Eccleshall pub full of character and made great due to the quality of the food and warm welcome
It's a pub which reflects the warm welcome and vibrant heart of its home town through high quality food and refreshing drinks.
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The passion of pub landlords and what they do to bring their pub to life is one of the reasons why people go to pubs to drink and eat.
Across the region, there are plenty of pubs that are enlivened by the passion and hard work of the landlord, from how they decorate the pub to the drinks they put on, from the way the pub is set up to any food options.
One pub where the landlord has taken a quiet and somewhat neglected pub and turned it into a foodies paradise and a community hub is the Old Smithy in Eccleshall, located just off the edge of the town centre.
The pub was bought late in 2011 by Martin King, who had successfully run The Badger in the town for 18 years, having moved into the Staffordshire town after finding it to be a place he didn't want to leave.
He said: "I'm from Middlesbrough originally and I came down to Eccleshall to visit friends and just didn't ever want to leave it as I just found it to be such a fantastic place which is a town, but has that village feeling where you go into the pubs and you find there's always someone to chat to.
"The whole reason I ended up buying the pub came as I was actually planning to give up the pub trade after all the years at the Badger, but didn't have a job to go to and I saw that the Old Smithy was sitting empty.
