MY PUB: The Royal Oak, Brockham, Surrey

He was approached to house some rescue meerkats by a private collector, who was going into a hospice and had been unable to find a zoo to take them on. Within in a day, Collier applied online to take on a Star Pubs lease for the Royal Oak and the licensee with the meerkats moved in just three weeks later. Here, Collier tells The Morning Advertiser about the pub. The Royal Oak is a quintessential village pub in Surrey overlooking the green. It has a bar, restaurant area, garden with tables for 15 groups and a car park. It also has the now-famous Meerkat Retreat housing eight meerkats with a 4x4m external glass enclosure, 3x3m internal area and a 2x3m winter enclosure plus a nature area with pond and fruit trees. I was born into the industry – my parents were publicans. In 1992, aged 19, I took on my first pub and became the UK’s youngest licensee. I continued to run pubs in the ’90s, switching to a successful career in sales in the 2000s. I came back into the industry unknowingly three weeks before lockdown. At the time, I took on the Royal Oak I had another leased pub in Windsor and a managed partnership with an independent operator in Redhill. I have since scaled back to just the pub in Redhill and the Royal Oak to concentrate my efforts. Brockham is an affluent village situated on the A24 between Reigate and Dorking. The Royal Oak has to compete with two other village pubs – one high end and the other value-led. It had struggled since Covid and been under temporary management. In my business plan, I flagged that it needed a pull to attract trade from further afield. At first, when I mentioned the meerkats, Star Pubs thought I was joking but when I explained my plans in full, they went on to support me. I needed a variation of licence to incorporate the enclosure, to apply for a zoo licence and gain planning permission for the enclosures even though they are temporary. I also had to put in place a conservation area and educational programmes. As non-indigenous animals, there’s a raft of legislative requirements that need to be adhered to, which I hadn’t realised when I embarked down this path. It is not for the faint-hearted. Customers are 50% local while 50% are attracted by the Meerkat Retreat. Families and older people tend to visit for the meerkats, coming from as far as north London and the south coast. Our drinkers are local residents. We got a Traveller’s Choice Award on back of good reviews, of which the overwhelming majority are positive. We have had more than 350 reviews on TripAdvisor and Google that are either 4 or 5 stars. The team is made up of two full-time staff and two part-time staff. I work in the kitchen with the assistant manager and one other. I also work front of house with the two other staff. A weekend team will do our Sunday roast and burger offer. Wines are one of our biggest sellers, especially among ladies in village, and then lagers. We’re not a cask ale pub but we have two on tap in the summer and one in the winter. We include a drink with kids’ meals and sell fruit shoots, J20 and Appletiser. We also do smoothies and shakes in the summer. Our kitchen is open from 12pm to 8pm and our menu is typical pub fare done well. At lunch, there are paninis accompanied by fresh mixed salad, coleslaw, and French fries; and jacket potatoes, plus a Caesar salad. Main courses are available at lunchtime and in the evening. Popular dishes include pies, scampi and home-made lasagne. We also have a kids’ menu, which comes with a drink and a dessert. On Sundays, we have a reduced menu which includes a Sunday Roast and burgers. For the Meerkat Retreat, a speciality is our Saturday morning bookable Meerkat breakfast, which we do between 10am and midday, before the pub opens to the public. For £10.95, attendees get a choice of a full English or pancakes and maple syrup or other cooked options. Six groups of two to four people are taken into the enclosure over this period and we run these for as long as the meerkats are enjoying the experience. We hold fortnightly quizzes with the proceeds going to local causes. To date, we have raised over £10k. We hold a Seniors Lunch Club on a Wednesday offering two courses for £12. We get a few groups coming in for that including residents at the local BUPA home. The Women’s Institute also uses the pub for lunches. We run Paint & Sip nights and wine tastings and will soon be launching fine dining nights with two Michelin star-trained chefs. Given the interest in this, we’ll probably make it a regular event. We also offer the public the opportunity to sponsor a Meerkat. £55 a year buys them the opportunity to go into the enclosure with a friend twice a year. We also host kids’ parties and educational sessions with schools and children’s clubs. Star Pubs has just redecorated the pub exterior and added new signage and new lights, which has made it smarter and stand out more. I am planning to do a refurbishment of the restaurant area to elevate the food in the evenings and create more of a dining experience. Having been awarded a zoo licence, I am marketing the attraction more. It has attracted hundreds of people already and featured on the BBC. As a result, our breakfasts are booked out for six months. I love the Royal Oak and Brockham. The whole village has supported the venture albeit there were initial concerns when they saw our public notification that we were applying for a zoo licence but all objections were retracted once they understood it was just for eight meerkats. The support has been outstanding – from web designers, architects, councillors and volunteers – who have all donated their time and experience to make this project a reality. The project is a massive endeavour. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without them. I believe the meerkats saved the pub for now and the pub saved the meerkats. However, the industry is struggling with energy costs five times higher than they were five years ago, a cost-of-living crisis and increasing taxes, duties and rates. Since Covid, even people’s buying habits have impacted the industry with card transactions fees equating to a day’s trading. It feels like the Government is the only one benefiting from the revenue publicans generate. We barely make a profit after paying all these additional costs. It’s not just footfall killing our pubs.