Fresh from The Ashes' third Test at Headingley, cricketer Stuart Broad has finally managed to take a look around his recently reopened Nottinghamshire pub, the Tap & Run, after it was destroyed by a devastating blaze. The 37-year-old has bounced back after revealing how dejected he felt witnessing the aftermath of last year's fire.
Despite the setback it has not deterred him nor business partner and former cricketer, Harry Gurney, from wanting to scale up the business over the next decade. Speaking in one of the few quiet corners of the country pub, in Upper Broughton, on a busy Tuesday lunchtime, he revealed how it was former team mate Gurney who spurred him on with his enthusiasm and determination.
Broad, who'd had to get through a game at Trent Bridge, before being able to see the damage first-hand, said: "It was tough. Harry called me about 5.15 in the morning and sent me a picture. I couldn't come during the game to see it. I came after and it was devastating. There were eight fire engines to put it out.
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"You could only look through the windows but the roof had caved in and my emotions were very low, very down. Harry was immediately 'we can do this and build this bigger and better' and I'm proud now sat here of how it's turned out. Harry's energy was very much 'we're going to do this and we're going to make that better'."
The pair's Cat & Wickets Pub Company has a clear business plan for the future. Following investment from Lee Cash, founder of Peach Pubs, the duo acquired the Griffin Inn in Leicestershire village, Swithland, at the end of last year.
Broad said: "We're looking to grow the pubs, maybe five in five years, ten in ten. A real strength of ours is having pubs close to each other because we have really good suppliers and can move staff around different pubs. I think one of the biggest dangers about growing, particularly too quickly, is that you lose quality so our number one rule when we talk about growing is we can't let the standards slip of any of our pubs.
"It's so important that you time it well. If you do it too quickly your quality diminishes. I'm probably talking ahead of schedule at the moment as this has only been open a few days and we are going to build this through the summer and see where the land lies. But there is definitely quite a clear business plan within the shareholders now of where we want the business to go.
"We brought Lee Cash on board and his mentoring to Harry in particular has been incredible. Harry has always said if you want to get somewhere you need to pick the brains of people who have been up at that level and Lee certainly has. He has been great for us on the business part."
Broad, who plays a "quite a big part" on the board, looking after the social media and PR side of the pub, admitted he dipped his toe into the hospitality industry "as a bit of a hobby".
He said: "I'd always had an interest in business and Harry, a team mate of mine at Nottinghamshire at the time, we used to talk in the changing room about different businesses and had a mutual interest in it. In 2016 I got back from South Africa and Harry came round for a coffee and said 'there's a pub in the village that's come up for sale what do you think'?
"If I'm brutally honest I went in thinking I'd love to have a pint in my own pub and have a nice Sunday roast. But it's evolved massively and we've learnt loads."
It has proved a good distraction, preventing him from becoming too consumed by the sport. "I find it an amazing release. I found that it released my cricketing pressure and stress, having business chats and board meetings and learning so much about different things. I'm a novice in the business world, there is no doubt in that, but I am learning from loads of different people all the time.
"I'd say to any sportsperson in your early 20s you get so self-absorbed in what you're doing and cricket, in particular, you get a lot of failure in and if you have nothing to focus your mind on outside of cricket then you can be quite negative a lot of the time, searching for things in training, why am I not getting the results? I find out having the pubs, on those days off when I used to just dwell on cricket, I can focus my energies on completely different things."
Those different things include enjoying fatherhood with seven-month-old daughter Annabella with partner, Mollie King, who found fame with the girl group The Saturdays.
Applying the similar unwritten 'no excuses' rule of cricket to making errors in the pub trade, he said if you can own the mistake and not make excuses for it, then people forgive you. "Within the pub industry we've definitely found if customers have a bad experience the first time they come in, very rarely do they ever come back, so having that mindset that you make sure you welcome everyone with a big smile.
"From my experience how many times do you walk in a pub, it's a bit busy, you go to the bar, no one looks at you. You can't get a pint, you wait seven minutes, and you're 'I'm a bit bored of this now I'm going' and you never go back.
"Making eye contact with someone, even if that's as simple as 'I'll be with you in two minutes' then you're happy and you feel welcomed."
Broad, who was playing at Lords when the pub reopened at the end of last month, is hugely impressed by the Tap & Run's new look since rising from the ashes. "My mum Carole sent me a video of everything. She must have been walking round with her phone for hours. She lives in West Bridgford so she's a big regular here.
"It's fantastic. I've sat in a lot of meetings. We couldn't change the square footage but we could change the style within and make a couple of tweaks that have aided. We've shortened the bar to create a bit more space and moved the toilets upstairs.
"The kitchen layout is much better for the chefs and the staff so I feel like we have less wasted space. I've spent a lot of time looking at floor plans on paper but to see it come together and to run as smoothly as it has on reopening is fantastic."
BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew and the TMS crew recently dined at the pub. Broad said: "He texted me asking if there was any chance of a Monday night table and I naively said 'yes, of course', but the pub was rammed that night. There was a cancellation though so Agers came and really enjoyed it, which is really nice. Part of the great joys of being in the pub business is when your friends and family come and enjoy a meal there.
"I get feedback on social media from pretty much anyone that comes in the pub, positive or negative but it's been really positive since the Tap's reopened and a lot of that is to do with the staff."
Broad said he tries not to have too many desserts especially in competition but he does love a glass of wine when the game allows, especially a Spanish Rioja or New World Wines. "One of my greatest enjoyments is matching food with wine. I remember bottles of wine from where I drink them. I think that's where my New World love came from because with cricket you tour South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and I've managed to have some really nice moments overlooking some great parts of the world with wine."
One of his biggest pet hates is restaurants that which put a ridiculously high mark up on wine. "I hate going into restaurants where there's a 300 percent mark up on wines. I've had times where you can go into a restaurant and you know you can buy that bottle of wine in for 10 quid somewhere and it's like £70 so we always make sure our wine list is nice but always fair and reasonable. My theory is I much prefer people to drink as a family two bottles of nice wine and feel like they can afford to drink two bottles of rather than one expensive one.."
Broad and fellow Nottinghamshire player Ben Duckett have been named in an unchanged England squad for the fourth Ashes Test at Old Trafford. England won the third Test by three wickets to leave the series 2-1 to Australia with two Tests to play. The fourth Tests starts on Wednesday, July 19.
Stuart Broad was talking to Nottinghamshire Live after partnering up with tech firm Sage, which is running a competition for small businesses in England and Wales in conjunction with The Hundred cricket competition. The Sage Small Business XI competition will see a small business owner be part of The Hundred as well as winning a £60k boost to their business. Enter now at sage.co.uk/TheHundred
