It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

The Lord NelsonWith the weather now turning a little

chillier, we've introduced a gorgeous new

Winter menu. You can look forward to some

proper winter

warmers including

plenty of seasonal

game dishes. The

Whole Pot Roast

Rutland Partridge

is delicious!

To accompany the new menu, we're also

introducing a winter wine list handpicked

by our management team.

The Oakham Christmas market was great

fun again this year and we really set our stall

out. With Danielle and Lee getting into the

festive spirit and serving steaming glasses of

mulled wine and

cider, mince pies

and some tasty

treats from the

kitchen.

The Crown HotelYou may have seen that we’ve recently had a

few changes. One of the biggest changes

being to our back restaurant, which has

been transformed in to a relaxed, cosy and

inviting pub-come-dining area - aptly

called the ‘Red Cow @ the Crown’.

We’re spreading a little festive cheer,

here at The Crown Hotel!

With our Advent @ The Crown

competition you could win a mystery

Christmassy gift every day from the 1st

December to the 24th!

All you need to do is:

Pop in to The Crown Hotel

between the 1st and

24th December.

Take a selfie wearing our

Christmas Crown under

the moose’s head in the

Red Cow.

Send us your selfie via

Twitter or Facebook and

use the hashtag

#ChristmasCrown

KNEAD pubs and all our staff and

managers would like to take this

opportunity to wish all our

customers a very Merry Christmas

and a fabulous New Year!

Smith’s of BourneOur new and exciting Winter menu is now

firmly in place featuring new dishes such

as The Hippy Burger and Trio of English

Pork Belly perfect with a steaming glass of

mulled cider!!

We are also delighted to announce our first

ever Christmas Beer Festival which will be

held, here at Smith’s, from Thursday 18th

to Sunday 21st December!

Look out for 12 local and national seasonal

real ales and 4 real ciders, plus hot mulled

wine and cider!

The Prince RupertWe all know that everyone in Newark likes

nothing more than a good excuse to party

and Christmas is the perfect time - the town

is looking super festive and here at The

Rupert we are getting in the spirit too!! We

have got lots of live music events happening

in the lead up to the big day:

17th Dec: is the third Wednesday of the

month so is Open Mic Night

18th Dec: Moodswing - 9pm pop artist duo

21st Dec: Rocky and Caveman - acoustic

duo starts 1pm

31st Dec: It's New Years Eve so come and

dance the night away with Andy

Cowling one of the beast local

performance blues / folk start

9pm

So why not pop in and help us get the party

started!!

Love

KNEAD News

Pick up a KNEAD Pubs Loyalty CardBecause we really do love our customers, a KNEAD Love card is our way of giving a little something

back. No matter if you visit us once every six months or every Friday evening for a pint, you can always

use your KNEAD Love card to build up points that go towards saving you money when you pop by next.

The Tobie NorrisIt’s been a busy few weeks! We’ve just had a

very successful Yorkshire Beer Festival

throughout November, and sold a whopping

64 barrels of beer from God’s Own Country.

A big thanks to Will Fry who managed to

organise the whole thing and find us some

really interesting and different breweries.

We are gearing up for Christmas and the

festive season! Decorations are up, fires are

lit and the mulled wine is ready to go.

We are also selling tickets for New Years Eve;

this is a ticket only event at £20 per head

and includes a sumptuous cold buffet.

Ask a member of staff for more info.

KNEAD Pubs goes down a treat! Our biglaunch at the ‘Red Cow’ @ The Crown HotelWe’ve been so eager to properly launch KNEAD Pubs that when the date – 6th November – finallycame around we were really excited to get talking about our new name, our plans for the futureand what we already had happening as our re-launch kicked in.

We were astounded by how many people

arrived to celebrate this big moment in the

journey of our group – I think there must

have been at least 150 people at one point!

We really can’t say thank you enough to

everyone who came to celebrate with us. We

hope you had a wonderful evening. We know

we did.

With Nick (our executive chef) pulling off a

fantastic feast of fish and chips, candyfloss,

canapés and more, we hope you were all well

fed by the end of the evening. Not to

mention well watered too with all the bottles

of wine and pints of ale we got through…

For those who couldn’t come along, Michael

had the opportunity to give a bit of speech.

