Packington Landlord Aims to Start Pop-Up Pub And Go 'On Tour' To Beat Lockdown

By Graham Hill

28th May 2020 | Local News

A pop-up pub is being planned in Packington while the Coronavirus lockdown is in place.

The Bull and Lion owners Darren and Janice Gould are looking at ways of serving drinks once more without breaking any of the Government guidelines. 

And he wants to start pulling pints from a converted horse box in the pub's car park.

Not only that, he is seeking permission from the relevant authorities to take the mobile hostelry on tour in the area to towns and villages.

The Bull and Lion, like every pub in the country, was forced to close in March, meaning their business dried up overnight.

But Darren is already looking to the future and hopes a mini-version of his pub could prove to be a hit.

He wants social distancing measures to be put in place while restrictions remain in force.

But says it could be possible to put benches and tables around the pop-up so that people could meet while keeping a two metre distance.

Darren had planned to use the horse box anyway before the lockdown - with takeaway food being served from another similar vehicle.

But now he thinks the idea could be a way of generating business until he gets the green light to open the High Street pub.

"We'd like to take it out on tour to those places to they can have a pub again, and hopefully we'll get permission from the District Council to be able to do that," he explained.

"We'd obviously keep to distancing rules and the pop-up is legal. Now we're trying to be pro-active.

"It'll be the pub that comes to you.

"It even looks like a pub as well.

"A lot of people miss the pub, the chit-chat, if we can bring that back again it would be great.

"But we have to be careful and will look at the licensing laws."

Darren admits the last two months have been devastating for pubs.

But he says he has built so much goodwill serving amazing food and drinks since November that he says the Bull and Lion can bounce back.

He added: "Marston's brewery have been great with us and we're just waiting to go back and open again.

"In the meantime, we want our business open again.

"The Pop-Up was for weddings and festivals, we were going from strength to strength.

"Eventually we want to do open-air streetfood as well as serving drinks.

"We want to come back with a bounce. We're very pro-active as people."

But Darren says the pub has also played its part in the community.

He added: 'We've done our bit as a little company for local charities during the lockdown.

"Please enquire with our team for booking for your events our diary is filling fast for this year and next year."

     

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