Spotlight on Chandlers bar, St Mary's Gate, Chesterfield.
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00:00 My name is Roger Butler. I've been the licensee here since 1999, so we're coming up on 25 years.
00:07 25 years ago we were very much a bar that was looking after the 18 to 30 group and as time has
00:15 gone on we seem to still have that same 18 to 30 group that kind of come along the journey with us
00:20 so our clientele have got much older and we've lost some of the younger people coming through
00:26 but they're still quite nice because they've been coming a long time. We had lockdown obviously, we
00:30 didn't want to sit around doing nothing so we started doing the refurbishment of the upstairs
00:35 of Chandler's. This used to be a hotel, it's been a hotel since I think 1780 I think, it's quite a
00:40 long time. It got completely demolished and rebuilt in 1926 which is the building we've got now,
00:45 but when we took it over as a hotel it was quite dilapidated and run down and we've always wanted
00:52 to try and do something about it and bring it back up and we've now had the chance to do that.
00:56 With lockdown we were able to put in soundproofing throughout the entire building because of the time
01:02 that we were shut which was lovely and we're now turning the upstairs into essentially Airbnb rooms.
01:07 There's going to be three rather lovely rooms. One should have a roof terrace, hopefully eventually
01:15 a hot tub, that's that's something to come, but the three lovely rooms are going to be called
01:19 inspired rooms because I think we've been inspired to get the work done up there and there's some
01:25 interesting little bits and pieces with it. I've made all the lights for the upstairs out of pipes
01:31 and bottles so we've always got plenty of lamps for it because if one breaks we can just come and
01:35 get another one from the bar, works a treat. I love being part of Chandler's, I mean I think that
01:42 Chesterfield was a town we came to in 1999 and it was a little bit down and then the town centre
01:50 has had the massive resurgence, there's lots of investment been happening and we like to think
01:55 that we were in on the ground floor and we were the first cocktail bar to come to Chesterfield.
01:59 Some will say that we are the best, I'm quite happy about that and we've been pushing the
02:05 weather ever since. We think that Chesterfield has improved enormously in the last 25 years,
02:10 it's a fantastic little town and we're really pleased to be here and we're really happy to be
02:15 part of its success. But it's, you're part of the community, the lovely thing about us at
02:22 Chandler's is that we've managed to become a locals bar in the middle of town which is a very
02:27 unusual thing and it's quite a hard thing to achieve but we have succeeded with that quite
02:32 well. We've probably got a home for regulars which for a town centre pub is absolutely fantastic
02:37 and that just keeps us going, it's great. I mean for the future obviously the rooms upstairs are
02:43 going to be a massive part of that, yeah I think after 25 years it's time to hand it over. My
02:49 current manager Louise and I are currently talking about her probably possibly, probably, hopefully
02:56 taking it over. She loves Chandler's almost as much as I do and she's basically been driving
03:01 this business for the last seven, eight years so it's right and proper that she has an opportunity
03:06 to continue doing that which would be absolutely fantastic and with the rooms upstairs added on
03:11 to the pub I think it's a fantastic business opportunity for her or anybody else. My favourite
03:15 drink, I'm afraid I'm a bit of a whiskey, a bourbon drinker so my favourite drink is an old-fashioned.