A former car sales manager who turned his once run-down village pub around has gone on to make a success of a series of struggling North Yorkshire hostelries. Ruth Campbell visits his latest venture to find out how he does it

When former car sales manager and first-time father-to-be Antony Pratt offered to take over and run his struggling village pub and restaurant, it took a huge leap of faith. Having never even pulled a pint before, the then 29-year-old was soon serving at the bar and waiting at tables in the Chequers Inn at Bilton-in-Ainsty after friends and family rallied round to help redecorate: “It was literally all hands to the pump. My wife Kate was up a ladder painting when she was heavily pregnant.”

The timing, he admits, could have been better. “It was a very strenuous period,” he says. “We opened the pub on March 5 and our daughter Emilia was born on April 1. Thankfully, it worked. On our first Saturday, we took more than the pub had previously taken in a whole week.”

That was five years ago. Today his village pub, once again a cornerstone of the community, is thriving, and Antony has just recently opened his sixth pub restaurant, The Plum and Partridge in Husthwaite, north of York, following a £1.5m refurbishment.

In between, Antony has breathed new life into a series of tired, failed and failing pubs in and around North Yorkshire, turning the Duke of York Inn at Gate Helmsley, York’s Minster Inn, the Swan and Talbot in Wetherby and The White Swan at Wighill into successful, warm and welcoming destination diners which are also popular with locals.

It has been no mean feat. Hit by crippling business rates, high rents, rising staff costs, wholesale beer prices and taxes, around 21 British pubs are closing every week. That’s three every day, with the majority converted for residential or commercial use.

Antony says it’s hard to put his finger on what his winning formula might be and finds it difficult to explain how he has succeeded where others have not, because it’s a complex mix of ingredients and every pub is different. “I don’t really know what the key to success is, but having a good team is essential,” he says. And, for both Antony and his staff, customer service is at the heart of all they do.

Both his parents were good cooks and Antony has always been interested in food but, after his mother talked him out of training to be a chef, he left St James’s School in Knaresborough at 18 to take up a job in car sales, ending up as Lexus’s assistant sales manager in Leeds. “I love eating out and going to nice places and a lot of what I did in the motor trade involved customer service,” he explains. “I’ve always enjoyed making sure the customer is happy and getting great feedback. It’s fantastic to achieve that.”

Good service means more to him than chasing after Michelin stars for exceptional gastronomy. He recalls having a bad experience in one revered world-class restaurant where waiters were rude and aloof. “I’d never go back there but I’d return again and again to places where the people and service make it,” he says.

He says he had a ‘lightbulb moment’ after watching his local close, then change hands several times, before being run by a series of temporary landlords. “I remember sitting in the pub one day and thinking I could do a better job than this. Famous last words,” he laughs.

Armed with a good business plan and just £5,000 to invest, his greatest strength was knowing the area well. “Understanding your market is always key,” he says.

He didn’t have a grand masterplan to develop further sites but, after making a success of The Chequers, he was asked by Enterprise Inns to take on one of their pubs. It wasn’t an easy decision, but it appealed to his entrepreneurial spirit. “I don’t sit still and always strive to push myself more. Ensuring I had a robust team in place at the original site, which could run as if I was still there, was crucial,” he says.

Before long Antony’s Ainsty Inns company proved to be one of the fastest growing pub chains in North Yorkshire, expanding from a small family concern to employ 115 staff, with an annual turnover of £2.35m, in just five years. His inns have won and been shortlisted for a host of prestigious awards, including The Chequers Inn being named the Best in Country for wines by publicans’ newspaper the Morning Advertiser after it had been open only three years and the Swan and Talbot named Best Traditional Yorkshire Pub this year.

As a rule of thumb, beers are sourced from a 25-mile radius of all Ainsty Inns’ pubs and 80 per cent of ingredients in their seasonal menus are sourced from within ten miles, with fish from the East coast. “We support our local economy and give our staff a lot of training. Success has been down to a number of things from my team to products, service and supplies,” says Antony.

But he confesses to making mistakes too. Ainsty’s third site, the Beehive in Thorner, a village restaurant that had previously gone into administration, closed after four years. “My biggest mistake there was not doing enough research into the marketplace. Our losses, around £2,000 a week for four years, were significant,” he says. “But I learnt a lesson. Failure can be a good thing as long as you can pull something out of it. I am now very, very cautious about what sites we take on.”

For the moment, he is concentrating on maximising the revenue from each of his sites. Three of his pubs, including the newly-refurbished Plum and Partridge, boast a number of stylish guest bedrooms and Antony is hoping to add further accommodation, including holiday lets, to others. He also plans to cater for more outside events and functions such as weddings and is even considering brewing and distilling Ainsty’s own brand of beer and spirits. “There is no opportunity to rest on our laurels,” he says.

He’s aware his customers have so much more choice now. “There has been a huge shift in people eating out,” he says. “I’m a fan of competition, which keeps everyone striving forward, but it’s a constant battle to make sure you get your share of that market.”

He and Kate also have a son Edward, three, and juggling the demands of family life with work is never easy. “I am on the phone and email, dealing with issues at our sites, 24/7. And even on holiday, I’m still working. Thankfully I have a very, very understanding wife.

He could, he admits, have chosen an easier way to earn a living: “Of course I could. It’s an exceptionally hard industry. At times, there are no financial rewards, but the rewards are more than just financial. I do get a lot of enjoyment out of what we do. It can be so enriching.”

Constantly striving to improve his pubs and restaurants, Antony likes to keep an eye on what is happening elsewhere in the industry. He enjoys eating out at places like The Yorke Arms in Ramsgill and Helmsley’s Black Swan and has just returned from a wine-tasting trip on the Greek island of Santorini. “I like to experience other things and come away with new ideas,” he says.

“The key is managing our costs successfully and representing the value of them when we pass them onto the consumer. Nothing is more emotive than the price of someone’s pint.”