This is a shock. The Blue Boar on Mill Street is a great pub run by great people. It is owned by pub giant Punch Taverns but has developed its own distinctive atmosphere. It is a real community pub and a little bit quirky. It’s great fun. I always leave smiling.
But Punch Taverns, no doubt with an eye to getting a greater share of the turnover, wants to install its own managers in August.
The Blue Boar is doing well. Yesterday, despite there being no market, there loads of people in eating and drinking. That’s what we need in Ludlow. Most of the town centre pubs have their own distinctive characters. This is part of what draws people to Ludlow and go away telling their friends what a great town it is.
The Blue Boar will still be owned by Punch Taverns from August. But Punch will bring in it’s own managers, replacing Adam Tutt and Emily Harman who have worked so hard to make it a great place to be and a pub at the centre of the community.
Chain managed pubs tend to gravitate towards a blandness. Walk into a Punch Tavern in one town, and it will have the feel of a Punch Tavern in other towns. There are exceptions to chain pub conformity. The Blue Boar and the Squirrel are two examples.
What is there not to like about the Blue Boar? Excellent beer and wine, great food. That atmospheric buzz that makes this pub so much more comforting than all those bars or restaurants that have great drink and food, lots of chatter but don’t feel like they are a place to linger and mix.
The Blue Boar used to be a horrific dive. Sticky floors and tables. Lousy staff. Violence and drugs. It was shut in November 2014 after the police and Shropshire Council gave it a notice to close its doors within 24 hours and removed its Designated Premises Supervisor. At a hearing just before Christmas that year, a licencing hearing was held in Shirehall. Punch Taverns fessed up. A new licence was issued and Adam Tutt, then running the Chang Thai, took the helm. When the Thai closed, he was joined by Emily Hardman at the Boar. They have made a great team with great staff.
Central to the licencing hearing were statements by residents of Mill Street and the town centre area. They said they wanted the pub to remain open and become a good pub at the heart of the community. That’s what happened.
The pub will never again be vile den like it once was. I fear it might become a bland, anywhere pub.
This is terrible, terrible news. Emily is a huge part of the success of the Blue Boar.
Why would anyone want to interfere with that winning formula?
It will be a different pub, with different managers.
Hi, sad news indeed. Do we know if Punch Taverns are proposing to terminate Adam and Emily’s tenancy against their wishes? If so a highly concerted resident response to Punch might have some impact – particularly if they think they are going to damage the popularity of the pub. I was involved in a similar story in a Marston’s pub in Bewdley some years ago – and we got them to back down.
This one of the best pubs I have ever been in, and I have been in a lot. The drinks are outstanding and the staff are brilliant. Punch Taverns are a property company which would not know a good pub if it bit them you know where. How do we go about complaining about this daft decision.