How Will Running a Pub Change Your Life?

Partnering with a pub company, such as a Marston’s, to become a self-employed publican could change your whole life. Before you make the leap, it’s worth considering all the various ways in which your life will be different running a pub. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Contents

Leaving your old job behind
Moving into a new home
Relying on yourself
Being other people’s boss

Leaving your old job behind

Whether you’re working in the hospitality industry currently or are thinking about running a pub as a complete career change, it’s going to mean leaving your old job. That’s likely quite an exciting thing as it probably means you’re ready for something new. However, it will also mean leaving old colleagues and ways of working behind. All those familiar routines you’ve become used to. Potentially quite scary—are you ready for that?

If so, being your own boss can be hugely rewarding. You’ll be running the hub of your local community and lots of people in the area will know your name and face. Providing an amazing guest experience for those people will not only make them feel good, it’ll make you feel good too.

Moving into a new home

Running a pub isn’t just a full-time job, it’s a way of life. That’s why most publicans live on-site in the pub. It’s an amazing benefit to have accommodation with your work—especially when most of the bills are covered, such as with a Marston’s Pillar Partnership. But it will mean upping sticks and leaving where you are now, so it’s important to find the perfect pub for you.

Maybe you’ll be relocating to a whole new area—if you have children, you might need to put them in new schools. Perhaps you’ll have a house and, if you’re downsizing as part of the move, furniture and belongings to sell before you do. It’s a huge lifestyle change, but then, living in the pub and not having to commute anymore is a huge benefit. Imagine just walking out of your living room and being at work.

Relying on yourself

There are arguably few professionals as self-reliant as pub landlords and landladies. It’s a very liberating feeling, because there’ll be no boss there telling you what to do and when. It does come with a fair amount of pressure, though, so you need to make sure it’s a realistic goal.

Taking on your own pub will mean setting your own schedule, doing your own taxes, making sure you’ve got enough stock, running the staff rota and organising any events that take place at the pub. You’ll do the marketing, the accounting and, in some cases, the menu planning. There’ll be the occasional customer complaint to deal with (even in the best pub), social media updates to sort out and toilets to clean. It takes a huge amount of passion, dedication and energy to make your business a success.

The payoff when you do, though, no doubt feels amazing. The links between self-reliance and mental wellness are well documented in psychology and it’s easy to see why.

Being other people’s boss

Yes, as a publican, you’ll be your own boss. But you’ll also be other people’s boss, too. Even if you’ve managed or supervised others before, when the buck stops with you, team members see you differently. That can be both very exciting and very daunting.

You’ll likely want to mirror all the behaviours of the best bosses in your career and do things differently to all the bosses you wished had been better. What’s for sure is that running a pub is an opportunity to bring your own personal values into your workplace. All those things that you know are important, whether it relates to how your team delivers amazing guest service or how you engage your team to provide a perfect work environment.

Ultimately, you’ll be in charge and that’s both a privilege and a big responsibility.