Meet The Publican - The Britannia, Queniborough

This time we meet Phil Jones, who along with his wife Kate, are the proprietors of The Britannia in Queniborough. Phil is a local lad from Sapcote, who went to the John Cleveland school in Hinckley. He started in the licensed trade at an early age, when 18, and still in the 6^th form he first worked behind a bar.

On leaving school Phil then went to university and started a 4 year catering degree course, but after 18 months he decided that this particular path wasn’t for him and he left university. Whilst doing his A Levels and university studying, Phil worked 3 nights a week behind a bar to earn some pocket money, to enjoy nights out the rest of the week.

On returning home, he managed to get a full time catering position at the now demolished Lord Bassett Arms in Sapcote. It was here that Phil learnt a lot about the licensed trade. After a stint here, Phil then moved on to become an Assistant Manager for the Tavern Tables group working at the Copt Oak pub at Copt Oak. Phil mainly worked on the food side of things here as the Copt Oak was basically a food place. Very rarely would you get people coming just for a drink.  After a few months at The Copt Oak, Harvester Restaurants poached Phil and he became an Assistant Manager here, helping look after 11 different restaurants in the group. It was while in this job that Phil remembers with affection the Old White Horse in Stourbridge, which was a Good Beer Guide entry in the 1990’s and held beer festivals form time to time.

Also, whilst working there, he met Kate, who hails from the Oxford area and also worked for Harvester Restaurants as an Assistant Manager. Kate like Phil had worked in catering since leaving school and her career had taken a similar path to that of Phil. They were married in 1998, during the World Cup which was being held in France. They watched England’s exit whilst on honeymoon. Phil was made up to Manager by Harvester and looked after 4 restaurants for them, the largest being a Harvester just off junction 9 on the M1 near St. Albans, which also had accommodation attached to it.

After a while Phil and Kate decided to move on and also branch away from mainly food, and decided that it was time to run a pub. They moved to the outskirts of Cambridge and ran a Greene King pub called The Robin Hood and Little John. It was the first pub either had been involved with that wasn’t a themed food establishment. They were there for 18 months before they bought the lease on the Britannia from Punch Taverns.

Their experience on the food side soon had people coming in to eat and Phil signed up to the Finest Cask scheme from Punch, he did so to widen the selection of cask beers at the pub. Phil has on tap his regular beer Brew XI, (because he likes it, it is not a strong beer and he rarely drinks anything over 4%, with the exception of Summer Lightening) and either London Pride or Timothy Taylors Landlord. Alongside these, he will have on either two or three beers from the Finest Cask list. On tap when I was there were Hop Back Crop Circle and Jennings Sneck Lifter. One beer Phil likes to put on from time to time is Shepherd Neame’s Spitfire.  Phil has always been one for moving around whilst in the trade, but this time he feels for the foreseeable future that they will stay put in Queniborough. Having sorted out the food side and the beer side of the business he now sees the need to work on the hospitality side of the pub. You can be assured of a warm welcome at the Britannia, which is still known to some locals as Stubbies, why not give it a visit.

Paul Smith.

This page last updated: May 28, 2008

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