Former Russian doctor runs two GKPP pubs

When Josh Khan arrived in the UK from Siberia 20 years ago, he never imagined he would be running his own pub group.  With his lawyer wife, himself a doctor who speaks seven languages and their two children, the family settled in Clapham with £600 in their pocket.

After not being able to pursue his former career Josh initially worked for the Nat West bank then ran a restaurant under the mentorship of acclaimed French chef, Ollie Couillard.  Then in 2014 he found himself asking Greene King Pub Partners to allow him to take on his first pub, the King Charles Tavern in Newbury.

He says, “Greene King Pub Partners were taking a risk with me.  I had never operated a pub before and they wanted the King Charles Tavern to be a real pub with premium offer.  I persuaded them that I was the right candidate and that I understood that pubs were central to British society. The day they gave me the pub, they changed my life.

I decided to take a second pub, the Broad face Tavern in Abingdon with them in July 2016”.

Both pubs are on partially tied agreements and have undergone recent major investments. They now have fantastic reputations in their towns and feature in the Good Beer Guide. Josh promotes a good range of real ales and purchases his untied products from Greene King Pub Partners taking advantage of their buying power.

Josh adds, “When I came to Greene King Pub Partners, they treated me like a human being.  In Siberia this wasn’t the case because of the colour of my skin.  Greene King doesn’t care about your background, as long as you are hard-working, they will support you all the way. 

“I believe I’m a student of Greene King.  I’ve used all their training and my team have also attended the cellar service course.  My business development managers are both very good and their support is immense; I couldn’t be happier”.