The new owners of pubs, cafe bars and a restaurant in Nottinghamshire have pledged to keep them the same as regulars know and love. Six locally owned venues have changed hands recently including Forest fans' favourites, the Cross Keys in Byard Lane, Nottingham city centre, and Waterside Bar + Kitchen next to Trent Bridge, West Bridgford.
The pubs have been acquired by RedCat Pub Company, which has acquired more than 100 pubs across the UK since launching in February 2021. The company's objective is to provide the operational expertise and capital investment pubs need to get back on their feet and accelerate their growth after the pandemic.
Tom Browns Brasserie in Gunthorpe, Copper cafe bars in the city centre and Mapperley, and the Prince Rupert pub in Newark, have also been taken over. Chris Hill, the CEO of RedCat, told Nottinghamshire Live: "Fundamentally we don't see ourselves as the big London pub firm, quite the opposite really.
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"We feel pretty lucky to have bought some really lovely businesses in the Nottingham area and the East Midlands in general. We want to get across we aren't just some big London pub co. juggernaut that's going to plough its way through any pub or any region and take the heart and soul out of anything.
"We feel that there is opportunity coming out of Covid for pubs to be invested in and where pubs need some love we will give it to them and we're looking at what opportunities there are out there. There's no great big masterplan like we're going to turn a dozen pubs into some homogenised model - that is so far away from what we're looking to do."
Staff teams will remain the same and Forest fans will continue to be welcome at the Cross Keys and Waterside. Mr Hill said: "Sammy, the general manager of the Cross Keys, has been there five or six years. She great. They do what they do, they look after the Forest fans, it's an institution.
"We are just proud owners of that business. Our intention, not just of that site but anything we've been fortunate enough to invest in, we want them to carry on doing what they do brilliantly. We believe Sammy will enjoy working for us as a general manager and all the team and we will look after the locals in the way they've grown used to and love."
RedCat acquired the pubs from locally-owned Great Northern Group, which supplied beers from its Navigation Brewery in Meadow Lane. There is every chance that will continue in the future.
"We need to get our own relationship with those guys but 100 percent fundamentally we are not looking to change anything that has local importance in any pub so if the Navigation still want to work with us we'd be delighted to have them," said Mr Hill, who said he caught the hospitality bug while working at a bar in Nottingham, when he was a student. He went on to become the founder and chief executive of the New World Trading Company, which brought The Botanist to West Bridgford.
Asked if RedCat had its eye on any more hospitality businesses in Nottinghamshire, he replied: "We're just seeing what's around. I can't really say if I'm honest. The answer will be why not? It's a great place. I lived in Nottingham for quite a while. I love the city."
RedCat Pub Company was set up by Rooney Anand, who was CEO of Greene King up until 2019, and is backed by funds managed by private equity company Oaktree Capital Management. It describes its approach as highly flexible, allowing it to acquire single pub assets, all the way through to larger-scale businesses and pub companies.
