Last day today!

Yep - that's it at last..... after months of talking about it, the day has finally come that we're closed from close of business tonight until (hopefully) the 29th/30th January in order for our re-furbishment to take place.

We've got a few Steaks, Burgers and Fish dishes left for tonight, but sod all else! A little bit of Dartmoor Ale left likewise, but otherwise SOH has been his usual fantastic self and got the ordering spot on!

All of the team is in tomorrow morning at 9 to start stripping out, boxing, sorting and packing with the removal lorries coming at 11 to take down the pictures, dismantle furniture and take everything away. The contractors come in at 7.30 Monday morning and with good luck and a fair wind the work will start.

Its been a slightly fraught couple of days as we came the closest ever to being flooded with the water ending just 7 feet approximately from our front door.............. the rest of the town was not so lucky with pictures of a local RNLI guy sailing his boat down the high street making Sky News!! However, as I say we were ok and received lots of messages asking and hoping that we were all ok!

Wish us well for tomorrow and we'll see you all soon,

Liz x



Happy New Year

 

 

Just a very short blog from Tim, myself and all of our fantastic team. You've made 2013 another incredible year for us here at the Victoria Inn and as we start to look forward to our amazing re-furb starting on Monday we are filled with excitement, slight nervousness and a sprinkling of trepidation!!

 

But we just know that we are going to be offering you a fantastic new pub in which you are going to love spending even more time with us. It will retain the best of the best features and some amazing new ones including; comfy seating upstairs, window seats for you to watch the Salcombe world go by, easier access to the garden and a new refined menu along with some great little surprises!

 

I'd like to take this opportunity to also say a huge thank you to our brewery St Austell for having the faith in us as a business to afford us the opportunity for this re-furb and in particular to our friend Jim Sloan, Business Manager who supports us at every opportunity and is always there with guidance, ideas and enthusiasm.

 

Our team never fail to delight us with their passion for our business and their commitment to customer happiness is key in everything they do. So to Glo, Rob, Jess, Karen, Craig and Jade - our front of house team - Thank you so much and keep going the extra inch. To James, Tania, Stuart, Adam and our two apprentices Aaron and Blake - without the high standard of your cooking and presentation we would have no customers, so huge thanks to you all!

 

To my lovely Tim who puts up with my passion for our business showing itself in a myriad of ways including temper tantrums, exhaustion and sheer delight when it all goes swimmingly - I love you!!

 

So that's it - the Oscar speech for 2013 is all but done, other than to say we close the doors to the Vic at 10.30p.m on Saturday 4th January - we shall probably be having a food sale with some great prices on that Saturday and maybe some reduced ale prices as well. We then hope to open for business on either the 29th or 30th January.

 

I'll blog, face book; https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Victoria-Inn-Salcombe/136141733123940?ref=hl  Twitter; https://twitter.com/Victoriainnsalc  and you-tube (put in Victoria Inn Salcombe in the search part)  wherever possible to keep you all updated on the works progress.

 

Lastly, and by no means least a huge THANK YOU to YOU, yes YOU our customers for your loyalty, friendship and business.

 

Liz xxx

Christmas Eve.........



 

Its Christmas Eve 2013 and I was so pleased that Father Christmas kept his word and visited the Victoria Inn last weekend to see 65 girls and boys who came to tell him that they'd been good children and whisper what they hoped would be in their stockings or round the tree on Christmas morning.  Some of us found it quite emotional with the very small children as it ignited many personal memories of Christmases past.

 

The stall holders turned up and had a fairly good trade - some more than others, but generally I think everyone did ok and we raised £186 in total - which is not to bad at all! Those proceeds will be split between the Salcombe First Responders and Egremont Trust Charities.  

 

The weather has been absolutely awful and has had a huge impact on trade throughout the town, so we are desperately watching news bulletins and hoping and praying that our visitors WILL be able to come down.

 

The Carol Service round the tree was transferred to the Church last night because of the weather and we had 2 large parties cancel - however, despite all of that, we had a great night and the pub rocked!!

 

We are pleased to say that we are fully booked for New Years Eve unless anyone wants to eat early, and we have just a few tables for tonight.

 

So, can Tim, Myself and all the team take this opportunity to wish all of our customers, suppliers & colleagues at St Austell Brewery a Very Happy & Peaceful Christmas!  

