The village pub run by two sisters who took over empty venue and made it popular again

The Royal Oak in Newport Road, Gnosall, was taken over by two sisters in 2021 after being shut and empty for almost two years before that.

Katie Heggadon took over the establishment with her sister Annie Girling, who has since stepped away from the role at the moment due to family and other work commitments.

Since the two took over, Katie says it hasn't been without its challenges.

"When we initially got the keys at the end of May in 2021, the building required a lot of work and we have been working on fixing issues as we go along," she explains.

"We restored it to a fully functioning pub, giving it a major clean up and repaired what needed repairing and then opened on July 2 2021.

"I have always worked in pubs but this was the first time I became a landlady, but it has been really good with lots of kind, supportive people.

"There is a real nice community feel around the pub and we are continuing on building relationships with people and have actually made a lot of friends who have now become regulars."

The hospitality industry has faced a major testing period in recent years with the Covid pandemic and now the energy crisis. Katie, who is now solely running the Royal Oak, took over the business whilst Covid restrictions were in place and the industry was only just beginning to reopen.

Sharing about what it was like taking over during the pandemic, Katie adds: "At the time the rules were still about tables of six people, and masks were being worn, and then following that we have the Omicron variant, and so having these restrictions made it a struggle, it wasn't easy but hopefully we are at the other side of it all now, and we're just looking forward to moving on.

"Yes it has been difficult now with the energy crisis too and it is a challenge but it is affecting everybody, and so we try to do what we can to make things work for us and efficiently.

"We are getting along though."

Some of the things that are helping pubs get through the tougher periods are by hosting events or serving food, and this is what the Royal Oak is certainly doing.

Live music events are held at the pub on the last Saturday of the month, and there are also celebrations on bank holiday weekends.

Open Tuesday to Sunday, food is served every day with traditional pub classics served daily. Katie says they are beginning to get there with popularity for their food.

"It was difficult to find the right staff in hospitality at first but we have found a chef now, and people are very kind, they're very complimentary of the good.

"People are coming back to eat here which is of course the biggest compliment.

"The live music nights go down really well as well, and it always ends up being a late night with people enjoying.

"The kind of music we play is from the local bands and from the village, which is nice because we are able to give them the platform to be able to play their music.

"We have a nice garden here too that we are planning to use as a beer garden in the summer time, so we look forward to welcoming people to the beer garden when the weather gets nicer.

"There are real ales available and they change weekly, which are very popular with the drinkers.

"I love doing this. Yes it is hard work, especially with a baby - I had a four-month-old when we took over at the time, and Annie has two boys, so finding that balance was tough, there literally was no balance but we are getting there.

"We have a great team of staff that all work well together, and it is nice to make friends with the customers that come in and with the staff.

"You simply can't do this job half-hearted, you have to do it because you want to."