Tuesday 26 March 2019

‘Crammed' (verb) - Full to Overflowing...

From the title you’ll no doubt be expecting a story of a pub at the peak of it’s popularity, full of adoring customers enjoying a range of top quality real ales...

Customer lines them up...

...well no - that’s not quite it....

This is a story of  a 'Herne Disciple’ the owner of a micro-pub, who is overflowing with determined optimism, despite the difficulties he has experienced, to own a successful micro pub.

It’s easy to forget when new micropubs are opening every week (if not every day) that there are also a proportion that are closing after relatively short existences.

Matt Lucker previously owned the Tram Stop Bar & Kitchen micro-pub in Portswood which closed in 2018.  I’d been in there once during a local CAMRA micro-pub tour, and it was a generously sized micro on a corner plot in Portswood's main shopping street.  It comprised a bar area and a lounge area with sofa seating etc where light lunch type meals were served.  The bar had a good range of real ales.  A really nice place and it’s a shame it didn’t make it.  According to Matt the costs - particularly the lease were just too high.

The Tram Stop micro pub from a January 2017 visit.

Despite the failure of his previous venture, Matt is back with the latest micro on the block, the Crammed Inn, 48 High Street Southampton, in a former Oceans gift shop and left luggage premises (an interesting combination?) according to the Daily Echo article covering the opening of his new venture.

Image - Google maps street view.

This is indeed a quite small micro - long and thin stretching back from the frontage, with the bar on the left hand side - seating mainly on the right, and the toilet and storage at the rear.  It seems to be quite well placed for customers though, near the centre of Southampton and the quay area, and also in a area which has been redeveloped to provide a significant number of blocks of upmarket flats.

Matt on the right behind the bar and chatting to David 
When I called in with my friend David just after the 4pm opening on Thursday afternoon it was quiet as you might expect, and in addition the micro has only been open for 3 months so Matt is still working to build up his customer base.

At the bar there were a couple of Urban Island cask ales, Urban Pale and Porter 28.

Pristine urban porter...

I’m a sucker for a good dark beer so went for the Porter.  It was a good choice, a 5% abv Porter with gentle hints of smokiness and chocolate according to Urban island. It was on top form (very good).

After a while another late afternoon customer arrived in the middle of a conversation with a mate on his mobile (which was on speaker) about fish and chips.  Though initially engrossed in his conversation the guy soon realised we were all enjoying the fish and chip discussion and, laughing with embarrassment, he ended the call,  ordered a pint of Upham Brewery’s UB5 keg ale, and sat down near the window.

Body art...

We received an enthusiastic welcome from Matt who chatted to us about his micro pub experiences, beers and his plans for the future.  The Crammed Inn is a pleasant micro-pub and Matt certainly deserves to succeed, especially after the hard knock he received with the closing of his previous micro-pub.

Perhaps his abundance of optimism also shines though in the name he has chosen for this pub.  It is certainly crammed with optimism, and there is no reason at all why it shouldn’t be crammed with customers...

11 comments:

  1. Will certainly give it a look next time I'm in Southampton, its great these new places are opening on a regular basis.

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  2. I agree totally with Citra...new pub openings free of tie are terrific �� this one will hopefully last a little while longer...
    Britain Beermat

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    1. Hi Citra and LAF - thanks for your comments - Matt certainly deserves success with Crammed Inn. Nice guy...

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  3. Almost home from a week away with our first grandchild. Currently undergoing a 5 hour delay on last leg home. Will catch up sometime this week.

    Russtovich

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    1. Hope you had a good trip Russ (except for the aformentioned delay of course...)

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  4. Yep, hope this place does well. We called in on the Oxford CAMRA beer fest helpers trip just over a week ago and had a couple of great beers from Crafty Brewing Co. here.
    "Quite small micro"? I'm confused by what size constitutes micro. I was thinking at the time that this was as big as Oxfords 'White Horse' on Broad St, which would make that a 16th century micro-pub. Perhaps I'm over-thinking it and should just enjoy the ales!

