Jazz & Continental sunshine for the Bank Holiday Weekend

A bit of a press release in lieu of a proper post...

Preston’s landmark riverside pub The Continental throws its doors open this bank holiday with a great menu of the best in British food, fine wines and beers, and a free jazz concert for the whole family to enjoy.

The pub will be open all weekend, but the date for your diaries is Bank Holiday Monday from 4 pm, when Preston’s favourite jazz saxophonist Harold Salisbury will be leading a band stuffed with local talent in a sunshine filled set of cool tunes out in the beer garden (sunshine to be confirmed). In the event of less than perfect weather, the music will be moved inside so you can still enjoy a meal or a drink to the accompaniment of the best jazz the city can offer.

The Continental has been completely refurbished after years of neglect. You’ll find a relaxed cosmopolitan atmosphere in the main bar room, and an intimate new snug complete with comfortable sofas and an open fireplace for when the nights start drawing in.

Whether in our spacious, stylish interior or al fresco in our large landscaped garden, with comfortable bench seats, and new lawns and flower beds, you can watch the river roll by while enjoying our tasty food with a well-deserved beer. And because we can’t absolutely guarantee good weather we have a covered, heated outdoor area and, of course, The Continental’s famous conservatory.

The bar offers the very finest in British and continental beers, with up to five cask-conditioned ales available at any time, as well as a wide range of bottled beers, lagers and wines. And if you aren’t drinking alcohol there’s still plenty of choice, with a fantastic range of soft drinks, coffee, tea and hot chocolate.

The kitchen cooks the best of modern British food, with all ingredients sourced locally and produced organically where possible. Seasonal specials are cooked to order every day, and our indulgent puddings are a perfect way to complete your meal.

The Continental is open until midnight during the week, and until 1am on Friday and Saturday. The kitchen serves lunch and evening meals on weekdays, and all day on Saturday and Sunday.

so we're open...

And we are now up and running - albeit other than some missing mirrors, curtains, planters, wall decor, and the like. We're finally open all day every day, albeit with some slightly slow service, and the snug is welcoming its first guests tonight. it looks a bit like a mexican bordello, welcoming and slightly laciviously decorated. that's a good thing.

here's a couple of photos that will give you a general idea of how the place looks now.

I'll update more once i have a five minute breather.

Today is opening day

as long as we don't have any major incidents before midday. And the conservatory door is finished. we're calling it 'preview' day.

normal posting will resume in a couple of days, when i'll get the rest of the pics up and put pictures of the whole refurb on line.

come down and have a look.

Hang on a minute...

Well after TRYING REALLY HARD to get everything finished for tomorrow - which involved us cajoling, shouting, and at points crying - it looks like we're not gonna make it. The cellar was supposed to be installed last week, but somehow they seem to still have crucial things to do tomorrow morning. So after many crisis management conversations today, the running order of opening will be

Opening sunday from noon until close
- food, beer, garden, but no snug
we'll be calling this our preview day and will be having a couple of special offers on

- opening monday & tuesday evening from 5pm
well we have to fit the rest of the snug floor you know

- hopefully, wind in our favour and all, open all day every day as of wednesday

with the grand opening early september

All apologies if anyone goes down and finds us shut. we'll do the guided tour if you catch us, although you may have to do some dusting on your way through. It will be worth it!

SO - i's half eleven in the evening, i've been down there all day, i'm concerned social services will come and get the baby for keeping him out too late (he was with responsible family members most of the day). Bedtime and back on site tomorrow 7am

12 noon Saturday 16th August...

...we are opening! About time, too. And after numerous sleepless nights, a couple of major fears (the phonelines! the floors!!). Here's something to celebrate.

Kitchen-Aid

The size of the kitchen was a problem from the off. In the old continental there was about enough space in there to swing a small kitten. The health inspectors would not approve. Neither, in fact, would those crazed how clean is your house ladies. So we decided to make some more space by knocking a wall or two down.

