Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Hunger strike for mad Tonbridge landlord....

Blimey who'd be a pub landlord. This appears to be a genuine open letter to the boss of Enterprise Inns, who own the property and lease out three Tonbridge pubs to Colm Powel, a self proclaimed "Mad Irish Landlord" who has started a web site called Dying for the pub trade. I'm pretty sure that the three in question are the Punch and Judy, near the Police station, The Ivy House, and the, now closed, Station House. So incensed is he that he is prepared to go on hunger strike to make his point about the slow lingering death of the pub trade. Now that is mad! (And thanks to the anonymous commenter for drawing this one to my attention. Good luck to him because I'm sure it's a noble cause; although I would say that other pubs seem to make a bit more of an effort with service, I speak mainly of the Ivy House here, where I sometimes frequent. I like the place but it could be so much better with more attentive bar staff instead of a succession of ever changing student and foreign barmaids who, no doubt, do a great job during the couple of months they are there before they move on; and a manager who is actually there now and again would be nice. As for the Station House well I only went to that particular den of iniquity a few times and it's the closest Tonbridge had to one of those road houses you see on American films were they have pool table brawls and the regulars slap the barmaids on the butt at every opportnity and if they have live music on the band better be behind chicken wire for the bottles and cans of beer are sure to rain down on them (although probably not at their prices!) The P&J as it is now known, is probably the best run of the three, which isn't saying a great deal; and the food used to be very tastey. If you could actually breath in there (before the smoking ban) then that was an added bonus....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In fact Colm Powel was not a self proclaimed "Mad Irish Landlord" but it was an insult (rascist as well, some have said) by one of Enterpise Inns' staff in a feeble attempt to discredit him.
I think he made a decent and brave gesture and hopefully did some good.
Three cheers for Colm I reckon.