Bev's bar dream ends in tears

John Scheerhout

December 22, 2008

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Beverly Callard

CORONATION Street's Beverley Callard has told how her dream of being a real-life landlady ended in tatters because of the credit crunch.

Actress Bev is known to millions as Rovers Return landlady Liz McDonald in the soap.

But away from the set she has also turned her hand to running bars in Greater Manchester.

She took over the White Horse pub in Eccles in 2005 and then took over The Gallery in Hale Barns.

But she and her partner Jon McEwan shut The Gallery earlier this year.

Now Bev, 51, has spoken out about her failed bid to be a real-life landlady and of the moment an official acting on behalf of the brewery demanded £60,000 in unpaid rent .

Bev said: "We gave everything to make it work and sadly we've failed. Every spare penny we had went back into the pub.

"The place was a money-pit - a black hole which took all our cash and all our time.

"The hours we worked were ridiculous. I'd be in the pub at night trying to learn my lines, there'd be a band on until two and I'd have to be up at 5am so I could get on the set by 7am.

"We are grafters and we tried our hardest. We hold our hands up and admit we owe money but the debts we have run up are through trying our damndest to make the business work.

"There comes a time when you've got to just save your sanity. There were tears but we just had to close - because even though everyone who came in loved the place, not enough people were coming in.

"We couldn't cope anymore. I was doing two full-time jobs and there weren't enough hours in the day to be Liz and run the pub."

She said the crunch came when went the cost of rent and beer went up £500-a-week.

Bev said the brewery, Hydes, has now reduced the outstanding rent from £59,000 to £27,000 but, she said, it is still too much.

Describing the moment an official acting for the brewery came knocking, she said: "Someone banged on the door - a processor on behalf of the brewery - in August and said he had an order which had to be served personally on me.

"It was a very scary document and basically said if I didn't take any action and ignored it then I'd be declared bankrupt."

Bev even hired Nick Cochrane, who played her screen son Andy McDonald, to be bar manager at The Gallery but she has been forced to lay him off along with the rest of the staff.

Bev and her partner's finances were stretched so far they sold their £390,000 home in Eccles and postponed their wedding.

A spokesman from Hydes said: "Hydes remains a family business that works hard to provide a personal level of support to our tenants and managers.

"These are extremely challenging times for both the brewery and our tenants, and we are endeavouring to consistently review and improve the support that we provide to help our businesses through this difficult economic period.

"We will continue to progress with this matter with Ms Callard through the relevant legal channels, and as such it is not possible for us to release any further detail at this time."

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Guten Tag, Manchester (22/12/2008 at 13:06)

And you wonder why pubs are closing everyday in the UK! Surely the brewery should have allowed Bev to stay rent free and just take a percentage of the profits? This would make sense, busy week, more profits and a happy brewery. Lousy week, low profits, brewery still has a pub running. It's not rocket science, is it!

Bean B4, manchester (22/12/2008 at 13:45)

We all know that the smoking ban started the slippery slide for pubs, assisted by cheap booze from supermarkets. The credit crunch is just the polish on the ****

Madison_White, Westhoughton (22/12/2008 at 14:15)

I went to this pub with three family members in summer and was turned away by some "heavy" because I was not wearing shoes (but posh Skechers). We had travelled over 20 miles (from Bolton) because we heard it was good. Surely, any business deserves to fail if they turn away good customers. No sympathy.

Doobydoo, Worsley (23/12/2008 at 13:07)

Looking at the sign in the picture maybe it would have been a good idea to sell less champagne! Just having that in stock must have cost a packet.

stalyvegasblue (24/12/2008 at 08:08)

There is a big problem in the pub trade. The pub companies charge too much on the lease/rent and the publican is charged too much for the beer too. Tax charged for on sales needs to be redistibuted to off sales. Don't blame Tesco etc for selling cheap beer to youths they don't. Cheap beer to youths is being sold by corner shops as they could not care less. Pubs are shutting daily. This is cuasing real social problems in particular when younger persons enter a pub, there behaviour can be tempered by older members of society who drink there. Before long the idiots are drummed out and the real decent youths interact with the adults and become part of the whole social micro society that the pub creates. Social interaction between age groups is promoted by the pub atmosphere e.g pool, darts and social events and mutual respect develops. we are losing that and before long there will be a society where adults will have no idea what makes the youths minds tick and we will have chaos and anarchy.We need to save the british pubs now!

citycentre, manchester (24/12/2008 at 09:26)

Bean B4, manchester

sales of beer in pubs have been in steady decline since the late 70's, so the problems certainly were not caused by the smoking ban, although it seems to have speeded up the process.

Also most pubs are no longer owned b breweries these days, not since Mrs Thatcher legislated to set limits on the tied house system which used to operate

PW, Manchester (24/12/2008 at 13:15)

Entirely agree with your post staleyvegasblue. You hit the nail on the head.

Re this generation thing, when you start drinking, the elders egged you on saying "Go on, get it down you. It'll do you good!" Then when you were ill with it, they'd say "That's it, get it up. It'll do you good!"
;-)

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