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    1. Excellent - bet he was pleased to see you guys.

      Good point about size Nick. Now that you mention it I don't think I could define what I meant by a 'small micro' either and it probably isn't any smaller than most others I have been in...

      ....strange ;)

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  5. "there are also a proportion that are closing after relatively short existences."

    The bane of any new business starting out; be it restaurants, regular shops and the like. I know that from first hand experience (well, through my darling wife in my case). :)

    "particularly the lease were just too high."

    (nods)

    "the Crammed Inn, "

    LOL (doffs hat)

    "a significant number of blocks of upmarket flats."

    The better version of BBM's 'chimney pots'. :)

    "I’m a sucker for a good dark beer so went for the Porter."

    I'd like to be but where I live the choice is a tad sparse alas.

    "he ended the call, "

    I think that would have gotten him banned in a pub chain with my last name in it. ;)

    "It is certainly crammed with optimism, and there is no reason at all why it shouldn’t be crammed with customers..."

    A nice way to end the post. (doffs hat)


    Cheers

    PS - "at the peak of it’s popularity,"

    *cough* apostrophe :)

    "in a area"

    Usually it's an if the next word starts with a vowel but I've seen various takes on that over on your side of the pond.

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    1. Cheers Russ - glad to see I’m keeping you on the ball as I push the boundaries grammatically... :)

      Sorry to hear you’ve had personal experience of a business in difficulty. Me too in the dim and distant past. Very painful experience and (I decided at that point) not one I was ever going to repeat - so stayed away from self employment after that. :(

      I like Beermat’s chimney pot reference - sadly it wouldn’t work with flats - which don’t have them :)

      "I'd like to be but where I live the choice is a tad sparse alas."

      That’s a shame - assume that Canadians prefer lighter beers then - (not Coors Light hopefully)? There is a bit of seasonality over here with more dark beers about in the winter months, but generally there always a good choice around most times of year.

      "I think that would have gotten him banned in a pub chain with my last name in it. ;)”
      Yes indeed can’t remember having been in a Sam Smith’s pub myself, but just been reading about it here:

      https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2019/04/uk-pub-chain-samuel-smiths-bans-mobile-phones/

      This part is interesting - but perhaps mis-reported:

      "is not to allow customers mobile phones, laptops or similar inside our pubs”

      I wonder what customers have to do with them then? Leave them at home, or are there storage lockers outside the pub that you can use? I can see Retired Martin and Si getting into major difficulties with this.

      Though the article goes on to list what they cannot be used for in their pubs it doesn’t include texting/messaging - which if allowed is probably going to work against their person to person social contact as much as anything anyway.

      I like the subtle dig in the comment that Humphrey is in his 70s - as if to say he’s an old fogey who doesn’t do mobile phones...

      I tend to support his objection to the obtrusiveness of some mobile phone conversations in general, but it may be a bit extreme - and from what I’ve seen many pubs seem to have plenty of direct person to person social contact without banning phones...

      ...like the Faraday cage idea though....perhaps they could fit those in the roofs of train carriages...

      By the way in upcoming post I’ve got a cracking example of inappropriate use of a mobile phone in a pub...

      :)

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    2. Cheers Glyn.

      The business thing was a money loser from day one alas. But, my wife learned a valuable lesson and is doing much better. On the bright side, it got here to where she is today (and still self employed with me as 'free' labour'. :)

      With regards to porters/stouts around here; there are some cracking ones in Canada but where am there are either so-so or a tad on the expensive side. Whilst in Edmonton to visit our grandson we went to the brewpub where my youngest is the brewmaster. They had a very very nice Imperial Stout on; 10.2%. He recommended only having two, which I did (and then switched to a not bad Irish type stout).

      I can understand mobiles if being used as a phone or playing some loud game or streaming; but if you're just browsing or answering texts then I don't see how that could be a problem in my opinion.

      Looking forward to the upcoming post. :)

      Cheers

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  6. Phew - two 10.2% Imperial stouts would definitely be enough for me!😮

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