Another truly unbelievably disappointing summer of rubbish weather rumbles on!
Even when we shuffled off to France to watch youngest daughter throw herself off the Alps on a hugely high tech bicycle - our absence was not enough to provoke the weather into improving. It will be of little consolation to any of you that were at home for the last two weeks of July that the weather in France was only slightly better - but it was possible to find the occasional ripe peach and we did at least start one of our bottles of hopeful suntan lotion.
Strangely this ironing out of the seasons “it’s now autumn all year round”, is pretty good for business and you certainly wouldn’t want to be in charcoal futures. It is clear that global warming is doing something - it’s just not clear what?
FOOD & WINE
Our “Worms” menu continues to be a serious hit with the world and his slightly impecunious, value seeking dog! We’ll be running the Worms menu all the way through until the start of December. We also need to draw your attention to the menu being available on a Saturday night.
Everybody has climbed on board this now creaking bandwagon – as they have with Carvery Sunday lunches - and though we don’t get out much, you kindly tell us that nobody gets close to us on either the “early bird” or Sunday lunch menu. So we’re not going to change either.
We are however being belatedly a bit grown up about our burgeoning wine list. For the last 8 years its just got bigger & bigger, with lots of glorious idiosyncratic gems from around the globe. My “wine rabies” has resulted in an unmanageable list with 95% of all the wine sales occurring in only 30 or so bin numbers.
So over the next 6 weeks or so we going to introduce a sharper, punchier, easier to read wine list, in a format similar to our main menus, which will contain around 60 wines and champagnes. The remnants of the old list will be available in a dusty old tome and will include some wines offered at off-sales prices until they’ve all gone.
sustainable OS21 FUTURE
Stirred up and invigorated by all the maelstrom of activity related to all the applications to bring Oswestry another supermarket, the highly focussed OS21 group continues to be a brilliant forum for proper grown up debate about the future of our town.
Huge CONGRATULATIONS are due to all involved in conquering one of nature’s most powerful forces, small town inertia, to win the very prestigious My Deco competition prize of a makeover of the Powis Hall Market, by none other than the absolute grandfather of style gurus, Mr. Terrence Conran, (apparently he’s managed to kick his dirty Habitat).
Having returned from France, where markets are really taken seriously and where the produce is of an outstanding quality, sold by passionate and knowledgeable producers; any and all improvements will be most welcome. Oswestry has long been a world leader in “hiding light under bushels” – just a shame that it’s not an Olympic discipline - we’d be a nailed on gold.
Despite being in the teeth of a recession and a serious global out break of swine flu - which I’m sure is a real boar if you’ve caught it - I think the town feels as if it is fighting back, being imaginatively proactive and aware in new ways of the need to get involved in the future.
sustainable OS21 FUTURE
FRANCIS DUNNERY
6th November
Francis and his age of Aquarius has become not quite a piece of the furniture but he has become a perennial favourite - always guaranteed to fill the building.
We’ve been fortunate in persuading him to wind up his latest UK tour here with his end of tour party show. This one’s a real treat for all “It Bites” fans as he’s brushed off the bands back catalogue and made this show out of their old hits!
Regularly and deservedly a fixture in the top ten in all the worlds polls of top guitarists- mussoes of all persuasions cannot fail to appreciate Frank’s talent.
Menu details to follow but you can reserve spaces now for £25.00 per person.
THE FESTIVE SEASON 2009
Perhaps this is another consequence of losing 3 seasons of weather and the year seeming like 12 months of autumn, that with no discernible seasons, people are confused about when it might be sensible to start clamouring for Christmas menus and booking forms.
It is of course extremely gratifying and an enormous commercial relief that our menus are so eagerly awaited and doubly so this year, when the economic climate is so difficult. Prime time in December is already being vigorously booked, significantly by a number of groups that tried somewhere else last year! All menus, booking forms etc. are ready and I absolutely promise that I’m not crying wolf when I say that there are very few spaces left for Christmas day.
Unusually this year we’ve decided to make our opening times easier to understand and as such we are only going to be closed on the 1st of January. However the pattern of customer requirements has changed over the years ( due to financial or social pressures) and so this year last orders for dinner on NYE will be 8.30 and all our dinner guests will be kindly asked to leave by 11.00 p.m. so that we can all move on to wild parties or mugs of cocoa or maybe something in between.
The menus are all up on the web site and can be found by clicking HERE together with all the appropriate booking information and prices. If you need any other information please don't hesitate to get in contact.
Our “Worms” menu continues to be a serious hit with the world and his slightly impecunious, value seeking dog! We’ll be running the Worms menu all the way through until the start of December. We also need to draw your attention to the menu being available on a Saturday night. 
Stirred up and invigorated by all the maelstrom of activity related to all the applications to bring Oswestry another supermarket, the highly focussed OS21 group continues to be a brilliant forum for proper grown up debate about the future of our town. 
Francis and his age of Aquarius has become not quite a piece of the furniture but he has become a perennial favourite - always guaranteed to fill the building.
