Like Cinderella, when it came to this year’s BII Licensee of the Year Award winners, the shoe fitted Tommy Higgs and Mike Dove MBII perfectly. The pair, who run the Three Horseshoes (The Shoes) in Witney, Oxfordshire, have turned their dream of running a thriving pub into a reality. With awesome charity fundraisers and an outstanding proposition, they are proving there’s no limit to what they can achieve at the heart of their community. And we must give a mention to Tommy’s awards’ attire, which just like Cinderella, delivered glitz and sparkle to the Summer Event. Kate Oppenheim CBII reports from The Shoes
On being declared the Licensee of the Year Award 2025 winners, you made an unforgettably impassioned and rousing speech. Doing things your own way is how you’ve built your business success. Tell us more…
When we opened The Shoes, twoand-a-half-years ago, we set out to be different. We wanted to do it our way, says Mike. We don’t want to conform to the normality, adds Tommy. There’s so much competition out there and we believe that to be a success, you really have to make your mark. We created a proper buzz when we first opened, continues Tommy, including getting an article in the Oxford Mail. They told us that they’d never received such a response to a pub reopening article ever: there was loads of feedback on socials and from readers, who were really inspired by what we said, says Mike.
We are here to be commercially successful, but we are a community hub for the locals. It’s a sweeping statement to say we are different, but literally everything we do, from the events we put on to the charity stuff we do, is different from what else is available in a town the size of Witney. There are loads of open mic nights and half priced wine deals locally, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But instead, we will put on jazz nights and have reggae and soul DJs to create a chilled vibe — which is what we’re about.
Take our Rock Steady Roast event. The DJ, Count Skylarkin, comes in on a Sunday two to three times a year. We usually serve 130 roast dinners on a Sunday, but when he’s booked to play, we do 160-170. We can only seat 60 in one sitting, which means we must turn each place three times. Roast dinners and reggae might not be a usual fit, but it’s pointless doing the same thing that everyone else is doing, says Tommy.
We have our own take on drinks promotions too, like our £1 Madri Madness, where we sell Madri at £1 a pint. On the Monday before Christmas, we packed the place out when other pubs in the area were empty. It’s clearly a loss-leader, but the rules are customers can’t order a second pint until they’ve finished the first. There are only a certain number of pints you can pour in an hour and it cost us a barrel. But the pub was chocabloc and for every person coming in to buy a £1 pint, they were bringing along a friend or partner who might be drinking wine or spirits. They all stayed on for the rest of the evening too — it was like Christmas Eve.
It’s a cliché to say that we try to think outside of the box, but we really do. Our videos are really stupid and make us look like absolute morons, but there’s always a commercial aim to them. Last Christmas we made a video of me dressed as The Grinch, creeping into the pub to pull Tommy’s shorts down to reveal a bit of paper, which said: “Don’t get caught with your pants down, book for Christmas by the end of September and get a free bottle of house wine on your table, as a thank you from us”.
In 48-hours we had received 750 bookings, says Tommy. We did 2,500 covers in total last Christmas. In fact, out of the 1,400 pubs Admiral owns, we were in the top five for sales — they couldn’t believe it. It was insane for a little pub in Witney.
One of our latest concepts is Shoes on Tour, which we hold on the last Friday of the month. It gives our customers the option of choosing a different country to visit for dinner. For instance, when it was Mexico, weha d a Mariachi band, with Tequila and churros. And customers get to choose the next destination.
We like to involve our staff too. An example is, when we’re putting together a new cocktail list, we ask them to come up with an idea. One of our youngest team members designed a winning cocktail, based on the flavours she liked, and it went onto our Christmas cocktail list. She was really proud — even her mum called us up.
Your events are notable for creating instant success, how do you do it?
Our ideas are quirky. As business partners, we know each other very well and think in the same way, Amanda (Mike’s wife) and Hannah (Tommy’s fiancé) think in a similar way to us too. Our ideas are often not what you see in a pub, but things you might see at a music event or elsewhere, but we mould them to work in our pub environment.
Another thing is that Mike and I are here 24-7, there is probably only a four-hour gap — between midnight and 4am — when people can’t get hold of either one of us, says Tommy. We’re the face of the pub. We engage with our customers too, for example a regular who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer suggested we did a charity fundraising event. We roll with it.
We have our own take on Oktoberfest, which we run alongside a Day of the Dead festival. A Mariachi band from London rocked up in a Talbot Samba wearing sombreros and with their guitars and a portable PA. We hadn’t told anyone they were coming. There were about 200 people outside the pub and they arrived and just started playing — even people not in the pub stopped to watch. It’s something no-one in our little town had seen before. They went on to play in every room of the pub and then got back in the car and left — that was it.
We continually ask ourselves how can we top that? We love surprise acts. It’s a gamble, but we advertise the things we are going to do, the DJs and the food, but then we introduce a surprise element, like the night we had a fire eater turn up.
When we were asked to host the marriage renewals of the customer with terminal cancer, we got ordained as priests by some dodgy American church — we even got certificates to prove it. We dressed up as priests, wrote the prayers and had a pianist playing the theme from the Exorcist. Everyone was laughing — it was such a memorable occasion.
We like to create memories. The day could have been beyond sad, as there were many heartfelt readings, but we made it fun as well.
