Seafood Pub Company Adds Fifth Pub

The Seafood Pub Company is adding to its reputation as the North West’s fastest-growing food and drink business by opening its fifth pub in less than three years.

A £500,000 refurbishment programme has already started at The Barley Mow in the Pendle village of Barley – four miles from the Seafood Pub Company’s second pub The Assheton Arms at Downham

But the character of the Barley Mow will be a new departure for the award-winning Lancashire-based business.

The country pub – set to open in the spring – will start a new concept within the SPC brand.

“We’re proud of our name for great food, great service, great surroundings, the awards we’ve won and the current listing in the new Good Food Guide,” says managing director Joycelyn Neve. “But the Barley Mow will have a different identity and present a different kind of ‘wow’ factor.

“It will be a village local for Pendle people and Pendle visitors – ideal for family meals and drinks with friends in an atmosphere of open fires and cosy corners. And those who have had a day in the great outdoors can kick off their boots, relax and work off their appetite with a menu of pub classics and on-trend food.”

Another difference is that the Barley Mow will offer overnight accommodation. The refurbishment includes five bedrooms – which could also start to appear among the Seafood Pub Company’s existing four pubs.

The first to open, in 2011, was the Oyster and Otter at Feniscowles on the outskirts of Blackburn – which soon won a regional ‘Best Food Pub’ title in the Great British Pub Awards.

The following year The Assheton Arms was added at Downham which, within months, won the ‘Lancashire Life Dining Pub of the Year’ title, took over from the Oyster and Otter as the North West ‘Best Food Pub’ and has now been listed in the 2014 Good Food Guide.

Last year the third and fourth pubs opened within weeks of each other – The Fenwick at Claughton near Lancaster and The Farmers Arms at Great Eccleston on the Fylde.

The success of the Seafood Pub Company followed the teaming of Joycelyn Neve with her father Chris – one of the country’s big names in buying and supplying ‘same day’ seafood to restaurants, hotels and catering companies – and executive chef Antony Shirley’s background at prestigious restaurants in Manchester, London and the West Indies.

Last year the Seafood Pub Company won the ‘Start-up of the Year’ title in EN magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

Picture: Joycelyn Neve

ENDS

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