MY PUB: The Boot, St Albans, Hertfordshire

The duo have recently extended their lease with Star Pubs until 2039 while Sean has two other hospitality businesses in the city – Dylans at the Kings Arms and Iberos – a new concept offering everything he loves from the Iberian peninsula.

Sean is also the founder of pub industry lobbying group Save St Albans Pubs. And here he tells The Morning Advertiser all about the Boot.

The pub

The Boot is a beautiful, old, Grade II-listed pub built in around 1420 and situated in the heart of St Albans’ historic cathedral quarter next to the clock tower.

Overlooking the site of the opening battle of the War of the Roses, the Boot was the first pub to be named as a ‘Battlefield Pub’ by The Battlefield Trust. It’s packed with character and charm including a sloping ceiling that is 6ft high at one end and 11ft at the other, and is heated by a log burner – customers love it.

In terms of layout, the Boot is a small, one-bar operation – there’s room for 40 people seated and 100 in total – with a horseshoe bar in the centre, giving it a wonderfully cosy, friendly feel. Other than that, there’s a tiny kitchen and, thanks to an easing in restrictions during the pandemic, outside seating for 48 customers, which is used year-round.

When we took the Boot over in 2004, it was dying and unloved with a handful of customers, five gaming machines, no real ales and only Stella on draught. We fell in love with it straightaway, although we knew it would be a huge amount of work to bring it back to life.

We’ve invested almost £1m during the past 20 years or so. It’s been a labour of love but worth it. The Boot is now a great-quality traditional pub known for its drinks selection – which includes eight cask ales – and its authentic Mexican food. We’re busier than ever.

We do around 600 brewers’ barrels of beer a year from one of the smallest pubs in the city. The only thing constraining us from growing the business further is the size of the pub.

The publican

When dad retired from a career in telecoms, he was looking for a new challenge, ideally a family business. He’d worked in pubs and I’d been pursuing a career in hospitality since leaving school so it made sense for us to join forces. We lived locally and, although the Boot was rundown, we knew the location was brilliant and recognised its potential.

We see ourselves as custodians of the Boot but each have our separate roles. We’re on a fully repairing and insuring (FRI) lease, and dad does everything property-related to keep the pub looking pristine – winning it an appearance decked out as a gingerbread house in Tesco’s 2024 Christmas ad.

I focus on driving trade and developing the Boot’s offer to keep it thriving. We feel lucky to have a pub in St Albans. It’s very community-focused and residents are incredibly supportive of the city’s locals. As a result, St Albans has among the highest number of pubs per square mile of anywhere in the UK. We want to keep it that way, which was one of the reasons I set up the Save St Albans Pubs campaign in 2017. This initially lobbied for business rates reform in St Albans but has grown into a nationwide organisation with hundreds of members across the country that also campaigns on other issues affecting the pub sector. It’s brought the licensees in St Albans a lot closer and we collaborate on activities that improve trade for us all.

Dad and I never thought we’d be at the Boot for so long. We can’t imagine life without it. Although I’ve got two other venues in St Albans, the Boot feels like home and the staff and customers are like extended family.

The trade

The Boot fulfils a range of needs and therefore has a wide variety of customers. We get behind a lot of St Albans initiatives. Consequently, it’s a real community local and social hub in the middle of the city, where residents of all ages enjoy meeting up for a chat and a drink.

As the only pub in St Albans to serve Mexican food, it also attracts diners from across the county and people regularly get the train up from London due to the authenticity of the menu. And finally, the pub’s history and central location brings in tourists and visitors to St Albans.

The team

We have a team of 26 fantastic staff who are key to the Boot’s success. The kitchen is led by head chef Lloyd Pell – who has been with us for 15 years – and his team of six chefs while the front of house is run by managers James Ward and Alannah Calvert, who’ve also been with us for a good number of years.

Having happy staff who enjoy their jobs and have a strong team spirit is essential for any hospitality business because it translates through to the customer experience. We do all we can to make the Boot a great place to work. We ensure the rota enables a good work/life balance and provide private health insurance for senior positions.

To make their roles fulfilling and interesting, we give the team ownership and autonomy. We encourage staff to input into the business, for example by coming up with social media ideas and cocktail recipes, and we implement the best ideas. We backed Lloyd when he came up with the concept of launching a Mexican menu. It felt like a gamble at the time but has paid off.

The drink

We’ve focused on delivering great quality in everything we do from day one, and gaining a reputation for excellent drinks played a big part in the pub’s turnaround. To that end, we invest heavily in training and scored full marks in our Cask Marque assessment.

We are in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide and are proud to serve excellent real ales and real ciders. We are members of the Society of Independent Brewers & Associates (SIBA) and offer local and rotating ales. With our food offering having a Mexican influence, we also have an incredible wine list serving some excellent South American wines and are well known for our frozen Margaritas.

We look to source locally wherever possible. As part of the work we are doing to improve the Boot’s sustainability, we stock 58 and Co gin and vodka. This is not only a superb product that gives us a point of difference but comes in 25-litre jerry cans, eliminating any glass waste.

The food

During the challenges of Covid, our head chef came up with the idea of serving tacos – stemming from his love of Mexican food.

They were easy to take away and prepare in our small kitchen when the pandemic restrictions were in place. They went down so well we decided to permanently ditch the traditional pub menu, which was a big decision at the time. We went into full throttle creating some incredible Mexican food and our Boot Cantina branded menu was born. We’ve not looked back.

The food is homemade from scratch using high-quality proper Mexican ingredients. We have a core menu that changes seasonally with weekly specials for added variety and serve a Mexican equivalent of a British roast lunch on Sundays. The flavours have ensured that Boot Cantina has gained high accolades from customers and the industry alike.

The dishes are small plates, designed for sharing. With limited internal seating, this is perfect for us because they’re quite quick to eat so we can offer more covers. In a city with 40 pubs, Mexican food is a USP. It now accounts for 20% of trade and the turnover has doubled every year since we launched Boot Cantina.

The events

As one of the main pubs in the city centre where there are a lot of events and being in the middle of the market (Wednesday and Saturday), there is always a fun vibe going on at weekends and throughout the week as well. We have tables outside – which are the perfect spot for people watching and the best place to catch the afternoon sun (when it comes out).

We join in community-wide events, such as the Spring Festival and the Christmas light switch on when we decorate the pub with a different theme each year ranging from Willy Wonka to après ski. As part of Save St Albans Pubs, we band together with the city’s other pubs to run activities that benefit us all, for example, selling maps of St Albans’ pubs or running an anti-drink spiking campaign.

Our own activities concentrate on supporting good causes. Giving back to the city by fundraising for local charities is a priority. We’ve raised more than £200,000 over our time here – mainly through staging music gigs – for organisations like the local foodbank, hospices and Essex & Herts Air Ambulance.

Celebrating and encouraging inclusivity is another priority. Having worked with the Ask for Clive campaign to tailor the scheme for pubs, The Boot is an Ask for Clive venue and holds a big party every year to mark Pub Pride.

The future

The Boot is a Grade II-listed building and with that comes a huge amount of responsibility, especially as we’re on an FRI lease. It also means we’re unable to expand our operation at the Boot and, on the food front, are reaching capacity of what a small kitchen can deliver. With the success of Boot Cantina, we are always looking for new areas to expand. When we started out, Punch Taverns owned the pub. It was subsequently sold to Star Pubs.

We’ve had a great partnership with Star Pubs and a good relationship with our business development manager. We are therefore working with Star to see if there is anything within their estate that would work for us in London and the Home Counties as well as looking at freeholds. Watch this space for developments.