Back to Basics

02 Sunday Dec 2012

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With the worldwide recession and the general trend of people now looking for bargains and ever increasing ways to save money, we decided to revisit our entire strategy around our food offering.  From suppliers all the way to presentation on the table, we reworked our processes – making many cost-savings on the way.

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Our home-made pie and mash. This has a chicken and tarragon filling. There’s also steak & ale and a game filling…

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The classic bangers and mash. Three types of sausage with creamy mash and onion gravy.

The  good news is that this has now allowed us to have a smaller menu targeted at what I call the “Pub Classics”; which is basically everyone’s favourite pub grub!  We now offer a smaller selection of home made dishes using local suppliers, and all at very competitive prices; in fact we can be over 20% cheaper than some of our competitors in  town; and the food is better! (that’s not my opinion, but the opinion of many of our Inn guests and regulars – check out some of our guest comments on Tripadvisor!)

Sunday lunch at the Baskerville Arms has also come in for much praise.  Its excellent value at £7.50 (as at 02/12/2012) for a main course – again and to my knowledge, the best value in the area.  To get to this level with a roast dinner, you firstly need an excellent butcher.  We use Paddy Sweeney at Brecon.  (Sorry, there’s no website; in fact Paddy has only just started using email!)

You then need chefs that are capable of cooking from first principles, instead of only understanding the ping ping of a microwave…  The best example of home made food is stock (or gravy to you and I!).  Well actually, its more of a base than a gravy, and is the foundation to many sauces and dishes.  It takes the best part of 2 or 3 days to make and is one of those constant background activities in any good kitchen.  The process starts with the roasting of bones obtained from Paddy for zero cost, as butchers just want to get rid of them.  Various vegetables and cooking water is added over a period of days and it is boiled up several times in the process and finally thickened with cornflour.  We do not use wheat based flours,  as the many thousands of people suffering from coeliacs disease (i.e. a gluton intolerance) can partake in our gravy with no adverse affects.

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With the gravy and meat taken care of, all you then need is some fresh veg, that miracle of culinary science the Yorkshire pud,  and some roast potatoes with a secret ingredient to make them taste great – and round this off with a free tub of hot steaming cheesy leeks!

You can see our web-page on Sunday Lunch here or take a look at our A La Carte menu here.  There’s also ‘specials’ on most evenings.

Finally, whether you are partaking in Sunday lunch or dinner on any evening you need just a little ambiance and a good bottle of wine to finish things off!

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Kilvert Country – A guest blog by Lucy Haines.

02 Sunday Sep 2012

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Robert Francis Kilvert (1840-79) was an English clergyman famous for his voluminous diaries describing rural life. He was the curate of our church here in Clyro between 1865 and 1872, and his legacy remains all around us.

Kilvert traveled extensively through this area documenting his visits to local villages, pubs and farms most of which still remain today, including the Baskerville Arms of course!  Some of the characters will have changed, but there are certainly plenty of modern day ones to replace them. Some things don’t change around here.

Walks in the area provide great opportunities for re-tracing his steps and re-evoking his stories of Victorian country life. There are many networks of footpaths and bridleways, commons and mountains to explore just as Kilvert himself did. Of course this area is a mecca for hikers and ramblers regardless of any literary or historical interests.

But one particular recent annual walk in his honour is a pilgrimage across the mountains above the farming villages of Rhosgoch and Painscastle just a few miles above Clyro. It takes place every July. This year it was Sunday 22nd July, and it has amassed a modest but varied following.

Two of Kilvert’s pilgrims on the hill above Bryngwyn Church.

The walk starts from St Mary’s Chapel in Newchurch to Bryngwyn Church near Rhosgoch, then to Llanbedr church outside of Painscastle, and finally ends at the church in Llandewi Fach for evensong. Kilvert mentions these chapels in his diaries and there are many stories to read up on before you visit. For example in Newchurch St Mary’s can be found the grave of one Emmeline Vaughan a 13-year old girl whom Kilvert spoke affectionately of in his diaries.

Rhulen Hill between Bryngwyn and Llanbedr Church just above the farming village of Painscastle.

This walk takes in some of the most fantastic views in the area and you don’t need to be part of the pilgrimage to explore this particular route, its chapels and the mountain above Painscastle called Rhulen Hill. Up here you can gaze out across the whole panorama of the Wye Valley from the Black Mountains to the Brecon Beacons.