You impressed the award’s judges with your business prowess, everything from your charity fundraising and events, to bringing celebrity names to the pub. How do you do it?
It comes down to us being proactive. We have just signed a three-year deal with the former footballer and TV pundit Graeme Souness, who is involved with the DEBRA charity, which has Simon Weston, the British Army and Falklands War veteran, as president. Graeme is all over social media and we are now a registered member of the charity and will be hosting events for them.
Next year, Graeme and the Liverpool player, Dean Saunders, are coming to do a Q&A session, which will be followed by a charity football tournament at the Oxford United stadium. We get in with all these people to raise money for charity.
If you don’t ask, you don’t get, is our motto. It’s grown from getting a round of golf at a local club to having crazy prizes, like two footballs signed by David Beckham, which we auctioned for Motor Neurone Disease (MND), raising £20,000. That catapulted us, says Mike. Tommy adds: I don’t want to sound overly ambitious, but next year I think we can raise £100,000. Graeme is a worldwide name and will give us access to high level auction prizes.
David Gower will be coming to do an event for us in November. He’s theb est left-handed English batsman this country has ever had. As you can tell, me and Tommy are die-hard sports fans, and the community love it. It’s about getting the right names. Mike also has something of a name. Tommy explains: Mike is a local legend — he has had a musical on Broadway.
Stand Tall, was written by Lee Wyatt-Buchan, a close friend, explains Mike. We have a music charity, a rock school for kids, and one day in 2010, Lee said “I want to write a musical to perform locally”. We had a thing about kids being bullied and Lee wrote this musical about it. It was a sell-out performance over four nights at our local Witney theatre. In November 2011, we got a call from a West End producer and did seven weeks ‘off’ London’s West End. And in July 2012, we did 10 nights on Broadway in the New York Theatre Festival — it was unbelievable. Through the Rock School, we have even got members of Guns & Roses to perform in Witney. These experiences have given us the confidence to approach celebrities.
We always take an honest approach. The fact that we are quirky and unique really helps too. Celebrities love it when they come to the pub. We once invited the former cricket commentator Henry Blofeld to speak at the pub and he enjoyed it so much, he asked to come back.
But, behind our quirky ideas, we are also fierce business people. Everything we do has a commercial aim to it.
You took over the pub as recently as March 2023 — and it’s your first pub. How have you built the business?
Tommy worked here as General Manager for the previous owners. His fiancé, Hannah, worked at the other pub they owned across the road. When she got wind of The Shoes becoming available, we were quick to approach Admiral.
I know this place inside out, adds Tommy. We had looked at so many pubs to take on, but this was the one we wanted. We had to work hard to convince Admiral, as the team wanted someone who had owned a successful pub restaurant. The pub had been in the same family for 25-30 years and it was prime real estate, which everyone wanted.
Admiral’s Finance Director needed to meet us and was impressed that Amanda is an accountant, Mike is from marketing and Hannah and I had hospitality experience. It all helped to tick a box for Admiral. We were also honest and genuine about our vision, and that vision hasn’t changed. They believed in us.
On taking over the pub, the shadow P&L showed a turnover of £475k a year. In our first year, we took that to £1.1m, doing the same in year two. The differential was that we had learnt how to operate it successfully with fewer staff, down from 28 to 19, by cross training and developing people. It meant we could run a busy night with four front-of-house and two in the kitchen, without compromising service, because we had got better.
The turnover was the same, but the conversion to profit on year two was substantially more. We work to 75% GP on food, 52-55% on draught and 75%+ on wines and spirits.
You are passionate about this industry and are excited, as winners, that you’ll be in a strong position to voice your opinions and raise the issue about the costs of doing business. What are the key messages you want to get across to Government?
Costs are insane in this industry and this is something we will be championing. With our £1.1m turnover, there is still no real profit. The cost of running a pub that is taxed at 20% is tough. The reality is that you can be doing really well, sales wise, but the profit margins aren’t huge. We must watch our cash flow every single day. We’re always looking at savings, better prices, etc, and through cross-training our staff, we have been able to make big changes to the way we operate.
What we’ve learnt has put us in a steadfast position for our third year. Myself [Tommy] and Hannah have retrained as kitchen assistants/ chefs. We have our first apprentice Jess this year too — she has gone from Pot Wash to Kitchen Assistant within the year, and is now a Shift Supervisor. By developing young staff and ourselves, it takes the pressure off — and we’ve no need to spend an additional £40,000 on a chef.
As winners, we hope we can provide an insight into the pub business. We’re in a good position, after only 2.5 years in the business. But to feel positive about the future, we need to get more help from the powers that be. We want to use our voices to call for that help and we will shout from the rooftops. There are only so many ways to cut costs and save, and we’re nearly at that ceiling. We need to get the suits to give us the help.
Government talks and talks but still doesn’t do anything, but we need help with tax — VAT, NIC — on rates and with utility costs. We know there is help available; we just need to make them give it to us.
We are passionate. People heard it at the Summer Event. Since winning, we’ve been on the radio, in newspapers and on TV, and there was a really cool piece in the last BII News magazine, where it quoted us as saying, it’s never about me and Mike, but it’s about everything else. We’re humble human beings, so we shout for everyone. It’s about this team, this pub, this town and this industry.
