RickWhiteHorse

Both lion and horse will be open 12-9ish daily. Core menu and takeaway available. not taking bookings so it’s all first come first served and if it chucks it down likely to only be takeaway available. 🍺🍺🍺 Rick

Would work well I think although I am sure kitchen would hate it. a lot of our dishes are tough to half up as such. We did something similar last year as a trial by making a smaller plate version of most specials to aim at our older crowd that worked well

Hard to say at the mo. I keep changing my mind. Lion I think we will open from the thurs 16th and do thurs-sun. Horse is a bit trickier as we only really have the courtyard area so mainly suitable for drinkers. If we open the new beer garden it is situated past the car park so staff costs go through the roof to open it so maybe just sat and Sunday day for that. It is all so weather dependant really.

Thing of beauty that is (apart from the electric bill)

Haha, would certainly work I can imagine. We would have to name it slightly more PC however otherwise we would end up like piers Morgan

We have done quite a bit of music now at the lion and it is still very hit and miss in terms of success. Often we have to go quite late to make it work. I am sure we will do a few more events when restrictions are eased cheers

Thanks Howard, hopefully we can carry on in the same vein. We have added a bottled/can beer fridge into the lion also for reopening to expand the range a bit further. rachel will be looking after the horse in the near term to help build local support up again so that should be positive. see you both for a bevvy soon enough

Hope your well after your ‘scrape’ been looking at the dairy free ice cream for a while, any brand you recommend? rick

It’s been a while all! Hope that we can get back to normality sometime soon. We have been busy redecorating and reorganising since our short summer and would love to hear and thoughts/feedback how we can improve going forward if anyone has any. Cheers as always Rick and team

we are in possession of one of the eagle hanging signs (unsure of its age) hoping to have it hanging at the white horse soon inside

moorings open at the mo yes, no charge currently as no one allowed to stay overnight.

thanks pal, going to be a long slog to get through this. I also think many a pub will go under, many will play the system and just come back like nothing has happened without recourse but that is life. cheers! to fighting the good fight!

cannot comment on councils overall job but frustrating thing was we only had the scrutiny because of positive press coverage whereas a lot of other venues have done what they wanted and got away with it. we have provided toilet facilities since the council ones are shut and also offered up extra bins for people visiting as the council ones are inadequate.

nope afraid not. the rules state ALL food and drink must be consumed OFF the premises. so that should be stopping every pub from allowing it. People can choose to sit in fields and on land nearby but we are not allowed to provide any seating or facilities on those areas. I have heard all sorts of crazy ideas of leasing and sub letting land and furniture to get around this. Its madness. This way or working isn't ideal but certainly better than nothing.

and PS. yes we are open for takeaway food and drink selling fresh beer when people are struggling to get hold of any! But we are doing so withing the government regulations and in conjunction with advice from local council.

hi all! been away trying to salvage some sort of business from this covid -19 **** show! greenhouse will have safety glass and probably a lining also. custom made benches and they are over sized to create a spacious feel. Nothing is perfectly safe but should be good. Already had a raft of people try to book them and they aren't even here yet! here is hoping we all make it through this and can have a great summer next season! until then we are doing food and drink takeaway stay safe all and feel free to message me with any queries cheers rick

thanks mouldy, certainly is a bit dire at the mo but we are trying!

cheers howard, i loved my 5 minutes of fame apart from the fact every government office phoned me the next day it seems to tell me what i can and cannot do ....fun!

thanks guys!

AN OPEN LETTER FROM TEAM LION AT THURNE Thank you all for the support we have received since our opening in late may. We have now closed for work to commence on finishing the refurbishments ready for us to open for Easter time. These include secondary toilets, lobby area, new windows, fascias and guttering, staff area, new septic tank, new gas tank, secondary garden space, car park and a few finishing touches internally. Contrary to rumours we are not closing permanently but at the same time we made the decision to close earlier than planned as it wasn't financially viable to stay open any longer without getting the rest of the work done. This year has been a tough one with ill health (myself/family/staff), chef crisis after chef crisis, equipment failure, building issues and general poor luck. We have struggled our way through and have not always been at our best and we apologise to any customers we have let down this year. We have a clear idea of what we need to do going forward and are already hard at work trying to address all of the areas brought up by various people this year. This business has been the toughest challenge I have ever undertaken and it has nearly cost me my other pub in the process but we will not be beaten. Thank you to all of my amazing staff that have worked so hard to get us through. Hope to see you all next year! Rick & Staff

i have ran town center pubs and there are many incidents with stray darts and pool cues we have a dart board in our 'top bar' at the white horse no room for pool tables though yep we offer it at the lion as well, normally have 26 ale, lager, cider choices but this weekend we have 32! we always offer a sample, it lends itself to what we do very nicely

i love you poppy! haha. I just shouted at my manager the other day for ordering a marstons beer in (pedigree). never order from them or greene king.

you would like our farrier 4.5% rich malty best bitter (6 grains, dark brown, english hedgerow hops) or our etty ann malt 3.7% low bitterness, good body, caramel notes. I brew these regular but this time of year we can't keep up

no pool table or dart board, dart board will probably come when we renovate the other side of the pub. pool table may go into the arcade next year Moorings have had around 13k spent on them to make them safe and usable for the next few years. Our side is currently free and the farmers side is £4 overnight. Next year there will be a charge both sides of £5 TBC as we will be renting the farmers side. Thanks, the menu has started to expand and be tweaked already. We are nearly back up to a full kitchen team so we can tweak a bit more soon. I am awaiting some dosh to come in and i can then get a few soft furnishings to hopefully help with that. I may brew an 'Old fashioned Mynah' as one of my Christmas beers :) I have 'BASS Ale' on this weekend for our beer festival :) i need to make up a range of merchandise i think

we are carefully monitoring the situation just as we have done previously at the white horse. in 3 and a bit years we have only had one large male group be unruly which resulted in someone throwing up everywhere but surprisingly when i thrust a mop into the hands of the groom he cleared it up no bother. we are hoping due to our offer we don't really attract such large groups as firstly we don't sell stella etc and most rowdy groups come in realise we are focused on craft beer and ale, have a couple and then toodle off to somewhere a bit more mainstream such as the ferry at horning (no offence meant).