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Nikki, are you on the Frog and Fly yet? One or two of us would like to have a chat. If you don't want to sign up, you can contact me at www.bujman.com/email Irene I registered Irene but haven't been in for a pint yet! I'll call over now and see how you're all doing :o)   Nigel - we're V S Glos. Between Chepstow and Lydney. I think we'll be gone by the end of the week but we're staying in the area. I'll go and look through your site too, before I sign this new contract for our second attempt!   One thing that has given me some confidence is that the people who own the pub we want in to have insisted that our solicitor looks over the rental agreement etc whereas the pubco just said 'it's all fairly basic, just sign here, here and here... (we now own your soul)'

Thanks Nigel, That sounds like a good idea and something that could be a great launching pad to introduce us to the locals while supporting a good cause at the same time.   Food is definatley where our focus will be but we are flexible enough to see that the business and locals might have different needs that we will have to meet if we are to survive in this game.   We've explored the local pubs (mixed bunch) and none have the space for a childrens area so that's an something we want to 'exploit'. There's also a good chunk of land around us so we are considering a polytunnel to grow some of our own produce - it probably won't save us anything but it's another selling point that will make us stand out. We're even considering having some animals  on the land - there's a chicken coop already there - not for eating but just to have another talking point.

Thanks guys for the advice.   I'm going to spend the next day or 2 getting everything in order here and gettting ready for some kind of move. Sunday should be busy enough to cover wages owed and anything else can wait for a couple of weeks for the house to sell. We've a funeral reception booked for a week on Friday and then we'll close the doors and take a drink to the hard lesson learned.   I suppose on a posative note, that if we had sold when expected we'd have signed the lease proper and be stuck here with the problems and no option to quit. Better loosing £20k than £65 eh?   This second pub we are looking at is free of tie and leased from a place that owns just 2 pubs that they bought as an investment. They seem a really human company but, because they are only small, they need to get people in asap. They have said that they want us there but that the other interested party is waving cash at them and pushing  to get in, so I don't know how much time we have left. If it doesn't happen then at least we will have some cash from the house sale that we can get a rented house, keep the kids in school, and look again from scratch and without the pressure of trying to keep this sinking ship from going under.   Just in case... if you know of a nice pub on the market at a very reasonable price then let me know lol. We're a 3 man band - 2 great chef's and 1 front of house with event management and marketing experience.   Again, thank you for the advice and good luck to everyone who can't just 'up and run'.   Nikki

When we came to this place the pubco had set the rent at around £1000 a week based on their projected turnover. Turns out their projections were way off target but the rent stood for several weeks before we were able to get a reduction negotiated. With the F&F rental, insurances, cellar maintenance blah blah blah we are now 5 months into it and around £17K in debt. They can't give us any copy of figures to show exactly what the money is for and have a charge issued on the sale of our house to cover our debt.   We did get a reduction to £100pw for a couple of months but that is back up to £500 now. Our takings are still less than £1k a week and it's a huge place so heating, lighting & staffing all add up even if customers don't!   We can see why the business is failing - we're too far from any housing, the last 3 tennants (we didn't know there had been 3 in 12 months) had a terrible reputation that we are only just breaking through now and it needs some serious refurbishment to make the restaurant (big 80 seater) more intimate and modern and the gardens more interesting and child friendly. At the minute the only time we get busy is for Sunday carvery and this just isn't the style of business we wanted to run.   The only businesses in the area that are doing well (from what we can see with staffing levels, bums on seats etc) are the country pubs with good food offerring. This is exactly what the second place could be. There's no books for it and we're told that the last tennants left due to 'personal problems' but the grapevine says his chef hung himself and his wife left him... haven't figured if this was anything to do with the business or not!   I think we have decided that we'd rather not throw good money after bad and leave here before the debt gets any bigger. Maybe if we'd come in knowing everything from the start but retrospect is wonderful!

 as long as there is still some poor misguided, ill informed,inexperienced person wandering around with rose coloured spectacles on and 40k in their pocket the breweries and pub co's will keep sticking them in pubs because they know in 6 months time they will do it again.   That was us in November - now we stand to lose the money we put in, our business and our home. I'm sick with nerves and don't know if I should just call it a day and find a job somewhere to help pay off the mountain of debts? Our pubxo's estimated turnover was £500K pa... so far it looks closer to £50K and that doesn't cover the original rent (tho they are negotiating a lower ent for us at the minute) Meeting today with regional manager... keep them crossed for us. :o(