A LANDMARK BEVERLEY PUB IS PREPARING TO REOPEN AFTER ITS MULTI-MILLION POUND TRANSFORMATION INTO A POTTING SHED GASTRO PUB.
New owners Leeds-based Burning Night Group has ploughed £1.5million into remodeling Hodgsons in Beverley’s Flemingate, creating a modern bar and restaurant with a quirky garden theme.
In keeping with its name, The Potting Shed will have an emphasis on the outdoors, with brightly-coloured wooden sheds in the gardens for private bench seating, hanging baskets, terracotta plant pots on each of the tables, a BBQ and an indoor lawned area complete with fencing and box hedges. There’s even a few friendly garden gnomes to keep an eye on customers!
Menus focus on ‘feeding, watering, sharing’ – with freshly made pizzas from the pub’s wood-burning oven, chargrilled gourmet burgers, grills, classics and sharing platters served from 12 noon every day, while the venue has also attracted a number of top drinks brands.
Hendrick’s gin, known for its unique infusion of juniper, rose and cucumber, is partnering with The Potting Shed to create a special gin offering on its first floor, while Perrier-Jouët champagne will be adding fizz to the diverse drinks menu which also includes craft ales, world lagers, fine wines and cocktails.
Since it took over the site in the spring, the new owners have given the formerly run-down two-storey pub a complete revamp and a new lease of life.
The Beverley venue, which is opposite the £120m Flemingate regeneration area, is the second for Potting Shed Trading Limited, which opened its first in Bingley, West Yorkshire in April last year. That proved such a success that the company decided to roll out the brand, opting for Beverley as its next location with further openings already planned.
Hodgsons was chosen because of a combination of its location – close to the heart of the town and East Yorkshire’s newest retail and leisure destination Flemingate – and its huge potential for renovation.
Director Allan Harper explained: “Beverley is a beautiful place and we hope it mirrors the success of our Bingley site. Flemingate is a thriving area, it made sense for us to be a part of that, and we wanted to bring something which we felt wasn’t already here in the town. The building had such a lot of opportunities, and it has incredible views of the Minster which we wanted to make the most of.”
The Burning Night Group not only invested £1.5million in the transformation, carried out by the group’s architects JS Design, it created more than 80 jobs in the process.
The result is a city centre-style gastro pub which its owners hope will be up-market but not elitist.
Isaac Mayne, Head of Marketing and Promotions, added: “We want this to be somewhere that feels accessible to everyone. It will be child-friendly and dog-friendly and we are keeping our prices at a level so everyone can enjoy it. At the same time, because it’s such a great looking place, we want it to become somewhere people go to see and be seen.”
The Potting Shed in Beverley will launch on Thursday August 18. It has a programme of special events planned to coincide with the opening in addition to regular drinks offers, live music and live sport screening.
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