Derbyshire Times visited The Neptune pub in Chesterfield in our latest Love your Local feature
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00:00 [Music]
00:07 Pubs have been a cornerstone of our local communities for centuries,
00:11 offering a place for people to meet together and socialise,
00:14 as well as providing thousands of jobs and a cornerstone of the local economy.
00:18 Here we go behind the bar to meet the people who run our pubs
00:21 and say why it's important for you to love your local.
00:24 I'm at the Neptune Pub in Chesterfield and can you just introduce yourselves?
00:29 Yeah, my name's Jason, I'm the landlord and my wife.
00:32 And I'm Sally.
00:33 We've had the Neptune now for just over a year.
00:36 We took over June 2022.
00:39 We've had some major renovations throughout the property,
00:42 but throughout the pub.
00:44 We've had a full change of beers, cask, craft beers.
00:50 We've done a really nice beer garden for you to come and enjoy in the summer.
00:55 We've changed quite a lot of things as the decor.
00:58 We've gone very nautical.
01:00 The pub was built in 1860.
01:02 It was owned by a captain of Merchant Navy.
01:05 First of all, when he was out on his travels, it was set up as an abbedassery.
01:09 Then it was a post office.
01:11 At some stage it was a morgue.
01:13 And then he found the best thing to do was to make it into a pub.
01:16 So, late on in the 1800s, he turned it into a pub and called it the Neptune.
01:21 As a sea fairy, it was away from home so they had people to run it.
01:24 But at times, it was, like I say, a morgue.
01:26 One of the rooms would be a morgue. People would be having a drink.
01:29 So, it's got a very ghostly atmosphere.
01:31 We've tried to put it back to more of a nautical feel.
01:34 So, we've gone very much with captains' helmets,
01:37 all the nautical, the ships, the octopuses, all around.
01:42 Yeah, so we've had a bit of a change.
01:44 We do a lot of music, and I'll let Sally talk about the music.
01:47 So, we have a lot of live music, some really good acts,
01:51 mainly Saturday evenings, but we do have some occasionally on a Friday.
01:56 And then we have different hosts to host open mic,
02:00 which is every Sunday from 4.30 till about 9 o'clock, which goes really well.
02:06 There's lots of people that just come down, just get up.
02:10 We have everything set up already.
02:13 The PA system and the drums are already set up,
02:17 and all the amps for everyone just to come and plug and play.
02:21 So, that always goes down really well.
02:24 Yeah, everybody who comes down and participates gets a free drink,
02:27 keeps all the customers happy.
02:29 Everybody has a really, really good time on a Sunday.
02:32 We've also got music that we play outside.
02:34 So, we've just been recently having discussions with the council.
02:37 So, we're allowed to play music on a handful of occasions outside.
02:41 Yeah, good for the surrounding areas.
02:43 We've put a lot of business into the surrounding areas as well.
02:46 So, yeah, one of the things we do is we do pop-up kitchens.
02:50 So, we've been celebrating some of the local chefs,
02:53 going from Italian range food to steaks, Philly steaks.
02:57 Lots of street food.
02:58 Yeah, pretty much we're sort of championing the street food.
03:01 We encourage people to come on board.
03:04 We've got a kitchen upstairs.
03:06 A lot of them tend to want to go outside and bring their own equipment
03:09 and champion what their idea is, their food.
03:12 And that's been going really, really well.
03:14 We've got an event coming up this week, on a two-weekly, this Thursday.
03:19 So, yeah, it's got...
03:21 We probably do that once a month, I think.
03:23 Yeah, once a month.
03:24 Which is going really well at the moment.
03:26 We've done it on a Saturday.
03:29 We've done it outside in the summer.
03:32 But we've also got it this Thursday.
03:34 We're also going to do £2.50 Wednesdays, which start next week as well,
03:42 for a lot of the locals, and just to bring some passing trade in, really.
03:46 Yeah, so that's the thing we do.
03:48 So the Cask Ale, we always do a manager's special.
03:51 And we're looking to do this on a Wednesday night, the £2.50 for a cask.
03:54 So it's giving a bit of back to the community,
03:57 with the cost of living crisis at the moment.
03:59 So people can come in and choose what beers they want.
04:01 They can have a pint at £2.50.
04:02 They can come in with their friends, drink a pint or something.
04:05 That is at the normal price.
04:07 But we still, compared to the price,
04:09 we have local beers from Moonshine up to Jaipur, all really well priced.
04:14 So yeah, come down and have a drink.
04:16 What is the most popular drink that you sell at the moment?
04:19 So we--
04:20 Castile.
04:21 Castile always goes down really well.
04:22 Yeah, we have a range.
04:23 The Castile, which is a Belgian beer, a Belgian cherry beer.
04:26 That's brewed in Belgium, obviously.
04:28 And that sells really well.
04:29 It tends to sell more with the women, because it's got a sweeter taste.
04:33 So the women tend to like it on a Saturday and Sunday.
04:37 But that's not exclusive to women.
04:38 We do see the guys drinking it as well.
04:41 Moonshine, which is brewed in Sheffield Abbedale breweries,
04:44 that sells very, very well.
04:46 And we always have a number of formage products on,
04:49 which is brewed just like that.
04:50 Jaipur.
04:51 Jaipur, Twin Peaks at the moment.
04:54 They're brewed just literally at Bakewell.
04:56 They sell very well.
04:57 Guinness.
04:58 Yeah, we have a lot of really good sellers, to be honest.
05:00 There's a lot of good sellers.
05:01 Green Mountain.
05:02 We have a number of still ciders.
05:04 So we have four still ciders.
05:06 And they're brewed locally, mostly locally.
05:11 Yeah, we have Belgian beers.
05:12 We've got craft beers.
05:13 We've really been pushing the craft beers lately.
05:16 We have a chocolate beer on at the moment, which is 13%.
05:19 So that's selling fantastically well.
05:22 We only sell it in a third of a pint, because it's very strong.
05:24 Yeah, so staff-wise, we have nine in total.
05:29 There's myself, Sally, and then our three daughters.
05:33 They work for us.
05:34 And my dad actually helps out as well.
05:36 So my dad does quite a lot of the work on the sort of renovation of the place.
05:41 Maintenance.
05:42 Maintenance, the upkeep, the cleaning.
05:43 Steve as well.
05:44 Yeah, and we have a friend as well.
05:45 He comes and helps out.
05:46 We have a lot of people who come who are local people that want to help us on the street.
05:50 So that's always good.
05:51 Yeah, really good team.
05:52 Our team's fantastic.
05:53 We couldn't do it without them.
05:55 They really do put a shift in every time.
05:57 They're really pleasant with customers.
06:00 Yeah, they're really good.
06:01 Any up-and-coming events that you want to promote?
06:03 We're moving all the way through to November and December.
06:06 And then we've got bookings now all the way to Christmas and New Year and into next year as well.
06:11 So, yeah, just for the best thing to do, look on our website for any up-and-coming gigs, any up-and-coming events.
06:17 We always push it out on Facebook, so you can have a look at it on there as well.
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