Wait until next year

It’s the hope that kills you.

I recently wrote about the Royal Oak at Northumberland Heath and how through a change in management and a recent refurbishment it was becoming quite a special place.

Yesterday the person behind that transformation, Hazel Southwell, revealed that the owners had relieved her of her duties.

Hazel is clearly a good person as well as an exceptional pub manager. Hazel and her team have done so much to turn the pub around from a tired old building catering primarily to a couple of dozen regulars to a smart, welcoming place for both everyone in the area and those from further afield looking for an example of how traditional pubs can still work today. This is a place that a year ago most locals wouldn’t dream of stepping in and now it is somewhere many are eager to visit.

We need pubs to be community assets, and for that to happen we need people willing to welcome all communities to their pubs, not just a chosen few. Hazel was well on the way to achieving that. If anything, she deserved a promotion, not to be shown the door.

I’m not sure I want to give my money to a business that treats it’s employees this way. And I’m not sure the pub will be the same without the person who has steered it on such a promising course.

When it comes to pubs and their survival there is often quite a lot of talk about the beer and the buildings, but I don’t think there is enough acknowledgement of how important people are to the equation too. Good pubs have good people running them and good people working within them. And those people help cultivate an environment that attracts good patrons too. Pub management and pub staff aren’t just interchangeable. You change the people, you change the pub.

The hospitality business stands or falls on its staff, and it’s about time it addressed the precarity within the industry. It’s simply not good enough.

Selfishly, I hope the company behind the Royal Oak sees sense and changes their minds. At best it is a thoroughly bemusing business decision, and at worst it is a completely destructive one.

Beyond that, I hope Hazel gets a job where her talents are appreciated. She would be an asset to any pub, or indeed any business, looking to widen its appeal.