Pub in the Park 2019 kicks off!

This year we are honoured to have, not just one, but two pubs at Tom Kerridge’s Pub in the Park! The Cholmondeley Arms have joined the Church Inn this year and both teams will cook side by side. Not quite ‘when two tribes go to war’ but there will certainly be some friendly competition for sure.

hurch Inn Head chef Richard….Pub Chef of the Year, of course, is leading his team versus Andy, our Cholmondeley Arms Head chef… they are joined by other chefs from our pubs with landlords Simon and Tim of course. Jess will be trying to keep them all under control and Dan is back to help both camps keep up with prep and washing up!

The photo shows every one with Tom Kerridge just before the big opening at the Lambing Shed in Knutsford!

We look forward to a great weekend! See you all soon!

Cholmondeley Car Meet hits a record!!

Crikey what a car meet!! Over 100 cars! Apologies to those drivers that struggled to get in to the event. It was a fantastic day and despite an early shower as I arrived at Cholmondeley it cleared up and became a lovely day for it! Thank you so much to all those that attended…and we were able to give out the Car Club ‘passports’ for the first time….thank you to Dave from the Fitz Car Club for the idea… on the day…. Our ‘Car of the Day’ was the classic Volvo pictured. The classic little Red Renault ‘van’ was one of the ‘Cherished Cars of the Day’ with John at the wheel and a Great Dane in the back was Tim the owners choice and Tim the manager of the Chum chose the immaculate Ford Escort as his ‘Cherished Car of the Day’.
Finally the Classic Red MG was voted ‘Best in Class’ and driven by John.

A great Car Meet to get the season started see you at the Fitzherbert Arms…next on 25th May.

Thanks again for supporting the day.

Tim
Owner

New Quiz Champs at the Chum

Tuesday 23rd April saw new champions pick up the Cholmondeley Arms quiz cup plus lots of Cholmondeley Arms vouchers and a free gin tasting!!

The Local Peasants were the 2019 champions-well done and congratulations!!

Big thanks as always to Professor Ted our supreme quiz master, we couldn’t do it without you!!

The ‘Ted to Head’ final between the Cholmondeley Arms and The Bulls Head happens at the Three Greyhounds on Wednesday 29th May at 8pm.

A big thankyou to all of the teams that took part in the quizzes over the past 6 months- we will be back in September!

GOING FOR THE TREBLE!

We are very excited to announce that Cheshire Cat Pubs and Bars have been nominated for three very prestigious awards at the 2019 Casual Dining Awards, taking place in London on Wednesday 27th February. We feel very honoured to be nominated for two such special awards as ‘Employer of the Year’ and ‘Multi-Site Operator of the Year’ and are also very proud to announce that the Cholmondeley Arms has been nominated for ‘Pub of the Year’. Our owners, Tim Bird and Mary McLaughlin, are heading off to the Big Smoke as guests of our excellent wine suppliers, Boutinot, to attend the awards ceremony, and we will keep you posted on the results of our nominations.

 

Cholmondeley Arms invited to take part at Pub in the Park!

Pub in the Park is taking place this year across eight locations nationwide, including the Lambing Shed at Knutsford from June 7 to 9. Hitting eight foodie destinations with almost 30 pubs taking part, revellers can expect top class pub grub with local flavour, with special appearances from celebrity chefs. The other pubs set to appear at the Lambing Shed are The Hardwick, The Star Inn, Our ‘sister pub’ The Church Inn taking part for the second year and Café Muran. Tom Kerridge will be bringing his chef mates to the party for a relaxed and intimate gathering, supporting and celebrating local talent, as well as presenting some of the biggest names in food and music, with music acts to be announced later this month. We look forward to seeing all our customers there!

Chum Car Club Treasure Hunt 2018

Phil and Molly this years winners with landlord Tim

Our Annual Car Club Treasure Hunt was a great success, 11 competitive teams set off in to the Cheshire countryside to enjoy picking up clues, a few photos and objects along the way too!

This year the trophy and Silverstone Porsche Day, donated by our Treasure Hunt sponsors Porsche Chester, was won by Phil and Molly, team ‘Chum Porsche’

Second place went to ‘The Cooper Troopers’ with Andy and Claire coming in a very close second place and winning a well deserved voucher to spend in the pub!

And as the race was so close we had a joint third prize, which was awarded to the ‘No Hopers’ and ‘Cheese Pie’. It was a great day, the weather held off and was enjoyed by all!

This now marks the end of the Car Club season here at Cheshire Cat Pubs…..we have really enjoyed hosting the three treasure hunts and they have been the best attended ever. Here’s to next year’s Car Meets, Safari’s and Treasure Hunts. Thank you for all your support and enthusiasm at all our pub Car events.