View from the top: Looking out at the view from Rhulen hill. From the Black Mountains…

…to the Brecon Beacons. At the moment the hills are covered in heather!

So you can still look out across the beautiful welsh countryside just as Kilvert would have seen it. That is of course provided the Welsh weather doesn’t let us down. Kilvert talks a lot of muddy swampy bogs and deary rain. Another thing which sometimes doesn’t seem to change!

Jubilee Kickoff

03 Sunday Jun 2012

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A great time was had by all!

Started early (for us) with our guests having breakfast at 7.30 in the morning…which means up a 6am!

Finish off and get the bar ready and inflate the all important Bouncy Castle and get the barbie ready.  Easy Peazy….By lunch time people started to arrive.

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The kids loved it.  Thankfully the rain stayed away.  At the end of the day we speculated that we could just collapse the castle with the kids inside.  Imagine; Bouncy castle complete with kids!

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Of course it would not have been the same without the facepainting….camouflage your kid!

The Barbie got realy busy…..the little girl below was wondering why Dad had forgotton the ketchup….

Then in the evening with the kids in bed, we had the selection of the Jubilee queen and her attendants for Monday, then the Band started up!  “Sould” are a great local group with a ‘big band’ sound – they were liked by all.

All in all a great day – despite our wonderful British weather….

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Decisions, decisions…

01 Friday Jun 2012

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I’ve been trawling the Internet trying to find a new booking system for our Inn.  For those in the know, its called a property management system or PMS.  But on top of that we need online booking from our website and channel management of the 2 OTA’s (Online travel agents) that we use – Booking.com and Laterooms, as they are difficult to keep updated with our availability – which can change in moments.  Channel management offers the possibility of signing up with loads of OTA’s and our availability being mirrored on all sites, thanks to some clever software ‘in the cloud’.

But there are so many systems out there, with vastly different pricings and capabilities, that I’m now totally confused.  We cannot afford the ‘Rolls Royce’ solutions costing thousands and am trying to find something in the lower price range – allthough I’m willing to be convinced of one or two of the more expensive systems, but find that a return on investment is difficult to quantify.

So, surely you would think that these companies would get results (i.e. a rise in bookings perhaps or a large saving in time) from their customer base and lead with these facts in their marketing – but no sadly.

Which leaves this potential customer thinking he might just stick with what he’s already got!

Diamond Jubilee

26 Saturday May 2012

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A week to go before one of the greatest events in our history and a great opportunity to chill out during a 4 day holiday!

We are starting on Saturday 2nd June by opening at 10am for brunch/barbie and having a bouncy castle to keep the kids happy while the parents have a couple of drinks and relax….

In the evening we have a great local band – “Sould”.  An eight or nine piece band with a great Sax sound playing hits fron now and then…

…and the Clyro committee will also be selecting the Jubilee carnival queen for Monday, when the community celebrations and the street party start in ernest!

Should be a good one!  See you there!

Dave

 

 

 

Online Travel Agents (OTA’s)

19 Saturday May 2012

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I was wondering whether guests who book through the OTA’s websites such as booking.com, hotels.com and Laterooms, realise they could often get a better deal.  The following does not work for all Hotels/Inns, but for many it will.

We and many others advertise their rooms through the above and other agency services.  As they are large, they can get the top listings on the search engines so they do give us good exposure.

However, we pay them commission for this – anything up to 10-20% or more for each confirmed stay.  I’m fine with that, as it is often a booking that I would otherwise have not had.

But,  if guests realised that once they find us on the agency site, they could contact us directly and tell us what price we are charging for the dates they want,  they could then get a cheaper rate providing they agreed to book directly with us.

We would automatically give a discount for the amount of commission involved (varies by agent) so they would save money!

There we are, my top tip for accommodation seekers!

‘Bargain’ Meals at Pubs and Restaurants

19 Saturday May 2012

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We’ve become increasingly amazed at the prices that are being quoted for lunches & dinners at (mostly ) pubs on boards outside as you drive past.

Probably the most amazing was at one of these big ‘chain’ pubs we went into a few weeks ago, that was offering a full Sunday Lunch for £4 and a bacon sandwich for breakfast for £1 – and that included a cup of tea!!

Now, we could not put a roast dinner on the table for £4, so we spoke to a local butcher who supplies us with some of our meat, to ask how you can possibly get meat that cheap. The meat is the major cost of a Sunday lunch (indeed, many other dishes we serve as well).

The beef we get is superb and together with gravy made from scratch, the remaining cost is a Yorkshire pudding and some fresh vegetables & roast potatoes which are comparatively cheap.

