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22
Feb
Grewelthorpe pub to reopen under new ownership
After a two-year closure, The Crown Inn at Grewelthorpe is set to reopen its doors under new ownership.
Charlotte and Sean Boyce bought the site from Admiral Taverns last year but have spent the last few months renovating the upstairs area of the building, where they now live.
The Boyce’s, who also own Storehouse Kitchen and Storehouse Bar & Eatery in Ripon, told the Stray Ferret they had “always had this idea we’d have a pub in the future”.
“We used to live in Kirkby Malzeard, so we know the pub and the area. When this came to the market, we just thought this could be the right one”, Sean said.
The Stray Ferret asked the new owners what customers old and new can expect from the pub. They said:
It’s always been a traditional English pub – that’s what we remember it as – and we have tried to recreate that. We wanted to create the perfect, traditional English pub.
There aren’t many good, old-fashioned pubs left. We want it to be that. There will be roaring fires, traditional food, local ales.
Sean said people have asked him and Charlotte if the menu will be similar to their Ripon restaurant.
He told us:
We say: ‘not really’. We’re doing traditional pub food – all homemade. It’s not going to be a gastropub or a food destination, it will be a pub that serves food. You can come here for a pint, a sandwich at lunchtime or a Sunday roast.
There will be pie and mash, local sausages and gravy, fish and chips. The kind of stuff you’d expect to see done nicely.
So, we’re using the team we’ve already got – we’ve added one more chef to the team – so there will always be one of them cooking here.
The Boyce’s are working with local brewery Theakston’s and are currently waiting on planning permission to put up new signage with the brewery’s branding on.
“We’ll have local ales, and we just want to create a cozy, traditional pub environment”, Sean said.
The Crown Inn at Grewelthorpe. The owners are awaiting new signage.
The Crown Inn has also undergone a makeover since Charlotte and Sean took it over.
Old furniture and carpets have been removed and replaced, the bar and rear dining room have been renovated, and all cellar equipment has been replaced, Sean and Charlotte said.
Original wooden benches and cast-iron-based tables have also been retained.
But they told the Stray Ferret things are “still a work in progress”, with the kitchen yet to be refurbished and furniture still to be finalised.
The new owners said:
We haven’t changed the layout; we’re not fundamentally changing what the pub is. We’re just trying to clean it up.
The dining room area. The new owners said the refurb is "still a work in progress".
Charlotte and Sean also plan to hire local people to work at the pub.
Sale history
Although the pub has been taken on privately, it was heading for a different path at one stage.
Friends of the Crown, a not-for-profit group formed after the pub closed, worked towards buying The Crown Inn and converting it into a community pub.
The group submitted an offer to buy the site last April, which was accepted by Admiral Taverns. The offer was subject to funding however, and Friends of the Crown had to find £450,000 to fund the purchase and refurbishments.
It applied for a grant of up to £250,000 from the government’s community ownership fund at the time and required a further £200,000 of community donations.
However, Friends of the Crown said on social media “another party” was set to complete the purchase of the pub last July.
It said at the time:
Naturally, we are disappointed that we have been unable to bring our plans for a community pub to fruition, but time and events have overtaken us, as they say.
However, having met the new owners and heard about their plans for The Crown, we feel very confident that before too long Grewelthorpe will once again have a thriving village pub back at its heart, which is, after all, what we always wanted.
The Stray Ferret asked Sean and Charlotte about this. They told us:
We were always quite conscious that obviously we didn’t want to turn up, buy the local village pub and be the enemy because you’ve scuppered their plans. We met two committee members, and it was very positive.
It became clear that their objective was to not lose the pub. They didn’t want it to be bought by a property developer, and they didn’t want to see it just sit here and go to ruin as a lot of other pubs have done.
Since then, locals have been incredibly supportive, Sean and Charlotte said, often stopping to hear about their plans for the pub.
The Crown Inn at Grewelthorpe, which also has a beer garden, is set to open towards the end of March. An official date has not yet been confirmed.
It will open from 4pm on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and from 11am on Saturdays and Sundays.
The pub will then operate all day, every day from Easter.
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