Copied from their Facebook post, please find below an update from The Nags Head.

Congratulations to Jody and the team!!!

Nags News!

Well some of you already know this, but here’s a bit of Nags News to dampen the Monday Blues.

As most of you know we took on the Nags in January 2007 signing a 20 year lease and after a little refurb opening to the public on February 19th, with no customers, selling 12 real ales that had a shelf life of 3 days…idiots!

Incredibly though, thanks to you lot, and especially those who supported us in those first few months, it worked!

The Nags went from strength to strength incredibly quickly winning dozens of awards for its beers, ciders and atmosphere. It’s been an absolute whirlwind of a 19 and a half years and we couldn’t have done it without all of you.

Those of you who understand maths will have noticed though that the 20 year lease is up next January leaving the Nags as we know it in jeopardy, and without even a 20th birthday party.

The owners wanted to sell up and Punch Taverns were sending us monthly letters asking to buy the pub. Which of course we immediately set fire to. If this had happened then they almost certainly would have ruined the Nags and we wouldn’t have renewed the lease come January. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking the end of the Nags is a pretty hard thing to imagine.

However! Last spring we won some Daily Telegraph competition that we hadn’t entered, which predictably led to our owners having the pub valued. Knowing what was about to happen we pleaded with them to let us have first dibs if they were going to sell up so as to keep the Nags legacy going …and 6 weeks later we received a phone call offering us the chance to buy the freehold.

Which we did. It took 15 months and an incredible amount of stress, loans, solicitors, and paperwork, all things I detest! But we got there and 4 weeks ago today, 6 years after reopening after Covid, having only just survived, we completed on the freehold of ours and yours beloved pub.
We’ve had a lot of congratulations over the past month but the truth is it isn’t for us, it’s for all of us. We keep our home, our amazing team of staff keep their jobs, and the whole community keeps their pub!

The Nags is safe, long live the Nags!

Huge thanks go out to every one of you for making it what it has become, and no bigger thanks can go to anyone but our incredible team of staff who serve you and put up with you, usually with a smile on their faces. Staff really are the number one importance in small businesses like ours, and our team is exquisite! If you would like to repay them then there is a beer on the bar in both cask and keg format called One For the Team, with all profits going straight to the staff tip sheet as a massive thank you from all of us.

Yes there will be a party, it will be on Sunday 23rd August, but I will leave Tasha to spread more details of that over the coming days. I’m sure you’ve heard enough from me for another year or two!