Pub to the rescue with school dinners

A pub has once more come to the rescue of local primary school pupils by providing them with hot school lunches.

The Boat Inn in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire, is inviting local pupils to eat their meals in the pub ­ solving a two-year-old problem.

And the headteacher at Stoke Bruerne CE Primary School, Janis Zakis, said pupils and parents have welcomed the move ­ which he felt wouldn¹t have been possible before the smoking ban.

Despite all the hype around the importance of healthy, hot school dinners, the school couldn¹t find a caterer that would take them on.

It was told that providing meals for just 52 pupils wasn't profitable enough.

Two years on, and the teachers at the school realised that the answer was less than 100 yards from their door in the form of the Boat Inn.

The pub's joint-owner Jack Woodward, 83, attended the school, as did his sons Nick and Andrew.

Continuing the tradition, Nick's two eldest children also went there, so the family felt a duty to help out.

And it has been providing dinners at £2 a head since the beginning of term.

Nick said: "We are doing this for the community. Maybe their parents will come down and use our facilities ­ that's all well and good. So long as we don¹t lose money that¹s OK."

The Boat Inn provides a three-week rotating menu of meals made from scratch in their kitchens.

So far a third of pupils have taken up the offer. Stoke Bruerne's dining slot is before the main lunch rush and pupils sit in an area away from the bar.

The Boat Inn is the latest pub to dish up school dinners, following the Harvest Moon in Bridgwater, Somerset, and the Crooked Billet in Stoke Row, Oxfordshire.

Another pub, the King's Head in Theddlethorpe, Lincolnshire, dedicated its entire kitchen output to school dinners after featuring in the Jamie¹s Return to School Dinners TV programme.