“We’re so excited to reopen” – Stocks Hotel pub excited for staged reopening

The Stocks Hotel Pub in Walkden have revealed their excitement about being able to slowly open up again from next month.

The pub, which dates back to 1898, is located in the heart of the Walkden community, and like many hospitality venues, has suffered as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic but now looks set to open its doors again on April 12 although in a reduced capacity.

This for the pub is a massive relief, with brand manager Wendy Berry expressing her excitement at the pub being able to open its doors once again.

She said: “Obviously like every hospitality venue we’re so excited to reopen.

“We’re just so looking forward to get our loyal customers back in the pub , as well as being able to try to appeal to new customers.

“We really want to make it a big summer for everyone, but it’s vitally important that we remain covid safe in the process.

“Thankfully, we’re in a fortunate position as the pub has myself as brand manager and a team behind it that look to can plan ahead and look to create campaigns to get people back in the pub when we can.”

Some of the pub’s plans can be heard in the short video below.

The pub, which is located on Manchester Road, plans a staged reopening in line with government guidelines, with it opening for an outside service on April 12 leading up to June 21 where the majority of restrictions should be lifted.

The pub has though stressed the importance of maintaining social distancing and other government guidelines when it reopens, as it “can’t afford” another lockdown once the current one has been fully lifted.

The pub previously supported a national Pub Matters campaign which attempted to gain more financial support during the previous lockdown, but has continued to offer a delivery service to local customers.

This service, which has been available throughout lockdown, has seen people in the Walkden area order their drinks online in the week ahead of the weekend ready for delivery on Saturday evenings by members of the Stocks Hotel team.

The delivering has been successful, with promotional videos launched ensuring the pub picks up between 10 and 40 orders every week, which Berry says has been important for the pub in terms of keeping it in the forefront of peoples minds.

WE’RE BACK AGAIN FOR ANOTHER WEEKEND OF DELIVERY! 🥳🎉

Here’s a quick reminder of how to order and the link you need 👉 https://t.co/svWim7AUmw

Delivery is from 5pm on Saturday 🍺🍹🚘 pic.twitter.com/tXO4XgPH5d

— The Stocks Hotel (@TheStocksHotel) March 9, 2021

She said: “We decided to start the delivery service both to keep in a bit of money but also for the moral. We have quite a big customer base so its nice to keep up moral for them, give them something to look forward to every week”

“We had such a good response, particularly before Christmas, everyone got on board and we had so many orders. It was all new when we started but we’ve improved as the weeks went by.

“We had such a good response, particularly before Christmas, everyone got on board and we had so many orders. It was all new when we started but we’ve improved as the weeks went by.

“We have quite regular orders from people thankfully, but also the deliveries help keep ourselves out there as a brand, so that people are still aware of us so when we can reopen, we’ll still in their minds and they’ll look forward to coming back.

“Its not been the ideal situation but we’ve had to make do, it’s as successful as it could have been and what we could have imagined.”