 

Love to you all,

Liz xxx

 

Christmas Fayre

This weekend - Saturday 21st & Sunday 22nd at the Victoria Inn - our first ever Christmas Fayre!! From 11.00 till about 5'ish............. Father Christmas has agreed to come and visit for the two days and there will be lots of craft stalls, pictures, photo's, produce, antiques (no - not me, cheeky!!), books, decorations, cakes (Sunday) and lots, lots more!!!

 

 

Entrance is just £1 to see Father Christmas and lots of hard work has gone into this, so I hope you'll come and support the event.  All monies raised will be split between the Egremont Trust and Salcombe First Responders.  

Its the last Christmas........

As were putting the decs up this week ( I say WE in the very loosest terms!) I realised that this was the last Christmas our pub will look like this! As in less than a month now the sledgehammer will go against the wall that's coming down and gorgeousness will begin.

The tree will no longer stand where it is now and only in our individual minds eyes and the eyes of our architect can we dream about how beautiful our Victoria will shortly look!  

As usual the team have made Christmas a reality in our fabulous pub and the minute you walk in, you're treated to festivity, lights, candles and the smell of mulled wine wafting through the air - alongside a range of home made special vodkas and a couple of cocktails - Long Island Mint Tea being thoroughly, wickedly, lovely!

I think we are all of the mind that we are ready for this re-furb to start now - we seem to have spent ages and ages talking about it, but the lighting man came out to discuss with us this week about the lighting we'll be having and I felt the first real frisson of excitement as I actually saw in my head how beautiful this pub of ours will look.

We have the new menu's ready to go, with some prices actually reduced - particularly the childrens meals - the wine list is re-vamped and the new team uniforms are here.  Some new discount cards as well - more of that to come over the next month or so.

The only slight disappointment so far is that in the middle of the newly re-furbished upstairs of our pub it looks unlikely that we'll be able to have a log burning stove so we are desperately seeking eye catching centre piece ideas............... if you have any thoughts (clean ones please - not involving pole dancing or naked chefs) then do let me know! I fancy a large Ships wheel or copper divers suit (properly lit of course) but it seems the world and its mother have differing ideas, so that's a real work in progress!

See you 21st & 22ndDecember at the Vic!

But before the re-furb comes Christmas and New Year with NYE bookings coming in nicely and this year we have also secured a couple of Christmas parties which is always nice to get every one in the swing of the festivities.

A shortened trip to my family next weekend (sadly one night only) and then we have our Christmas Fayre here at the Vic on the Saturday on Saturday 21st and  Sunday 22nd - 11.00 to 5 ish. 

Father Christmas has very kindly agreed to come and say hello to all the children here in Salcombe for those two days before he jets off across the world. Lots of stalls lined up - from decorations to cakes, jewellery to children's books, sweets and jams, so lots of fun for everyone!  

Got to go now - so very, very busy.................

Much love

Liz x

Our 'journey' has started

Yes, we're off!!! The re-furbishment started yesterday with a pre-contract meeting at the Victoria Inn and as you can see I was in the company of a lot of very nice men!! We learnt yesterday (and met) the firm that are going to doing the works and bless me if it isn't a Portsmouth firm (remember I'm a Pompey girl!!) so that was a great start. Cummings & Pope are the contractors - people that our brewery St Austell have used many times and have a fantastic reputation for the work they do. Gareth the boss was there and we met Gary who's the foreman - they were really great and explained the how, why and what will be happening. Adam Luck and Jim Sloan from the brewery were there, along with Nigel from the maintenance dept. Ricci our very talented architect from Hollington Architects was there, as was Matt (who has a great eye for detail) down South company Trading Spaces, Sam who's project manager, a H & S chap, a structural engineer and  us!! Phew...........but a starting point of Coffee and cake was a good beginning. Although a pint of Tribute was suggested - but may have been just a little early.

 

We will be closing from Sunday 6th January 2014, and we hope to be re-opening a little over three weeks later on Wednesday 29th or Thursday 30th January!! The trouble is of course that we are a listed building and whilst it has had a whole load of knocking about over the years they will not know what is behind walls until they start knocking them down........... Gareth was really honest about this but still incredibly sure they will be able to do the works within about a three week timescale. Adam decided yesterday that it would be appropriate to do external decorations at the same time - so can I ask you all to start sending thoughts out to the universe for good weather in January!!

