A historic Nantwich town centre pub is re-launching a new menu – just months after being given a new lease of life.
The Wickstead Arms was closed for six months and faced an uncertain future – until Harvey Nurse stepped in.
The Willaston Pubs Ltd boss, who has four venues in the region, has helped breath new life into the venue on Mill Street after teaming up with Punch Taverns to carry out a £200,000 refurbishment.
And this week, food will return to the Wickstead after he brought in new catering staff to serve its loyal customers.
Harvey has been in the pub trade for 25 years, and worked for Marstons Taverns where he became an operations director looking after a region of 350 pubs.
He also worked at Admiral Taverns in 2006 from the Chester office and left in 2011 to set up his own pub business.
Harvey, who also runs the Nag’s Head in Willaston, said: “The Wickstead is a very traditional town centre pub which attracts a whole range of customers.
“Real ale has been and is ever more a feature, along with sports and social clubs.
“We undertook a major refurb in November 2014 working with Punch Taverns and re-opened after six weeks in time for Christmas.
“We are now ready to re-launch the food offer with a new, exciting fresh menu with the right offer working with the new team.”
Emma Griffiths, 23, took over as manager in February.
“She was a natural choice as she was already a key member of the team and really loves the pub, customers and the business,” added Harvey.
“Her background is hospitality and she has always wanted to run her own pub/business.”
And young cook Bettie Pettitt, also in her 20s, joined the team this week to help launch the new menu.
“She has a passion for food and loves the ideas for the new menu that Emma and I come up with!”
The new menu is based around branded pie offer delivered by Pieminster, craft pie makers.
“We have called one of the pie offers on the menu Easypeasy!” added Harvey.
“We will also be offering an ever-changing special and fresh sandwich menu.
“Bettie is also going to bake some of her delicious desserts.
“We are quite ‘different’ from other pubs in Nantwich now , and aim to keep it that way.”
The Wickstead is open from midday every day.
Nice refurb to the old place but beer wasn’t that we’ll treated.
Tried two and was left a bit disappointed.
Ended up in the Crown as it has best taps in town.
Good to see another pub serving real ales in Nantwich. Hopefully it will be a great success.