Luke Champion reflects on The Hollybush in Witney, a year after taking on the reins

Nothing could have prepared us for the year we have just had.

It’s now been a year since myself, and my partner Alex, decided to jump head-first into the restaurant/pub business by finally getting a place of our own.

But there have been ups and downs. I think we can now both say we have learned the true meaning of working a seven-day week. Alex and our amazing team all had to put up with my tantrums when, during the peak summer months, staff shortages meant I found myself in the kitchen for a three-month period.

I’m no head chef, but I did enough to ease the workload and help our own head chef Liam to keep up the standards to the level we expect, serving the good people of Witney, Oxfordshire and beyond.

When I wasn’t in the kitchen, Alex and I were running around the restaurant serving our lovely customers, outside fixing broken umbrellas, or in the office working on ways to run the business more profitably and successfully.

In short, we have had to learn each and every area, and in the last 12 months have done that. I’ve learned that it’s all very well being excited about food, knowing how to deliver excellent service and train a team, but without a detailed knowledge of accounts, being able to manage suppliers and a host of other things, any pub/bar/restaurant won’t last long.

We are however one year in, still here and dare I say it – going strong. Have we cracked it? I’m not sure… but we are well on the way. It feels as though it’s taken a year for us to truly settle in.

We have tried a few things and changed them if they didn’t work, we’ve listened to feedback and hopefully helped mould The Hollybush into a place people love coming.

We have stuck to our guns and continued to use the best, most local suppliers, stayed true to our philosophy on craft beers, real ales and cocktails and even managed to attract our bar manager James Gerrans from Raoul’s, who quickly adapted our bar to be the quirky yet approachable place it is.

Our philosophy? Yes, it’s OK to have funky drinks and dishes on the menu, but we want to bring our customers along for the ride so make sure all the weird and wonderful things we provide are lovingly explained by one of our team.

But more than anything, what I like about The Hollybush is you can easily come in for a pint of session beer and a burger or a bowl of cheesy chips, sit and chat with some locals in the bar and have a giggle, or you can get dressed up on a Friday night and come out for cocktails, a bottle of red and some slow-cooked pig’s cheeks.

It’s safe to say Alex and I knew a lot of people in Witney before we bought The Hollybush, but now a year on, we happily know a whole lot more!

Friendships have blossomed here, culminating in an unprecedented December period where we were mega busy, and nailed it, making for one of the smoothest Christmases we had known.

It was finished in style with a jam-packed New Year’s Eve event surrounded by customers and I remember looking around at 1am thinking that I considered every single person I saw to be a friend. Overall, it’s been a happy, funny, stressful, worrying and rewarding year. Here’s to many many more.