CHOLMONDELEY ARMS NAMED AS GIN PUB OF THE YEAR 2019

Award-winning country pub The Cholmondeley Arms, near Malpas in Cheshire, has been awarded the prestigious title of ‘Gin Pub of the Year 2019’ by The Good Pub Guide. The award category, introduced for the very first time this year, was added to recognise the increasing number of pubs now stocking an impressive selection of gins.

With a staggering collection of more than 400 gins, The Cholmondeley Arms was deemed a very worthy winner. The award recognised the Cholmondeley’s seven-year focus on gin, the pub’s hugely popular annual Gin Fest, which is now in its fifth year, as well as their regular Saturday Gin Classes which continue to soar in popularity. The award also comes in the very month of the seventh anniversary of owners Tim Bird and Mary McLaughlin’s re-opening of the pub after extensive investment and refurbishment.

Tim Moody, General Manager of the Cholmondeley Arms, comments: “We’re proud and delighted to have been awarded the title of ‘Gin Pub of the Year for 2019’. Gin has always been our favourite tipple and being recognised with such a prestigious award is a real boost for the whole team who have worked so hard to bring ‘Gin to the Inn’ here at the ‘Chum’. I’d like to say a big thank you to our excellent team and also to our loyal ‘gin loving’ customers – we couldn’t have done it without you all.”

Fourth Car Meet of the year another success…..

Thank you to all our car enthusiasts who joined us for Car Meet 13 on Sunday July 22nd here at the Cholmondeley Arms our fourth of the year.

It was great to see more new faces in addition to our loyal following of Car Club Members. Quite a few Porsches made it for a little recognition of the 70th anniversary of Porsche.

All of the cars that featured on the day can now be seen on the ‘Past Events’ page on the Car Club pages on the Cholmondeley Arms website www.cholmondeleyarms.co.uk. Tim the owner of the Cholmondeley Arms and Tim the landlord of the Cholmondeley Arms were once again on hand to recruit 10 new members and to take photos of the cars on show.

Landlord Tim chose his ‘Porsche of the Day’, ‘Best Car in Class’ and ‘Cherished Car’ of the Day.

Congratulations to Tony who’s white 911 996 GT2 won Porsche of the Day against many other great Porsches present.

Best Car in Class went to Stephen with his Morgan 3 wheeler and ‘Cherished Car’ of the Day went to Steve with his 1986 Citroen 2CV. Each received Gift Cards and for Porsche owner Tony a special framed picture celebrating the development of the famous 911 presented by owner Tim.

It isn’t easy choosing winners on the day as there were so many great examples with a few vintage, plenty of classics, certainly some sports performance cars, as well as some great examples of cars that are truly cherished.

There will be one further car meet towards the end of August….. date to follow… where we will be giving each car club member attending a special ‘Passport’ to get stamped as they drive the six pubs of Cheshire Cat! This will be briefed in more detail later but was the idea of one of our members and it’s a cracking one!

We will also be working on some decent drive out days for next year too as we now have another member who is keen to start this with our support.

Please also look out for the ‘Car Treasure Hunts’ in late September and early October which are great fun especially the Porsches versus the Rest at the Bulls Head in Mobberley! Dates will follow.

Once again thank you for attending.

Kind regards

Tim and Tim

The Cholmondeley Arms

The Cholmondeley Arms wins Cheshire Life Dining Pub of the Year 2018!

We are very proud to announce that the Cholmondeley Arms has won ‘Dining Pub of the Year 2018’ at the Cheshire Life Food and Drink Awards 2018 at Carden Park Hotel near Chester.

Big congratulations go to our General Manager Tim and the entire Cholmondeley team.

Tim attended the awards presentation with Tom our Head Chef and Fliss our Deputy Manager.

Hard work and passion has persevered…

well done everybody!

Gin Festival 2018

Last weekend has been a fantastic festival of gin, with a record breaking weekend, bigger and better than previous years!

With crowds coming to spend their weekend at the Cholmondeley sipping different gins from the outside bar, enjoying our BBQ with delicious stone baked pizzas! And dancing the night away to a great line up of live music all weekend.

Not only that but history was made on the Saturday as England beat Sweden in the World Cup Quarter Finals! This will be the first time in 28 years they have made it to the Semi finals! So we are happy to say it was a ‘Gin Gin Situation’.

A big thank you goes out to all our distillers including Thomas Dakin, Sipsmith, Stanley’s Gin, 5th Gin, Whitley Neil, Chase Gin, Warner Edwards, Forest Gin, One Gin, Langleys, Spirit of George, Opihir, Cuckoo, Brockmans and fever tree tonic for being a part of Gin Fest 2018. Another thank you goes out to all our customers and to all our staff for their hard work!

This past weekend has been a true ‘GIN’spiration of what’s to come! We hope to see you all at Gin Fest 2019!