The Jolly Porter, Exeter

JP is now closed for 5 weeks for a refurb under the new company. I was there from Dec 2004 to May 2005. Back along, anyone who came in would remember Paul + Paula, Andy and Martin behind the bar and I joined just after P+P left. At that point, we had an awesome bar and the most expensive pint was �1.96 - Kronenbourg. We looked after our ales and tried to get on with as many customers as poss- think we managed quite well. Under the reign of Spirit Group, we managed to keep the prices low under temp management and Mark "Egg" Adams. It all went downhill in March 2005 when the pub was taken over by a holding company with none of the backing of a decent brewery. "The Pub Company" was run by people with no idea of the local trade or clientele, and was the cause of the spurious opening / closing record. For some reason there was also a bad stock take at this time, and the beer was bloody awful....

We've welcomed Darren and Claire to the pub now, who used to run the Ship and Pelly in Heavitree and they're doing a bang up job of getting it back to how it used to be.

It's never gonna go back to how cheap it was in the hey day, but in fairness at least you can leave the toilets with dry feet these days.

DanielJudeCook, can't blame you for what you said about how bad the pub was, but hopefully if you read this, you'll give Darren and Claire a chance to change your mind.

On a separate note about the refit, it's gonna open the pub up a bit, give more space in the main bar, and as far as I'm aware do a proper clean thorugh.

Acoustic music (open mic) on the Monday evenings was working pretty well, and I'm sure the incentives to return will continue.

Cheers!

Ginge.

21 Mar 2006 14:15