Pub Awards: Best Newcomer – The Old Volunteer, Nottingham

They have plans to open another two sites in the next few years, but in the meantime, their focus is firmly on this cracker of a pub.

A successful career in IT allowed them to shift focus to indulge their shared passion for real ale and having won a number of awards for their beer, they’ve now moved their award-winning skills into the pub sector.

The dramatic figures – turning a pub from a couple of hundred pounds a week into more than a thousand pounds a night - shows that despite being new to the trade, they have managed to turnaround a failing pub and even on a Monday evening, the place was lively and full of regulars, young and old when judges visited.

The pair clearly have a huge passion for the industry and the business they run and they throw that passion into making the pub fly with a close attention to the little details that add up to big success.

The Old Volunteer is a traditional, turn of the century pub a few miles away from Nottingham city centre, and was a perfect fit for the couple’s plans - they weren’t interested in an ‘off the shelf’ modern pub, and wanted a venue that would appeal to all.

Judge James Evison said: “The Old Volunteer is fantastic example of two new licensees turning around a pub and making it into a very successful business. The passion and desire shined through alongside the financials, and the attention to detail of all aspects of the business was evident in the licensees’ award application and site visit, which itself could be used as a gold standard of how to begin a career in the pub trade.”