Here, I am standing taking pictures from where there used to be a wall. On one side, a grimy kitchen-shaped area (and Andy, the elusive - or is that camera-shy - plumber, about whom there will be in posts yet to appear). So basically, what used to be the whole kitchen. On t'other, a timber structure in what used to be the cellar.



See, small! Stevie C was most excited about knocking the wall down. 'I'll get me mallet, flower', he said, 'get the wall down, job's a good un'. And it was.

As for the stud wall - all I can say is these joiners work quickly...that took literally no time. Well maybe a day.


Premises-manager-Warren was more than a bit disgruntled when we stole some of his cellar for the kitchen. But we built him a nice new bottle store, so it's ok now. Stephen, the chef, however, was rightfully pleased.

And then the kitchen man Bob Dickinson came back and installed the kitchen - and finally Stephen can get cooking.

Mailing list & news on the opening

We've had loads of people email to sign up to the mailing list. That's brilliant - thanks! I'm about to send the first mailing. However, I know that some people have also had specific requests that we've not got round to answering yet. All I can say is sorry, we've been busy getting the darn place together, and I will get round to your individual requests soon. But in the meantime, you should get some news this week.

We're waiting for a date for the floors to go in before we announce the grand opening, but we should be open the weekend of the 16th / 17th August...watch this space for exact details

Missing Pictures!

There seem to be some pictures missing from older posts. I will investigate with people who know more about blogging & compressing than I do. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. On the other hand, they may reappear, making this post irrelevant!

The Garden Part 3 - like a butterfly

And so serenity began to settle onto the back garden at the Continental. And it all looks so much better when the sky is blue.





Flowers appeared! Andy looked stern! The turf went down! And finally, Jeremy & Stevie C looked on the patch with pride. Still some way to go, but I wasn't the only one with a tear in my eye when we could see that we weren't going to open the place with a mud-bath out back.

NB: the patio still looks huge. in real life, it's only about a third of the back garden. Even Sue agrees that it's looking smaller.

The Garden Part 2 - Planting begins

The plants got delivered and we put them in Captain Coconuts for safe-keeping.

When Claire the gardener arrived, she was stunned at our stupidity. 'You can't keep plants indoors!' she shrieked, 'they'll...die!' So we put them in the skip for safekeeping.

And so the garden continued. The patio was pointed, diggers were digging, Claire was wheeling her barrow up and down through the mud. And eventually, the plants started to go in.

The Garden Part 1 - the Somme

Here's the story of the garden broken down into a trilogy.

Firstly, it got very messy. And then the autumn-gold indian sandstone patio started being laid. And continued being laid for what seemed like 3 years. Sue, Jeremy's mum, exclaimed 'I hate it. It's the most ridiculous patio in the world. What have you done with all that lovely grass?!' She's known for her diplomatic approach when it comes to family matters, as you can tell. She likes it now, though. As you can see, Andy & co are working very hard.



Those crazy huge posts you see are for waterproof sail shades - a very good way of providing a bit of shelter. I have to say that no-one was pleased when I stamped my foot and made the chaps re-dig the meter-deep holes to move the first 2 posts 2 foot either way. However, I'm sure we'll all agree that they'll look much better that way - won't we? hello? anyone listening? oh well.



This large structure - some call it 'Ruth's folly' - is a feature wall which will have lights and planters round it. We'll be able to project onto it. It will look good. I promise (see a recurring theme??). The Culsh is quite frankly looking slightly bemused.

Cherry Picking

This was what was going on about 10 days ago...the outside was painted. Stevie C & the painting boys had a good ol' time up in the cherry picker. Here they are!

Round Preston in a cab

on another note, this slightly surreal taxi journey around Preston city centre must be the most relaxing thing I've seen for a long time. Yet strangely makes me want to dance. Nothing happens, except for taxis. I just wanted it to go on and on. Nothing happens! Bliss.

It's the 'adventures of a taxi driver' chap who is listed in the Preston Blogs bit to the right.

Maybe this will start a craze. Music journeys round Preston. Best soundtrack wins a bottle of vino in the pub. Send your links. I may have to go on a trip specifically to make one. Back to work...

