Will Abingdon Good Beer Guide pub continue to support real ale?
The Broad Face is due to close on Bank Holiday Monday (August 25) with the building’s owner, Greene King, expected to appoint a new tenant. In recent years it has been allowed to source some of its own cask ales and it offered up to eight, with rarities for Oxfordshire such as Jail Ale from Dartmoor Brewery in Devon. It was voted Oxford CAMRA’s Town and Village Pub of the Year in 2023 when the award was presented to Joshua Khan, owner of the company running the pub, and manager Kealey Hitchings.
But by September of the same year it emerged that the company – Vital Events UK – had appointed liquidators. Joshua Khan carried on but his manager left. He also ran two other pubs in Berkshire which are both now closed. Greene King tenancy the King Charles Tavern in Newbury – also a real ale pub – closed in June and is now for sale freehold and free of tie for £450,000. This was also run by Vital Events. The Great Shefford pub in a village of the same name near Hungerford was run by another company and closed nearly two years ago, and it has not re-opened.
Greene King is marketing the Broad Face as a five-year tenancy and it held out some hope that the pub would continue the previous operator’s approach. But this is not guaranteed, and it may revert to being a standard GK pub.
“The pub has previously won awards from CAMRA and is known for a great range of beers and other drinks,” it said. “The food is home cooked and delivered to a high standard, with the pub seeing a sales split of 60/40 in favour of drinks. The current offer should be continued going forward and the Broad Face offers a great opportunity for an experienced operator, who is well versed in these types of offers within an historic environment.”
Annual rent was advertised as £25,500 plus 5% of weekly net sales, with entry costs of £22,625. Annual turnover was estimated at over £500,000.
CAMRA West Berkshire pubs officer Paul Worsley said: “The King Charles was advertised as six-month rent deposit and three months’ rent up front. GK clearly wants out of it as they are also marketing the freehold.”