THE CROWN, UPPINGHAM

Getting creative at the Crown

Kate meets Laura Totten from the Crown in Uppingham who talks frankly about the hospitality industry

YOU’D HAVE TO be living on Mars at the moment if you hadn t noticed how difficult things are in the hospitality sector. But chances are, if you re the one running a pub, restaurant or hotel, you re pretty savvy and highly creative so you re able to offer the best service to your customers. Laura Totten is certainly all the above which is lucky as she s had to dig deep to get through a global pandemic and now a huge cost of living crisis in the rst three years of running the rown in ppingham. took over in ay 0 0 during the rst lockdown and opened in July that year,’ she told me. ‘We then closed in November and again from January 2021. I’m going into my third year of trading but I’ve not had a normal anything yet. This will be the rst hristmas without ovid bubbles or the fear of further lockdowns looming. We are looking forward to this year s festivities with hristmas late night shopping you couldn t move in here last year and we also had an outside bar. This year late night shopping is on Thursday 1 December and then there’s the Fatstock show on Wednesday 23 ovember which is an incredible event in the town. ppingham is a great place to come for a wander, to meet up with friends or visit the market on a Friday. We’re a friendly bunch of businesses and we support each other.

Head of the family

wondered what had led Laura to opening the rown and it all started from her rst ob at Barceloneta, an independent panish restaurant in Leicester. he then spent 1 years working for ando s in different roles and restaurants, ending up as atrao which means father or captain. The ethos is that as leader, you re the head of the family rather than being the bossy boss in the office, says Laura. t was all about working hard playing hard and the idea of the team as family was important. That s what aim for here growing a team that fosters that family feel means that the customers feel that family vibe too. We all spend so much of our time at work it needs to be a happy place and a well looked after team is a happy team. Which is why am proud to be able to say am not a minimum wage employer and have made sure that whatever the business pressures are am continuing to invest in my team, with four of the ve full time team developing new skills through apprenticeships and other personal development opportunities.

But to recap a little rst, Laura told me that after 1 years at ando s, she had wanted her weekends back so she oined verards Brewery in a training and recruitment capacity. he uickly realised she didn t like working in an office, as the area of hospitality she en oyed most was getting to know the customers and working with the team. t the same time as starting to work for verards she moved to Belton in Rutland and her children started at ppingham ommunity ollege. That s when she became aware of the rown which is right in the centre of the High treet. Laura knew that starting your own business independently re uires massive amounts of resources but doing it as a tenant of verards Brewery was much more achievable and still gave her the freedom of running her own business. t s their building and their beer so pay them rent and buy beer from them and that s it. They re responsible for the bricks and mortar and am responsible for everything within the look, style, people and so on. big fan of a statement bar with attractive bottles of spirits, Laura has revolutionised the place. t had dropped off many local people s radar, they ust didn t even notice it while walking past. The big challenge was to keep our locals who did fre uent the pub happy while making it more welcoming to other residents and the passing trade who visit the town.

Back on the map

We wanted to put it back on the map and extend the range of food that ppingham has to offer. y family love cooking and eating together and we found ourselves driving to Leicester, eterborough or tamford for tasty but casual dining. We were travelling uite far for something in between sh and chips and white tablecloths, so that s what we now offer here. We like to bring in different trends from around the world. We run street food menus on different days, we have local catering companies who come to our kitchen, we do lots of different themed stuff to keep it interesting. ur unday lunches are very popular, and we ve ust introduced orkie burritos which is a unday lunch in a orkshire pudding wrap so it s smaller but you still have all the different textures and taste of a unday roast.

‘We had to be creative during lockdown – I didn’t ever intend to have an online ordering platform in the rst few months of opening, but every couple of months the rules changed and we had to turn on a

penny. That’s very much the case now too because, as an industry we are having to be evermore inventive, evolving our offer at pace to keep up with the changing world around us.

‘This cost of living challenge feels more scary than Covid because then there was very much a feeling of community and looking after each other, and the government was much uicker to recognise the jeopardy that businesses were in and put things in place to support us. But since early spring we ve seen the cost of basic goods like cheese, butter and cooking oil rocket, not by pennies but by 00 00 since the Russia kraine war started and trade routes were impacted. But because we were cushioned by still quite high customer con dence we didn t worry too much as we were still trading well, but once customers wallets started to be impacted by inflation and the energy crisis it’s now hitting us; the volume of sales go down and our margins vanish. We fully appreciate that the supermarkets and big chains can often offer better value deals and discounted prices on alcohol but with pubs and restaurants closing at an alarming rate I feel like we really need to drive the shop local, shop independent message again, if not our high streets will look very different next year.'

Meals that won’t break the bank

There does seem to be more interest in event led evenings with bands and quiz nights. People want some light relief turning away from the news We ve ust had our rst unday comedy night following live music on the aturday night. We re trying to in ect the lighter side of life and give people a reason to come out and have a good time and we re offering meals that won t break the bank. But you can never sacri ce uality or range in order to be as cheap as people who have learned to cook better at home during the lockdowns. t s about balancing the volume with the cost so if we can ll the pub on unday lunch by offering a good price point then that s great; a full pub is a warm pub!’

When asked Laura if she was glad she d made the ump and opened the Crown during such momentous times she smiled and said n the future know ll look back and go wow, look at what managed to achieve. ve made a difference to the building and the business and the people I’ve employed. We won the Rutland CAMRA pub of spring summer 0 , ve transformed the upstairs into six bouti ue bedrooms. y full time team are all employed here on apprenticeships with a good standard of earnings and quality of employment. It’s really important to me we don’t cut corners in the wrong places. o long as can keep the people happy and not lose the shirt off my back then we ll be alright. know that everything is a cycle and this too shall pass. People who survived and thrived Covid were the ones who innovated and took it as an opportunity to try something different and this will be the same.