A group of villagers have just bought back their local pub after years of campaigning in a bid to save it from developers.
Locals in Grimston, near Melton, have raised £500,000 between them in order to rescue and preserve the historic 400-year-old Black Horse boozer – the last remaining pub in the village – from potential demolition.
After a three-year fight to change the pub’s fate, they’ve finally succeeded in securing the funds to buy it back – using a range of fund-raising, investment from shareholders in The Black Horse Community Group Ltd and government funding.
Now, after years of work they’re setting to work to refurb the boozer and bring it back to its former glory – busying away to remove the evidence of its three-year closure, which has left it looking a little bit shabby.
Speaking on the news, Mike Petty, Chariman of the Black Horse Community Group, told Leicestershire Live: “Once or twice it looked like it may slip from our grasp, but here we are and it is absolutely fantastic.
“This project has been so important because there were only three amenities left in the surrounding area of Grimston. This was the church, the village hall and the pub – and most people worshipped at the pub.
“The pub was quite run down when we purchased it, and it had been closed for three years as well, but I have got some amazing colleagues on the committee who are picking up the baton of sorting it out.
“It is the only one in the village, and you can’t walk along footpaths to get anywhere else. With the pub gone, the heart had gone from the community and we are going to get it back.”
The pub quietly shut in 2020 after its then-owners decided it was no longer viable as a business, but when it went up for sale villagers complained that it was priced out of their reach.
The campaign group now intends to lease it to a tenant who will run it, with plans to officially reopen the pub later this year.
Lively Irish pub Nancy Spains set to open in Manchester for the first time
Daisy Jackson
An Irish bar famed for its live music is heading up to Manchester for the first time, and is promising £2.50 pints to lure us in.
Nancy Spains will be venturing out of London for the first time promising to bring the ‘ultimate traditional Irish pub experience’ to the Northern Quarter.
If you were to ask what the hottest trend in hospitality is right now the answer would, apparently, be Guinness. We’re drowning in the stuff.
This latest opening is more about Murphy’s, another Irish stout, than Guinness (they actually won’t serve Guinness at all) but the craic will be much the same.
Nancy Spains is actually set to open almost directly opposite the aforementioned Salmon of Knowledge, taking over the former Corner Boy unit on Stevenson Square in the heart of Manchester.
To celebrate its opening, the pub will be serving its first 5000 pints of Murphy’s for just £2.50, so that it can show off the atmosphere that’s established it as ‘one of London’s favourite pubs’.
They’re promising an array of Irish whiskeys behind the bar, live music performances, and a lively late-night setting.
Nancy Spains was set up by three brothers who travelled all over their home county of rural Kerry researching Irish pubs, before launching two venues down in London.
They want it to balance a traditional pub with the vibrancy of the city.
Peter O’Halloran, co-founder of Nancy Spains commented, “We’re so excited to be launching in Manchester, bringing Nancy Spains to the heart of the Northern Quarter.
“After the success of our two venues in London, it was only right to bring Nancy Spains’ infectious spirit and Irish pride to Manchester. Slainte!”
Nancy Spains will open its first Manchester pub on Saturday 15 March at 21 Hilton Street.
Lucky Mama’s – The Italian restaurant serving pasta in a dough bowl and ‘pregnant’ pizzas
Daisy Jackson
Lucky Mama’s is a local sensation, thanks to its slightly whacky but delicious Italian creations like pasta served in a bowl made of pizza dough and its latest offering, a ‘pregnant’ pizza.
What on Earth is a pregnant pizza, you ask? Firstly we should stress this is a nickname we’ve bestowed upon the dish, rather than Lucky Mama’s chosen branding.
But essentially it’s a helping of fresh pasta that’s folded into the bubble crust of the pizza, like a half-calzone.
Lucky Mama’s started life when founders Mamadou Dhiam and Gaby Santos set up a trailer in their backyard in Eccles in the depths of lockdown.
But thanks to a formidably loyal following that’s spread the word of Lucky Mama’s far and wide, it now has two pretty pink restaurants in Greater Manchester.
Back in 2022, they threw open the doors to their Chorlton restaurant, before returning back to home turf for spot number two in Monton in 2024.
The recipes are fresh and pretty authentically Italian up until the last step, when they throw a curveball by loading their pasta into unconventional vessels.
‘Pregnant’ pizzas at Lucky Mama’sTraditional Roman pizzasLucky Mama’s pink restaurant in Chorlton
Their pasta pizza bowls are what they’re best known for and they fly out of the kitchen – this is where pizza dough is placed around a metal bowl before being baked in an oven.
Then it’s piled high with freshly made pasta, with popular flavours like cacio e pepe, mushroom alfredo, and rasta pasta.
Pasta is available in a regular ceramic bowl too.
You’ll find Lucky Mama’s at 565 Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton; and 217 Monton Road in Eccles.
Georgina Pellant -
30th August 2023 