 

I hope you will be able to see the 'mood board' on the right of this post - and some of the colours and styles we will be using in this re-furb. Beautiful fabrics, muted colours, mirrored walls - sensational! We are absolutely and resolutely keeping to the fact we are a great traditional pub - there is going to be very little change in that - but we will be bigger, and I absolutely guarantee that the window tables with their magnificent views being planned for upstairs will be FOUGHT over!!!!

 

The meeting went on for hours yesterday and my head was spinning - now my head is spinning today for having over indulged in Champagne last night!! Hey ho!!!

 

On top of that I'm planning a Christmas Fayre at the Vic for Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd December along with Father Christmas........... I've received incredible support from local people looking to sell all sorts of goodies - so that's going to be very special. 

 

At the Devon Life awards last week, we were disappointed not to win (of course) but LOVED the evening - they threw a great bash! Paris last weekend was amazing and my SOH gave me a weekend to remain in my memory for ever - but phew! How expensive was some bits of it!! One board we saw said that an average day in Paris was about 120 euros. The weather was reasonable but Saturday afternoon was awful, absolutely fantastic meal Saturday evening and our Hotel was just round the corner from the Arc de Triumphe.

 

I've also this week been to a Taste of the West (we hold a Bronze award from them!) networking event at Burts crisps just outside of Plymouth. Great to see how they make the crisps and I was so impressed at how pure their product is - a distinct lack of additives, and also to see how great their staff are - and also when you see the name on the back of the person who fried it, that's who they REALLY are!! http://www.burtschips.com/ Came away with a few goodies as well as words of praise from the man who helped start up Burts about our lovely pub.    

 

Apart from a quick trip back to Portsmouth to see my family before Christmas for a day or 2 visit, we now have a fairly packed diary of meetings, fact finding visits to other excellent St Austell pubs to look at good practice etc, the Christmas Fayre to prepare for (300 gifts to wrap!!) menu's to think of for the re-opening of the pub etc etc etc............ phew!!!!!

I hope to keep you all informed of the re-furb as it goes on through our Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Victoria-Inn-Salcombe/136141733123940

Our Twitter account https://twitter.com/Victoriainnsalc and maybe YouTube as well.

Liz x

Head spin



Most of our great team after some Customer Experience training!

 

I am literally in a head spin at the moment - it is one of those times in the business when everything is coming together at once!!  So literally in a head spin that I managed to fall over my own feet in the middle of Fore Street and land face down prostrate in front of the Post Office!!! I swear not a drop from behind the bar had touched my lips........

 

Anyway, moving swiftly on  - we are certainly managing to pack quite a lot into our days.  Last week saw us going to a Marine salvage yard outside of Exeter - a place called Dunsford. Wow!! Who would have thought in the middle of this luscious green space their would be three hangers full of ships (and aircraft!) artifacts!!!! Do you know its about NINE weeks till the re-furb starts........???? Jeepers!!! Anyway - back to the matter in hand - the refurb!    Here are two types of tables we can use for the comfy seating areas that will be upstairs in the Vic; 1) Beautiful wooden chests (although there was one that was really old and a bit tatty that I really fell for!) and glass / riveted tables. Which one do you like best (Yes, YOU dear blog reader).

 

Alongside that we had a totally amazeballs Halloween.  Our resident Author Mark Fraser http://walkthelines.info/author/markfraser/ did a fantastic book reading of his new Halloween book. not once, but TWICE!! We were inundated with children of all ages.  We reckon somewhere between 120 to 140 - it was total and utter chaos!! But huge fun.......... Which meant of course that the pub was packed to the rafters, and even if I'd had a pub twice the size I think we would have still been full!  

 

Then we also as a team had a Customer Training session with our Management Coach Guy Arnold on Saturday at 9.a.m.  So hard to try and get everyone together, but we managed it all bar just 2!! We had lots of fresh cakes and pastries from our lovely French Baker Jerome, and all in all I think we took something away from the session to help us give you the customer a better experience when visiting us. That Saturday also saw the end of a very busy half term (which we were all very pleased about - the business, not the end!).

 

Then to top it all, we've decided to hold our own Christmas Fayre on Saturday 21st & Sunday 22nd December upstairs at the Victoria Inn.  We'll have our very own Father Christmas and I've got some great local people coming to sell pictures, jewellery and 'Crafts'.............. It should be great fun!! More of that to come in the next couple of blogs!