Harley Young chats with Neil about his career, The Black Friar in Salford and new venture The Horse & Jockey in Chorlton
Having transformed The Black Friar in Salford into what we know and love it as today, owner Neil Burke and his business partner Ben Chaplin will be taking on a new venture later this year.
The pair will be running The Horse & Jockey and restoring it to its former glory alongside Joseph Holt Brewery. Expect great food, cosy pub interiors and the same down-to-earth, friendly hospitality that the team at The Black Friar are renowned for.
Ahead of the venue’s opening, I caught up with Neil to learn more about his career in hospitality, what it takes to run a successful pub like The Black Friar and how he expects to win over the heart of the people of Chorlton by giving the 200-year-old pub a new lease of life.
So Neil, tell me a bit about yourself and your hospitality background.
I’ve worked in hospitality since I was 13 years old. I started off by making sandwiches for my mum’s skittle team.
Then I started working in all the big chain restaurants when I was a little older; La Tasca, Pizza Express, ended up working for Jamie’s Italian and became an Openings Manager which led me to opening restaurants over in Australia.
While over there, I ended up working for a company called The Grounds of Alexandria where we developed the business into what it is today, which is a huge, multifaceted coffee shop, restaurant, events centre, wedding venue and so on - check it out online, it’s absolutely amazing.
How did you come to own The Black Friar?
I’d been out in Australia for nine years before coming back to the UK because of Covid. I didn’t really know what to do as like lots of people I thought hospitality would be on its arse, but I met with local food critic, Tom Hetherington, who introduced me to Domis and Salboy who at the time owned [The Black Friar].
I think their original plans were to knock it down and turn it into apartments but the council didn’t want them to do that, so they said they wanted to turn it back into a pub and needed someone to run it.
I wasn’t really interested in running a pub at the time. I wanted to get an operations job in one of the big companies like my previous experience, but I actually ended up doing it and loving it.
I initially said I was going to open the pub and run it for six months, which quickly turned into 18 months when they asked me if I wanted to buy it from them. By that point, I was already in love with the pub, my customers, the venue and this team, so I grabbed the opportunity. I’ve now operated it for four years and owned it for two.
How have the first four years been and where do you see The Black Friar another four years from now?
The pub wasn’t as busy when we first opened it as it is now. The area has developed and so has our reputation. I think our challenge now is to just build off that.
People say ‘You’re busy all the time,’ but that’s not true - everyone wants to come at the same time, so it’s about us building the quieter times and the way to do that is consistency.
If you’re not consistent, you don’t listen to your guests or question the food quality, if you don’t try to constantly be the best version you can be and take your eye off the ball, all of a sudden things start to slip.
Your customers are your priority but you need to look after your team for them to be able to give those customers a great experience. We’ve got some great people with us that we’ve looked after since day one, which is crazy because four years in hospitality is a long time.
What will people find at The Black Friar that they won’t find at another gastropub?
Our really warm, welcoming service. Our motto is ‘service with heart and soul’.
I’m not trying to up-sell to people, I don’t want people to buy things they don’t want. We want to make sure we’re targeting the guest on their experience and making it as genuine as possible.
We encourage our team to be as relaxed and friendly with the customers as possible, y’know, feel like they can sit with them and talk with them. I think that’s the first thing people notice.
The environment is beautiful too - I’m actually watering the garden as we speak! With social media, everyone eats and drinks with their eyes first. They make their decision about whether they like the look of a place within a second so I feel it’s really important that we make sure everything looks good and is maintained beautifully.
Then, there’s the food. One thing I don’t think people know about The Black Friar is that we change our menu every two weeks - we’re really trying our best to keep up with what’s local and sustainable. If a supplier contacts us and says ‘Hey, I want to do this,’ or ‘I have this available,’ we can put it on the menu. We try to change a dish at least every two weeks as we move through the seasons.
For example, asparagus has a very short window and pumpkins are only really good for about six weeks, so it means we can keep things fresher, of good quality and keep dishes evolving.
You’ve recently announced that you and your business partner, Ben Chaplin, will be taking over a 200-year-old pub, The Horse & Jockey, in Chorlton. You’ll be working alongside Joseph Holt Brewery on this new venture - how does it feel to be working with a brewery again?
I had no intentions of working with a brewery again, but the truth is I love that fucking pub.
The Horse & Jockey is currently not living to its full potential - I want to make it the best it can be and deserves to be. The people of Chorlton, as the people of Salford do, deserve to have a really good, foodie, up-to-date, relevant pub.
It’s such a beautiful building and is iconic - everyone knows The Horse & Jockey and that’s why there’s so much excitement about it. It’s all that emotive sort of feeling behind the building that’s making quite a bit of pressure for me because the expectation is massive.
People want it to be good and I’m sure they’ll be quick to flag it if it’s not. But at the same time, if we get it right, it’ll be amazing for people.
In terms of the renovations, have you had much of a say in how it’ll look? Is the fit-out going to be similar to that of The Black Friar?
I’ll be designing it all myself. I’m not using a designer or anyone - it’s just me and a friend buying everything, picking colour schemes, buying the curtain fabric, curtain making and so on.
I don’t want it to feel like a chain pub and I felt like if I used a designer or third party then that’s exactly how it would feel.
I get comments about The Black Friar’s interior all the time - what people love about it is that it doesn’t feel like other places, it doesn’t feel like I’m trying to match everything. It feels a bit organic, like your house. I really want to get that feeling in The Horse & Jockey as well. It’s quite nerve-wracking as it’s like a band’s second album. Everyone will come to check it out and be quick to criticise.
It might not be for everyone, but I just want people to know that I’m opening The Horse & Jockey for the people of Chorlton, my friends, myself and my emotions more than I am about making money. There were other pubs I could’ve done that in, but I just fucking love that pub. I think the suburbs deserve something great.
What will the menu look like?
It’ll lean more towards the ‘pub grub’ side of things - slightly less A La Carte, more of a 60/40 split. We’ll have dishes like great fish and chips and pies sitting alongside maybe some more premium dishes like duck and that sort of stuff.
The menu will start from £17 as we’ll be using really quality produce and making everything in house like we do at The Black Friar. We make everything from scratch, from ice creams to chopping and breading chicken breasts for kids chicken nuggets.
We’re not buying anything in and we want to continue that at The Horse & Jockey. Ultimately that costs money and if it’s an extra one or two quid on a dish I just hope that people can taste the quality and appreciate what has gone into it.
What is Mancunian (and Salfordian!) hospitality to you?
I think, for Salfordians, it’s important to be respectful of where we’re sitting.
I’m very proud of what we’d done in Salford. If I’m honest, I feel like we may have been swallowed up by all the big names if we’d have been in Manchester. We actually stand out for being in Salford. I love the people in Salford for that - for supporting us and being there when we first opened.
I think people initially thought ‘Oh, it’s a bit fancy for round here’ and stuff, but now I can tell that the people in Salford are really proud of us and that makes me really happy. I think it’s about that honest, warm service and down to earth attitude.
Honest, down to earth service is what people want. Especially from a pub. It needs to be accessible. I want to make sure that everyone feels welcome at the pubs I open and that they don’t feel elitist.
It’s alright being all airs and graces, but people need to look after people.
The Horse & Jockey will open its doors this October, following a short closure during the refurbishment period.
For discounts during the opening weeks and the chance to win entry to the opening party, follow @HorseJockeyChorlton on Instagram and sign up to their mailing list.
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