Now this butcher is fastidious with the accountability of meat & offal through the supply chain. For most of the meat we get he can tell us the farm & abattoir that it came from.

Anyway, it seems that some selected traders will sell off meat if it is too close to end of life, which in turn gets snapped up by some traders & shops (you’ve seen the offers I expect – batching up the Sunday joint with a couple of pounds of sausages and flogging it for a pittance) and some of the less picky ‘chains’ & independent pubs who buy, cook and flog it very quickly in high footfall areas.

So, they get cheap, almost-end-of-life meat, from dubious sources, and move it as quickly as possible.

I think I’ll give those cheap meal offers a miss – as you should – pay a few quid more, and go somewhere that takes pride in serving fresh local produce – as we do!

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Tripadvisor…

19 Saturday May 2012

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Like it or loathe it, sites like Tripadvisor (TA) are here to stay.  It is the 21st century way of telling in advance whether you should stay at a hotel, B&B or Inn before you actually book it…

We wished wholeheartedly that we had looked on TA before we went to Lanzarote a few years ago.  If we had, we would have changed hotels before we got there.  But we found out the hard way I’m afraid.

So, if you travel a lot (or even a little!) you should use TA to make sure you are not letting yourself in for a hard time.  Problems will show in the many ex-guest comments you will find about most properties.  My advice is not to take the extremes into account, just scan them all and get a feeling as to the quality of the place based on the aggregate of the comments.You should not have a disastrous stay then anyway!

So, if you are a traveller its a distinct bonus; if you are a hotelier or inn keeper, it can be a very negative thing for your business, if customer care is not high in your agenda, or the cleanliness is lacking or whatever it might be -  as sure as eggs are eggs, someone will start writing bad things about your business!  If you do things right however, they will tell you that as well!

We have been lucky; what we have done, and am doing, seems to be ok.  Yes, we’ve had a few negatives from a handfull of people, but they are in a small minority I’m glad to say.  The bottom line was summed up by someone many years ago ‘….you can’t please all the people all the time…’ .

Then there are also the totally fictitious comments; its happened twice, by people who have never stayed with us; or in one case openly said it was over 10 years ago!  TA removed these at our request I’m glad to say.  In reality they should never allowed them to be posted in the first place.  There is no verification that someone has stayed with you carried out by TA – unlike the OTA’s (Online Travel Agents e.g. Booking.com).

But this is the trouble is it not? – you only remember the things that go wrong!  All of the guests that have left us after having a great stay are not foremost in your mind – and its thanks to them that we have the rating on TA that we have today – but only the handfull of bad reviews get your attention….

So, you can imagine how pleased we were on a few months ago, to find out that we had received an ‘Excellence Award’ from TA, who have supplied us with a pretty little logo, and have sent a certificate we can frame and put on the wall!  I don’t know if this will make a great difference to our lives, but at least its nice to be recognised!  We will carry on doing what we do, to the best of our abilities as is usual!

So, don’t forget – check out that B&B or Hotel on Tripadvisor before you book it – it could save you a lot of time, energy and hassle….and if you are a hotelier – watch out!

Dave

Hello World!

16 Wednesday May 2012

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Hello world indeed!

Our first WordPress post heralds the next phase of my continued attempts at blogging!  So, over the coming months, I’ll try to put together some of our exploits, thoughts, fears and downright nightmares  and pick out some stories that will hopefully interest and amuse you.

Time is always the enemy of course, so I’ve now managed to link wordpress to our Facebook and Twitter feeds.  Trouble is, there is now the added strain of knowing that if I say something wrong its just been published 3 ways – not one.

Anyway, for those of you just reading this on WordPress, we are June & Dave, who, in a fit of total insanity decided to buy this great old Inn, the Baskerville Arms.  Not insane possibly, but certainly a little deluded if we thought that running a country Inn was going to be a prelude to retirement; it is anything but!

But do you know what?  We enjoy it.  We enjoy seeing people have a good time or have a great stay with us.  It gives us a great feeling.

We have now been here for 7 years come August.  At one point we thought we would not survive the first 6 months – its a steep learning curve.  But learn we did and it now gets easier all the time.

Well, must get on with all the other stuff now.  To do this job you have to learm how to become a jack-of-all trades  –   accountant,  IT expert, marketeer, DIY expert etc. but there is always a surprise around the corner; we will never become bored at least!

TTFN,

Dave

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