Friday 23 November 2012

Cherry Tree to be chopped?

The Cherry Tree is a former Greenall’s pub on the Grange estate in Runcorn, Cheshire. Despite having grown up within a mile of it, and regarding it as a familiar landmark, I have never actually set foot inside the place. It has probably never sold cask beer. It’s now up for sale by Orchid Group for £400,000, presumably because they don’t see it as fitting their core strategy.

Other pubs available as part of the same batch are:

  • The Boar’s Head, Marton, Blackpool (£400k)
  • The Farmer’s Arms, Walton, Liverpool (£450k)
  • The Priory, Litherland, Liverpool (£450k)
  • The Red Lion, Worsley, Salford (£575k)
To be honest, looking at those other prices, I would say £400k was a bit steep for an estate pub like the Cherry Tree.

Although Runcorn could probably do with a Tesco Express, that’s not the ideal location for one as it isn’t on a main road and all the approach roads are bedevilled by humps. It would be interesting to learn how the commenters here who are always telling us that pubs only close because they are badly run would set about reviving the fortunes of it and similar pubs if they had that kind of money to spend.

6 comments:

  1. Depends now many houses you can fit onto the plot.

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  2. Me and you Mudge, 50/50. We run an artisanal bakery and on site craft micro brewery flogging expensive crap to mugs. We promote it through the blogosphere by telling everyone it makes everything else look like shite. Then we sell out becoming millionaires. I can go somewhere nice with decent weather and you can go sit in the Sam Smith's drinking cheap bitter and eating poundworld scotch eggs and moaning about the ploughmans lunches for the rest of your life.

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  3. If I became a millionaire I could buy my own pub and get them to make ploughman's lunches exactly to my specification.

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  4. If you close it for trade and just invite all the towns dodgepots as guests you can recreate your beloved cancerous and smelly fog.

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  5. Oy! @ Cooking Lager. I'm one of those people who liked smelly fog. They had atmosphere. And proper customers even on a weeknight. And proper beers that didn't sit waiting for customers for more than 4 days.

    Get thee on thy bike to a place that sells gently-steamed tofu burgers with a seaweed mousse, and a half pint of Old Mouse to last you all evening.

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  6. I work in the heron foods store that opened up on the site of the old Cherry Tree club (attached to the back of the pub) and personally I believe that it would be an ideal place for the likes of a Tesco express as the only other shops in that direct vicinity are two small time businesses (who I admit would regrettably suffer) and a CoOp which the locals despise due to the ridiculously steep prices. due to the reputation the pub had outside of the locals who frequented it there would be little profit in re-opening it as a pub, though the same can unfortunately be said for the majority of the pubs in the town. though I am not a pub landlord so that is entirely my opinion.

    ReplyDelete

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