England cricketer Stuart Broad says the ‘positive approach’ encouraged by head coach Brendon McCullum has helped his business survive and thrive after a ‘devastating’ fire last year.
Broad has run the Cat & Wickets Pub Company alongside former Nottinghamshire teammate Harry Gurney since 2016, with ambitions to scale up the group from its current stable of two pubs to a total of ten over the next decade.
But the group’s growth plans were struck a blow in June 2022 when the Tap and Run, in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, was almost entirely gutted by a fire, forcing it to close until finally reopening last week.
Speaking to This is Money, Broad said the fire was ‘devastating’ but he expects the pub to bounce back strongly.
Stuart Broad launched Cat & Wickets with Harry Gurney as the pair prepared for life after cricket
He said: ‘Harry called me at 5.15am on the morning of a test match at Trent Bridge, it was horrific.
‘The major positive is that no one was injured. But I was really surprised by Harry and [his wife Avril’s] positivity.
‘I went to visit the site after the test match finished and they were both already planning how to make the pub better.
‘It was never a question of shutting down or worrying that this industry isn’t for us.
‘That made me motivated as a shareholder because I realised there was no doubt that we were going to continue at a devastating time for us.’
The Tap and Run caught fire in June last year, but finally reopened last week
Having been kept busy by the ongoing Ashes series, which returns on Thursday at Headingley, Broad is yet to drop in at the reborn Tap and Run, but has booked in dinner plans at the conclusion of the third test.
He had planned to visit sooner, Broad said, but the pub was fully booked on a Monday night – with no exception for shareholders.
Tackling obstacles: Stuart Broad explains the challenges of running a small firm
Cat & Wickets was launched as Gurney neared retirement and Broad turned 30 – ‘the magic number as a sportsperson when you have half an eye on what you’re going to do next’, he says.
The pair were inspired by a shared love of food and wine, bearing in mind Broad’s ‘pet hate’ of ‘paying a 300 per cent mark-up on a bottle’ at restaurants.
He said: ‘It started out as a bit of fun, really – I thought I’d be grateful to have somewhere to have a lovely Sunday roast or a nice glass of red.
‘I just said my number one goal would be a business in the gastropub industry in villages where we’re going to have a great wine list that people drink two bottles from because they want to and they can afford to.’
‘Obviously, the business plan has now changed dramatically.’
Following what began with the Griffin Inn in Swithland, also in Leicestershire, and expanded with the launch of the Tap and Run, Cat & Wickets is plotting further growth in the East Midlands.
It now also has the support of Lee Cash, who recently invested after selling the Peach Pubs company to Revolution Bars Group last year.
Broad said ‘We’ve learned a huge amount since 2016. We love the industry, we love the people involved in the industry. But, ultimately, if you just have one village pub it’s quite tricky to really make money or grow.
‘There are decent links between business and sports. You build a culture within sport to build a winning team and stick by certain principles, and we’ve taken that into the pub industry as well.
‘Every business would probably agree that the hardest thing is keeping your standards as high as possible as you grow.
‘Something I’ve learned from Brendon McCullum, who’s really positive all of the time – he says to us ‘run towards the danger’. And that’s certainly something we’ve taken with us into the culture of the pubs as well.’
Former Nottinghamshire and England cricketer Harry Gurney
But Broad and Gurney face troubling times for pubs and the wider hospitality industry, which is facing soaring costs, limited availability of staff and an increasingly squeezed UK consumer.
Food prices alone rose 14.6 per cent in the year June, down from highs of 15.7 per cent in April, according to British Retail Consortium data.
This helped to drive 569 restaurant businesses into insolvency in the first quarter of this year.
It has pushed some of Britain’s big pub bosses to take aim at the Government, criticising a perceived failure to support the industry in its time of need.
Harry Gurney told This is Money: ‘I don’t like to get involved in short-termism – i.e. calling for temporary VAT cuts, [for example].
‘But one longer term structural change which needs to take place is to redress the balance between online sales and bricks and mortar.
‘An online sales tax should be implemented to cover the cost of then dropping business rates.
‘I love the convenience of shopping online as much as the next person. But the danger of doing nothing on rates is that the high street as we know it disappears to be replaced by hives of Amazon drones.’
– Broad was talking to This is Money in relation to a partnership with tech firm Sage, which is running a competition for small businesses in conjunction with The Hundred cricket competition, the winner of which will take home £60,000 worth of support to boost their firm’s growth.
Reborn: The Tap and Run reopened its doors last week
