Pub owners's success at new bar

LANDLORDS who were forced out of their pub because of huge rent rises are now helping their daughter run a new bar in the same road.

Alan and Marian Coleshill had no choice but to abandon The Woodman, in Joel Street, Northwood Hills, in February after months of struggling to pay the increased rent of £56,000 imposed by the owners, Enterprise Inns.

However, they got back on their feet and have been helping their daughter, Natalie, run Woodys' Corner Bar (formerly Bombay Blues) since it opened in April.

Miss Coleshill, 29, said: "We decided to open a new pub because we missed the industry and the people and it really feels like we have something of our own now.

"The landlord worked with us to find a way for us to afford it so I bought the tenancy and I'm running it as a free house.

"The rent is about a third of what it was at The Woodman and the beer is about half the price."

However, the opening of the bar did not go as well as hoped with a fire and two burglaries.

Miss Coleshill said: "The fire was at the start of May, two weeks after we opened. It was caused by an electrical fault and there was a bit of smoke damage and the toilets stopped working so we had to close for a week.

"We also got burgled in the first week of opened but they only took a bit of cash from the till, but then at the end of May we got burgled again. They smashed the fruit machines and stole the TV off of the wall.

"We are doing really well now though and we have got a lot of our regulars back, especially the ones who came for the entertainment side of things. Some of them even helped us to get the bar open.

"My two brothers help out a lot as well because I also have part-time job as a floor manager for a TV company. My dad still organises all the entertainment and my mum works here part-time.

"My fiancé, James May, also did so much of the phoning around to make the deal happen so without him we just wouldn't have done it."