Staff member at former 18th century St George's Hotel, now renovated into The Harrogate Inn, who was brought back from redundancy describes her thoughts on the future of pub

Yorkshire Post

Assistant general manager at The Harrogate Inn, Lyn Testa, was made redundant due to a business decision by new owners The Inn Collection Group (ICG) when they chose to rebrand St George's Hotel.  The former hotel dates back to 1778 and was bought by ICG in February 2022 and have since transformed it into a modernised 'pub with rooms', yet retained historic features such as the ceiling window in the bar and walls.  More than half of the staff who were made redundant were asked to 'come back' by the company following renovation plans through a vigorous training scheme.  Lyn describes her thoughts on the future of the pub.

Transcript

00:00 My name is Leanna Jacob, search and trends writer at the Yorkshire Post.

00:04 I'm standing outside the Harrogate Inn, formerly known as St George's Hotel,

00:09 and it's just opposite the Royal Hall in Harrogate.

00:14 This is the new Harrogate Inn, used to be the St George Hotel.

00:21 [Music]

00:33 Tell me your first name and your job title.

00:35 Hello, my name is Leanna and I am the assistant general manager of the Harrogate Inn.

00:40 And how do you feel about the future of the Harrogate Inn?

00:44 Absolutely excited. Since we've been open, we've been really lucky.

00:50 From the day we opened the doors, we've had people streaming to the inn,

00:56 and it's been very, very popular.

00:58 I'm really excited about the future.

01:01 And, not hard, but very, very good.

01:06 [Music]

01:16 It's absolutely amazing. We have people coming to the door early morning, lunch, dinner, breakfast,

01:23 there are maids, dancers, children. It is absolutely amazing.

01:27 We've got an amazing place outside, which you can look at the street,

01:32 and that's always cool. So it's just a really exciting time for us all here.

01:38 Our kitchen's always extremely busy. We've had the most amazing feedback on our food

01:45 and drinks, our best cocktail's going, so yeah.

01:51 And you told me that you had been made redundant initially, and then you've been brought back.

01:56 How does that feel to come back?

01:58 I can, yeah, I was made redundant, and we were all very, very sad.

02:04 It felt like the end of an era, which I suppose in a way it was.

02:08 But that was in February, and then they decided to refocus, they contacted us,

02:15 and invited us all to come back.

02:18 And we all went into retraining, which is a very, very different concept.

02:25 I'm really happy to be back, and most of our colleagues that are here,

02:32 including St. George, are happy to be back. It's a business decision that we've come to.

02:39 I'm just happy to be back, and happy to be part of this exciting new group,

02:45 this exciting new team, and we're very proud.

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