The pair have acquired The Griffin Inn in Swithland, Leicestershire, from brewery Everards and have reopened it as a gastropub.
The group, which relaunched The Tap & Run pub in Upper Broughton in Nottinghamshire in April this year, has recreated the pub’s food and drinks menu. Dishes on The Griffin Inn’s menu include pan-fried seabass, lemon and butter sauce, crispy capers, pickled fennel; tofu and sweet potato Malay curry, coriander rice, and roti; and steak burger with smoked applewood, house mayo, dill pickle, winter slaw, and skin on fries.
“When Everards called to say the Griffin was about to become available it was an opportunity we jumped at. As a Loughborough lad, I know the reputation this pub has, and I’m thrilled and honoured to take the baton from John and Jay after 20 years,” says Gurney.
The Cat & Wickets Pub Company was founded by Gurney and Broad with the aim of operating a group of five gastropubs in the Midlands in the coming years. It has received investment from Peach Pub Company co-founder Lee Cash, who has also worked with the group as a consultant.
“I have viewed hundreds of pubs in the last twenty years and not many got me as excited as the Griffin does,” says Cash. “We have done a two-and-a-half-day refurbishment to the tune of £50,000, working with Richard Brooks of Leicester based Tanwood, who have done an incredible job in such a short space of time.”
