New landlord takes over Samuel's Rest in Shedfield as he looks to put his stamp on idyllic country pub

The News, Portsmouth

Michael Pullinger has taken over Samuel's Rest in Upper Church Road, Shedfield.

Transcript

00:00My name's Mike Pullinger. I've lived locally to the Sands for about, well, my life is 60

00:13odd years. I was born in Walking Chase, local boy. This used to be one of my locals. I own

00:19a pub which is located at the Barley Corner, which is one of my locals as well. And that's

00:24about it really.

00:25And this is the Samuel's Rest in...

00:27This is the Samuel's Rest.

00:28Perfect, yeah.

00:29And you've only recently just taken over, is that right?

00:30I've taken the pub over five weeks ago now.

00:31Okay, so yeah, it's been a short amount of time. Have you been able to change much in

00:36that time?

00:37It's hard. It's hard because people don't know that the old landlady's gone. And obviously

00:44we're trying to look for new trade. And there's some people, you know, obviously people want

00:49to know that the pub's changed and the owners have changed. So, yeah, yeah.

00:54Perfect, yeah. So what kind of your aims for the place? What are you looking to do?

00:58We're looking to do good food, to turn it into more like a local village pub, a locals'

01:03pub. So we're going to have Sky Sports, BT Sports. We've got a pool table, darts. We've

01:09already got two pool teams sorted out. The locals are back in the pub 100%. Yeah, so

01:15basically make it what it should be, a village local pub.

01:18Perfect. And have you been able to change much in terms of the food so far?

01:22We have our new menu. The old owner had a menu that was really good and it was successful.

01:27We've changed that and we've got our own ideas in and we're giving it a good go. I've

01:33got two cracking chefs and, yeah, they're doing well.

01:39Perfect. What kind of dishes, popular dishes have you got on the menu at the moment?

01:42Oh, just from anywhere, from lasagna right the way through to spare ribs. We've got to

01:47put steak nights on. Yeah, all sorts of pub grub really, to be honest with you.

01:55It's quite an idyllic location as well because you've got the fields across from you, the

01:59green park and you've got a nice pub garden as well out there.

02:02That's right. Over the other side of the road you have the Platonk Horse. This was the pub

02:06that founded the Platonk, British Platonk Association of Olympians. Back over the road

02:12you have the horses walking by, like that. Proper country pub. And another horse. And

02:21they have football in the winter, there's cricket in the summer. That's very, very lively

02:26over there, to be honest with you. Perfect, perfect. And I think there's a little bit

02:30of history, quite a lot of history to this pub. Obviously you talk about Poussaint there,

02:32what's, I'm not sure what Platonk is to be honest.

02:34Platonk is French bowls. Oh, okay. Right.

02:37The difference between normal bowls is they're big, the big bowls that you see for bowling

02:43and then you have the French bowls that I believe are like a metal bowl. Similarly played

02:49but I think they throw it overhand, not underhand.

02:52Okay, interesting. And any plans to kind of start a Platonk team or anything like that?

02:56We already, they're coming back. The previous owner didn't want them in here, had her reasons

03:02for that, but they are coming back. We're hoping if we can get funding to get the Platonk

03:08horse and the slab out the back redone so we can make it so they can actually make their

03:13home again. At the moment they're in the rear garage, the ground behind us, so we'd

03:18like to get them back in here. But they have, they turn up for food and beer and stuff like

03:23that when they have their meetings. That's great. And to any kind of locals that maybe

03:27haven't been to this pub in a long time or maybe they're thinking about coming back,

03:30what would you say to them? Come back, give us a try. Yeah. Please, come and have a look.

03:34It's a different pub now. It's under new ownership and we're going to try and do our best to

03:39make it again.

03:43Music

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