs," he said. "As a consequence, and where appropriate, we are working closely with our licensees to offer them whatever support possible to assist them during these difficult trading conditions, and in building sustainable businesses."

"This squeezing, mixed with increased demands for profits, has made for changes in pubs that some reckon makes the pub experience less enjoyable. "The quality of the pub - they're just drinking barns," said Philip Darby, who runs Nottingham Brewery. "People don't stop for an evening in the pub anymore."

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  • 4 months later...

Spent many happy hours in there.

I beleive when Jeff [the original owner] sold out to the chap who once was the manager of the Vat and Fiddle they were broke into several times.

If only I lived that side of the city....ummmmmmmmmmm

Bip.

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