The Star Inn

Welcome to Geddington
The phrase Under New Management usually means a significant change in a business and this management change looks like a change for the better.

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Richard Freeman and his wife, Helen, have taken on The Star Inn with a 20 year lease. “We intend to stay and return this pub to the ‘go to’ pub that it used to be, with people driving out to Geddington, intent on a good meal, in good company.”

Richard has plenty of business experience, having run his own engineering firm for over 10 years and Helen has used her skills in pubs both in the kitchen and behind the bar, as well as serving as pub relief manager, at a variety of pubs.

This will certainly be a family business with daughter, Steph, currently behind the bar, son, Jon, helping out wherever work is needed, whilst Alex, still at school, makes himself useful whenever he can. And then there’s the in-laws, with even more knowledge and with time to help – so plenty of experience, both in the trade and in business, to make this a pub with a future.

Richard has future plans to extend the catering side of the pub, with earlier opening hours: serving teas and coffees to parents bringing their children to school, to walkers and cyclists, and all those tourists who keep asking: is there anywhere I can get a cup of tea?  There’s only one fly in the ointment at the moment – he’s in desperate need for an experienced cook for Mondays and Tuesdays, 12 – 2pm, when the family takes a break from supplying food. Richard says, “It’s not a chef job, I just need someone who can prepare and cook good home-cooked meals, for a couple of hours each of those days.”

Richard also plans to make The Star attractive as a place for business lunches. In fact, Richard said, “I’ve been told of the days when the place was too busy to book a meal! I plan to achieve that again.”

The Freeman family have the benefit of the backing of the pub owners, the Wellington Pub Company who, along with the Criterion Asset Management Company, are part of the Reuben Brothers’ group of companies. With over 850 tenanted pubs, it is the largest free-of-tie pub estate in the UK.

The Wellington Pub Company has said that to have a successful pub, it needs to give a good first impression to any customer and not just the interior, which Richard is having redecorated at present.  The owners have indicated that they will improve the exterior of the building by:

*   Pointing up some of the stonework
*   Retiling the roof where necessary
*   Resurface the car park
*   Repairing the stone mullions in the windows.

Richard said, “The owners have said that I can do as I like with The Star Inn, as long as it remains a pub and I pay the rent!” He continued, “I am well aware of the responsibility that I have taken on with The Star. Apart from its historical interest in general, it plays, and has played for centuries, a large part in village life, sitting as it does, in the village centre. Local support since we came here four weeks ago, has been wonderful and I intend to keep it as a welcoming social meeting place.”

To contact The Star Inn go to:
www.thegeddingtonstar.co.uk or call 01536 745990.