Michael Pullinger has taken over Samuel's Rest in Upper Church Road, Shedfield.
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00:00My name's Mike Pullinger. I've lived locally to the Sands for about, well, my life is 60
00:13odd years. I was born in Walking Chase, local boy. This used to be one of my locals. I own
00:19a pub which is located at the Barley Corner, which is one of my locals as well. And that's
00:24about it really.
00:25And this is the Samuel's Rest in...
00:27This is the Samuel's Rest.
00:28Perfect, yeah.
00:29And you've only recently just taken over, is that right?
00:30I've taken the pub over five weeks ago now.
00:31Okay, so yeah, it's been a short amount of time. Have you been able to change much in
00:36that time?
00:37It's hard. It's hard because people don't know that the old landlady's gone. And obviously
00:44we're trying to look for new trade. And there's some people, you know, obviously people want
00:49to know that the pub's changed and the owners have changed. So, yeah, yeah.
00:54Perfect, yeah. So what kind of your aims for the place? What are you looking to do?
00:58We're looking to do good food, to turn it into more like a local village pub, a locals'
01:03pub. So we're going to have Sky Sports, BT Sports. We've got a pool table, darts. We've
01:09already got two pool teams sorted out. The locals are back in the pub 100%. Yeah, so
01:15basically make it what it should be, a village local pub.
01:18Perfect. And have you been able to change much in terms of the food so far?
01:22We have our new menu. The old owner had a menu that was really good and it was successful.
01:27We've changed that and we've got our own ideas in and we're giving it a good go. I've
01:33got two cracking chefs and, yeah, they're doing well.
01:39Perfect. What kind of dishes, popular dishes have you got on the menu at the moment?
01:42Oh, just from anywhere, from lasagna right the way through to spare ribs. We've got to
01:47put steak nights on. Yeah, all sorts of pub grub really, to be honest with you.
01:55It's quite an idyllic location as well because you've got the fields across from you, the
01:59green park and you've got a nice pub garden as well out there.
02:02That's right. Over the other side of the road you have the Platonk Horse. This was the pub
02:06that founded the Platonk, British Platonk Association of Olympians. Back over the road
02:12you have the horses walking by, like that. Proper country pub. And another horse. And
02:21they have football in the winter, there's cricket in the summer. That's very, very lively
02:26over there, to be honest with you. Perfect, perfect. And I think there's a little bit
02:30of history, quite a lot of history to this pub. Obviously you talk about Poussaint there,
02:32what's, I'm not sure what Platonk is to be honest.
02:34Platonk is French bowls. Oh, okay. Right.
02:37The difference between normal bowls is they're big, the big bowls that you see for bowling
02:43and then you have the French bowls that I believe are like a metal bowl. Similarly played
02:49but I think they throw it overhand, not underhand.
02:52Okay, interesting. And any plans to kind of start a Platonk team or anything like that?
02:56We already, they're coming back. The previous owner didn't want them in here, had her reasons
03:02for that, but they are coming back. We're hoping if we can get funding to get the Platonk
03:08horse and the slab out the back redone so we can make it so they can actually make their
03:13home again. At the moment they're in the rear garage, the ground behind us, so we'd
03:18like to get them back in here. But they have, they turn up for food and beer and stuff like
03:23that when they have their meetings. That's great. And to any kind of locals that maybe
03:27haven't been to this pub in a long time or maybe they're thinking about coming back,
03:30what would you say to them? Come back, give us a try. Yeah. Please, come and have a look.
03:34It's a different pub now. It's under new ownership and we're going to try and do our best to
03:39make it again.
03:43Music