The Great British Pub Awards: Celebrating our licensees' success

The Great British Pub Awards (aka the Oscars of the Pub industry!) celebrates the best pubs in the country. Every year we hope that some of our innovative and hardworking pub licensees will be shortlisted for an award.

This year, we were not disappointed as six of our Pub Partners pubs were shortlisted for the awards and were invited to attend the award ceremony in London last month. As well as these fantastic pubs, we also had five others competing for our own ‘best Greene King’ award.

Awards like these really help put pubs on the map. At a time when pubs are competing for customers with a wide range of other leisure and hospitality venues, receiving industry recognition for what you do gives a pub licensee renewed confidence and is an important differentiating factor. Customers actively seek out award winning pubs, so winning or being shortlisted for a national award can be extremely beneficial to trade.

Great British Pub of the Year Award – Winners

So how did our Pub Partners do? We’re extremely proud to be able to share that four of the awards available to Greene King were won by our pubs! Not only that, Heath Ball at the Red Lion & Sun in Highgate, scooped the top award. He and his team walked away with the Great British Pub of the Year Award, and the Best Wine Pub too.

With 60% of wet sales coming from sales of wine, and having also been listed in the Top 50 Gastro Pubs for three consecutive years, Heath and his team are offering a fantastic customer experience and standing out from other businesses in the area.

We were also delighted to be able to celebrate the success of the Crown Inn in Carlisle, which was named Best Turnaround Pub of the Year. With a new partner at the helm and a whole new direction for the pub, their success demonstrates what can be achieved when someone with the right vision and drive takes on a pub tenancy. We’re delighted that Dianne Irving and her team have received recognition for their hard work and determination.

The Greene King Pub of the Year Award went to the Queens Head in Pinner. Sean White is a great example of how you can successfully run a wet led pub with just a small food offer. Sean’s dedication and incredible execution is what makes this Greene King pub stand out.

While not one of the official awards, Greene King licensees Laurie Crissey of the Mad Hatter in Oxford, also took home an award. While she narrowly missed out in the Best Spirit Pub category, she did create the winning cocktail that was served on the awards night.

If you want to your pub to win next year, contact Hester Doran on GBPA@wrbm.com or call 01293 610396 for details on how to enter.

For more reasons to enter a pub award, read our blog sharing the Benefits of Entering Pub Awards.