THE OPENING of a pub has been hailed a roaring success, despite plans being delayed by more than a year.
Tables at The White House on Abingdon Road have been fully booked from Thursday through to Sunday since punters were allowed back into pub gardens on April 12.
The assistant general manager, Connor Fox, said: “It’s going really well. We’ve spent the last 10 months working in a horse box getting to know the neighbours and people in the community.
“We’ve had so many regulars, people who come in for coffees in the morning and now we’ve opened as a pub properly it’s nice to have the same faces back.
“We’ve been fully booked practically; we’ve had to turn people away. It’s a nice problem to have.”
The pub closed its doors for good in September 2019 before it was announced that Tap Social Movement had taken on the lease, owned by Brasenose College.
Plans were put in place to give the Grade-II listed building a fresh makeover and the idea was that it would reopen in Spring 2020.
But when the pandemic hit those plans were put on hold and staff at the pub started serving take-away coffee from a done-up horse box in the front garden.
Speaking about the future of the horsebox, Mr Fox said: “We’re in a transitional phase with the horse box, as the main bar opens we’ll repurpose it and turn it into something like a gin bar or serve summer cocktails from it.”
He said that the inside décor was nearly finished on the upstairs and downstairs bar areas and as lockdown restrictions ease again on May 17 people will be allowed to book tables inside.
As it is, the pub has a huge outside garden with more than 20 tables made from recycled plastic with shelter.
Mr Fox said it has a ‘festival vibe’ and that everybody who books a table is ‘so excited’ to be back at the pub with people in real life.
The new food menu at the White House has also been praised for its vegetarian options on social media.
On Twitter, Victoria Brewer said: “So good to see lots of veggie options, I find it so boring to eat out now we don’t eat meat. Looking forward to visiting soon.”
The Horse Box @tapsocialbrew kept me and my housemates going with coffee over lockdown and were always a joy to chat with (from a social distance).
— Grace (@gracemim) April 21, 2021
10/10 would recommend.
Give them a look! 🥰 https://t.co/gzleAwDleJ
She added: “It definitely makes you feel ‘wanted’ when a place puts equal focus on veg rather than feeling like something has been scraped together from the back of a cupboard as an afterthought.”
Mr Fox said: “The menu having lots of meat-free options was a deliberate choice. It was a very veggie-forward menu, we’ve tried to source everything locally, it’s all environmentally sustainable. We wanted to make sure everybody had something – so there’s meat options too.”
The head chef, Frideswide O’Neil set up her own bakery called Patron in the first lockdown and her products were sold at the White House horse box as the pub was being refurbished.
Mr Fox said: “It’s all extremely exciting, it’s been absolutely manic but we’ve been so lucky with the people who we’ve got working and the wonderful venue and the food.”
To book visit Tapsocialmovement.com
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