In fact, those who made it perhaps didn’t

hear him either! It really was a very bubbly

atmosphere – even a bit of heckling from

the back! If you didn’t catch what was said,

Michael explained that we’ve got lots of

exciting plans for KNEAD in the future –

and that the name ties into those plans too.

We’re thinking some day we might

introduce specialist bread ovens to The

Crown Hotel, and do a bit of baking.

Perhaps then the name KNEAD will tie in a

little better? But our marketing team ran

through why we had made the change and

summed it up nicely by saying the name

KNEAD is quite simply a quirky one, which

we liked – and it’s one you won’t forget!

Michael ran through that the KNEAD Pubs

group is going to be: The Tobie Norris, The

Prince Rupert, The Crown Hotel, Smith’s of

Bourne and The Lord Nelson. Not to

mention the ‘Red Cow’ @ The Crown which

is now a great pub space within the hotel

and has undergone a brilliant soft-refurb

over the past few months.

Micheal explained: “Our pubs and hotels

are not about me or my name, they are about

our unique environments, the people that

work in them and the customers who come

to use them.

“We have worked hard to build our

reputation across the region and now

KNEAD Pubs allows us to strengthen this

further with a brand that personifies

honest, wholesome good food, drink and

hospitality, no matter which of our unique

settings customers choose to visit.”

Alongside news of the launch we talked

about launching our KNEAD Love loyalty

card and bringing our pubs together as a

family. We want you to know that when you

visit a KNEAD pub you’ll be getting the

same great quality you’ve come to expect

from us.

If you want to know a little more about the

re-launch and what we have planned, check

out our blog: Now we’re KNEAD: What’s

happened to the Thurlby Group?

But back to the night – we were delighted to

see our suppliers, friends, family and

managers all come along to find out more

about what we have in store for KNEAD. As

Michael said, a big thank you goes out to the

KNEAD family who have supported us all as

the re-launch of the group has taken place,

alongside the refurb of The Crown.

Michael Thurlby

The Jewel in the KNEAD Pubs’ CrownThe latest addition to the KNEAD pubs group is The Crown Hotel, Michael had taken a back seatin this site for over the past 3 years, however earlier this year Michael and his sister Sue decided topart company with him buying The Crown and her retaining the two great local village pubs, TheWhite Hart at Ufford and The Exeter Arms at Easton on the hill.

Coming back to The Crown in July after a long break away meant we

all had a lot of work on our hands especially as we wanted to

incorporate it into the KNEAD Pubs brand and make it feel more like

us and what you as customers have come to expect. Our first point of

call was the kitchen - we brought new pieces of equipment and

generally overhauled the area to ensure we could get the tasty food

that we have come to expect from our Executive Chef, Nick. Nick

wrote a new menu incorporating our own beef and lamb from the

farm and using lots of fresh local ingredients to ensure our dishes

tasted as good as they looked. We have brought back a good selection

of real ales on the bar and coupled this with an attractive wine list

that offers something for everyone.

The biggest thing to happen however is probably our transformation

of the back restaurant, lower lounge and lastly Michael's mad

creation of the "pop up restaurant" at the front. We are calling the

downstairs dining area The Red Cow at The Crown (simply after our

own cows on the farm) and as you can tell from the photos it is

completely different to anything else we have done before with the

bottle green seating, quirky fair ground signs and who could forget

the moose's head.

We know we still have some fine tuning to do at The

Crown but we are really pleased it is back with us and if

you haven't been for a while we recommend you pop in

and try it out for yourselves!!

Our Pizza Deals are now available for even longer!Monday to Friday throughout January & February,

12pm-3pm & 6pm-9pm, you can get:

Tuck into these delicious pizza deals at:

2 Not So Large Pizzas with 2

toppings each PLUS a bottle

of house wine for just £22.95

1 Not So Large Pizza with 2

toppings PLUS a selected

drink for just £9.95

KNEAD something to cheer you up this winter?

We’ve got just the ticket…

Have a bottle on us!

And if you don't

fancy a pizza…

When two people choose a main course & anyother course, you’ll get a FREE bottle of house wine.

Available Monday to Friday exclusively at The Crown Hotel in Stamfordthroughout January & February, 12pm-3pm & 6pm-9pm.

All Saints' Place, Stamford | 01780 763 136 | www.kneadpubs.co.uk

Bournet. 01778 426819

Stamford

t. 01780 753800

Newarkt. 01636 918121

Oakhamt. 01572 868340