Help Our Hospitality: Pub owner and chef feels ‘incredibly lucky’ to have grown venue during ‘perfect storm’

The owner of a pub, who has worked in the hospitality industry since his early teens, says he feels “incredibly lucky” to have grown his venue during the “perfect storm”.

Luke Bavester is the owner of The Sheaf Inn and has described his role as ‘chef-director’ since he took over the West Haddon country pub in September 2018.

“Offering the best in locally sourced cooking, wine and beers”, The Sheaf is situated at the heart of a thriving village that takes pride in supporting local businesses.

The pub has been standing for more than 500 years and for the last 60, it has put itself on the map in the county.

Luke has continued to uphold tradition while staying true to the pub side of the venue – and for this week’s Help Our Hospitality campaign coverage, he shared how he made a success of his vision.

The chef-director began his career as a 14-year-old working at a local function space, washing dishes and making starters, in his hometown of Rugby.

As soon as he left school, Luke began his apprenticeship to become a chef and has worked in a number of venues across Northamptonshire and Warwickshire since he qualified – as living in Rugby, on the border of both counties, opened up opportunities for him.

It was not until later on in his career that he realised working in restaurant-only venues was not for him and he moved into the gastropub sphere.

A couple of years prior to taking on The Sheaf, Luke worked as a head chef and was close to taking that venue over when the owners planned to retire.

Though this did not pan out as the owners remained at the gastropub, Luke said: “I got the bug that I could do it for myself.”

After spending time networking with landlords, he landed on his feet with a viewing at The Sheaf – which he described as a “bare shell” of a restaurant that had been made modern, but he had to make it his own.

Luke described the venue as having 45 seats for dining and around an additional 30 in the bar area.

When you arrive at what looks like an Edwardian pub, standing “tall and grand”, you enter through a “quaint” bar area where you are greeted by a team member.

Luke says customers are often surprised by how big the venue is inside, as you cannot imagine it from the appearance of the front.

When asked how business has been at such a difficult time for the hospitality industry, Luke said: “I feel incredibly lucky. Customer support has been unreal and we’re doing really well with takings.

“People choose to spend their money here, which keeps us going.

“We’re fortunate and wouldn’t survive without the support. We’ve been able to grow the business over the past two years and our takings are up 30 percent.”

Though this is a positive step, Luke says the issue is that just because takings are up does not mean profit is too.

“Costs are through the roof and have gone up dramatically,” he added. “It is the perfect storm.”

The pub owner is still looking for ways to increase how many customers he can welcome and seat in the venue, to meet the growing demands of footfall.

The price of meat has gone up “dramatically” and a fillet of steak that would have cost £18 per kilo when Luke first became a chef now costs around £50 per kilo.

This is not something Luke offers at The Sheaf as he does not want to charge as much as he would need to in order to break even.

The Sheaf’s gas and electricity bills have also doubled to “severe” numbers since before the pandemic and having experienced a peak above twofold, they are now beginning to drop.

Luke wanted to shout out his ale suppliers who have “taken the brunt” of price increases and not raised them as much compared to others.

“Our ale trade is through the roof because of it,” said Luke.

When asked what he is most proud of since taking over the country pub almost five years ago, Luke said: “We’re proud of ourselves for managing to keep it going.”

Luke’s daughter was born in the first lockdown and as she was poorly, he was living between the pub and the hospital.

Despite the challenges he faced in his personal life, Luke and his team managed to launch takeaways and keep the business afloat.

He said: “We survived and came out the other side, retained staff and customers, and welcomed new customers with the pandemic takeaways.”

Another of Luke’s proudest moments is that he was believed to be the youngest landlord in the county when he took over the business at just 23 years old.

“We’re proud of our ethos,” Luke added. “Everything is locally sourced apart from our fish.

“Our beer suppliers are working to become carbon positive and our wine suppliers already are.

“We care about people and want them to visit, have a great time and be looked after.”

Excitingly, The Sheaf team is working on a new menu to “stand out” from the competition.

Though the quality of their food is already at a high level, they want the new menu to be their “unique selling point” when compared to the many gastropubs Luke believes the county is “blessed” to have.

More information will be released on The Sheaf’s social media channels in due course.

Looking to the future, Luke would love the pub to pick up some local awards – as well as continuing to develop the venue as he is surrounded by a team invested in making it the best it can be.

To keep up to date with The Sheaf Inn, you can visit their Facebook page here.