Everards and The Royal Oak, Kirby Muxloe

Before the pandemic began back in March 2020, Sarah and Bob, business owners of The Royal Oak had just seen their vision of combining their previous deli business with their new pub venture come to life, as they re-opened the doors to their new pub deli - only to close them again just a week later.

Having successfully ran a delicatessen across the road for 5 years, they were ready for a change and a challenge and to offer more to their existing customers and their local community.

They knew as soon as the pub became available that this was an opportunity they did not want to pass up!

Sarah and Bob had big plans for the pub!

They knew that they wanted to continue with the deli and has worked very hard on moving the deli over into the pub and making it feel at home within the building.

“It was important to us to bring the deli with us, it was important to our community and we had worked hard in those five years to get it the fantastic reputation it has. We also knew our customers would not let the village lose this asset – and they didn’t have to. We knew if we worked hard the pub could be both." said Sarah.

Sarah continued: "We are so happy to say that just before lockdown we were successful in integrating a new deli in a portion of the pub which means we can open the pub all day from breakfast until dinner and welcome everyone in the community at different times to provide a service important to them.

We have to say this whole thing so far has been hard! The first few months were challenging. Being new to the pub industry and the stresses of initially running 2 separate businesses at the same time was not easy. What was reassuring though was the support that was provided by Everards; they were always happy to offer support and advice regarding any queries we had.

Having been coming to the Royal Oak as customers for many years we always knew that the it had the potential to be a fantastic pub and something the local community could be proud of. With the help of Martin, our business relationship manager we were able to turn our ideas for The Royal Oak into plans and Everards were fantastic at showing us other ideas and had some fantastic suggestions of their own.

Everards were behind us every step of the way with our refurbishment and we are so happy with the final results!"