Hear from our pub tenants

Curly & Jean Chandler
The Rainbow, Middle Assendon, Henley-on-Thames
Brakspear pub tenant since: 1989

"We've just celebrated 20 years with Brakspear Pubs and they've been good ones. A good pub company is one that lets you get on with running a pub the way you think best but is still there to offer advice if you need it, and help to get through any difficult patches. That's just how Brakspear approaches its pubs, and it has suited us well, we've always felt we could call our BDM, or speak to someone at the Henley office, and they'd make an effort to sort out whatever we needed.

"We feel more as though we're part of a big family than a pubco, especially since Mickey and Tom Davies have got involved - they've turned it back into a family-run company again, as it was when we first joined it. "

Les & Julie Gordon
The Leathern Bottle, Lewknor, Oxfordshire
Brakspear pub tenant since: 1998

“The Leathern Bottle has been in our family since 1980, when Julie’s father took on the pub tenancy. We moved to the pub in 1988 and helped to run it: I worked in the kitchen with my mother-in-law and Julie went front of house with her dad.

When Julie’s dad retired in 1998, we bought the pub tenancy from him and we’ve continued to run it on broadly the same lines - a great village pub where everyone knows each other. We’ve always tried to employ people from the village to work here, to keep the local feel.

“We’ve been through some tough times at the pub: the foot & mouth outbreak hit us badly and this recession is hurting – more than the one in the early 1990s. Brakspear has always done what it can to help , which has meant a lot to us. No pub company can make your pub business a success – only you can do that, and it can be hard work at times, but we’ve always had the help and support of Brakspear.”