Colour chaos, Part Two

Before the frantic 2 weeks we’ve just had, Chris - who pulled together the plans, the furniture & finishes schedule, the whole damn lot – came for a final visit to the site. I’d call him Designer-Chris, but that makes him sound like something Grazia magazine is trying to convince you to buy. Anyhow, he came down from Glasgow to help us get some final colours in place.

As you can see, at this juncture Jeremy & Chris are having a good chinwag and looking like they are doing Something Highly Important. I also took a picture of the wheel so I can post for posterity and say that these were carefully discussed and deliberated decisions. No matter how many times we may have changed our mind.




Off Chris goes, in his urban manner, back to his sophisticated life in Glasgow, where I imagine* he sit in metropolitan café-bars drinking fashionable lagers with his hipster friends. See why we asked him to do the Continental? Exactly. To import some city-attitude into Broadgate**.

Back to the point…

And then the grey came.

The beautiful colour-pathway of subtle olive greens & browns we had chosen for the outside of the pub looked good on the sunny Friday afternoon. I liked it. Classy***. On a dreary grey Saturday morning, however, the pub seemed to actually vanish into the grey sky hanging about above Preston.

Jeremy said ‘It looks like the Bismark’.

So we painted over the bottom half in a ‘nice ivory’ (I say in a sarcastic tone), so as not to put people off coming into the joint. It is, after all, our aim to be busy.



When we came to the colours for the snug, decorator-in-chief got a sample pot and painted a couple of patches on the wall****. The colour was grey. Matt, dark, urban, chic grey. The kind of grey that would pick you up at eleven, take you to a meeting of an anarchist organisation before cocktails and dancing, and a bike ride through town at dawn. Radical grey.


Jeremy said ‘It’ll look like we’re inside a nuclear bunker’.

Actually, he had a point. He seems to have switched off his internal ‘I want to live in Berlin’ dial and repositioned it at ‘San Francisco 1969’. We have settled on a beautiful dark (greyish) turquoise for the bar, and a light (sky) blue for the walls. It’ll look amazing. And the best thing about it is it’s nearly finished!





* Actually, as he is a friend of my friend Jane, I am pretty convinced this is a fair representation. Not that I’m in any way jealous or anything.
** And also because Chris is the only person we know who designs the insides of bars & restaurants. He also gets nominated for awards for it, ‘cos he’s very good. Pretty handy really.
*** A bit like myself before 3 white wines (bottles).
**** This was probably due to his increased awareness of our decision-making processes. You could say actute perception of dithering.

I heard a rumour…

Today site was very quiet. In fact, at lunchtime, you could hear the tumbleweed blow through the pub. Kevin the joiner was asleep on the bench seating. Everyone was staring into the middle distance as they munched their sandwiches. And why? Because all but Stevie ‘never touch a drop’ C & the decorator-in-chief (who was going home to his friend Mr Bonaparte, brandy, geddit??) had a touch of a hangover. Because last night was the contractor’s party. Much fun was had by all, and everyone deserved it because they’ve all worked so hard.

Andy the landscaper spent some time last night asking why I’d not updated this page. I won’t give a detailed account of the conversation as most of it was (on my part) in wine speak, so probably made little sense then and would make even less in text. He apparently checks it quite a lot. Vanity, gets ‘em every time! (only joking Andy)

Anyhow – The rumour also got to me today through a spy in the council chambers that there had been mumblings of concern around the dusty towers of the town hall. These mumblings seemed to think that the refurb was under threat due to…my lack of blogging. I believe that there was fear that my silence meant that work had ceased. Not so my good council types! I was just very very busy. It's quite time-consuming, starting a new business, not to mention the baby... To scotch these rumours and to keep Andy happy, I’m back blogging with a vengeance.

And, before you ask, I won't post any pictures from the party last night. What do you think this is, some sort of 3-am girls’ gossip blog? Tsk.

Who am I kidding? Here's some of John Towey, master plasterer, doing some bar tending. Also a spot of dancing / fighting with Warren, who was defending his bar with honour. Beautiful.