What "A House for the Public" actually means
Here is what we mean by it, and what it commits us to.
“Public house” is one of those phrases that has been said so many times it has stopped meaning anything. It is worth pulling apart, because the second word is doing less work than the first.
A house is somewhere you can stay. A public house is somewhere anyone can stay. That is the whole idea, and it is older than any of us.
What it commits us to
Open early enough to be useful. Doors at 7am. Not 11am, not “from midday at weekends”. If a place is only available to you after work, it is not really a house for the public. It is an evening-only pub with a long lunch.
One room, one welcome. There is no separate café bit and pub bit with a rope between them. The coffee machine is on the bar, deliberately, where you can see it.
Let people stay.We have fast wifi, plugs at the tables and comfortable chairs. No pass to buy, no sign-up, no minimum spend and nothing to reserve. If you buy one coffee and sit there for three hours, that is fine. It has always been fine. Pubs invented that.
Say yes to the things pubs used to say yes to. Dogs on the ground floor. Prams. Children until nine. Someone who wants tap water and a seat. A team who have booked the function room for a wake. A choir on the pavement in December.
The building has done this before
There has been a pub on this corner since 1878.
That is a house for the public. We are just the current tenants of the idea.
It is a pub on Garratt Lane that happens to be good at coffee and happens to have a quiet floor upstairs coming soon, open from seven in the morning until late, seven days a week.
We open in November. Come and hold us to it.
The Grosvenor Arms
The house
Posts written by whoever happened to be behind the bar, on the pass or in the cellar that week. We sign them off collectively because that is usually how they get written.
