16-04-2025
Update on new American BBQ restaurant looking to open in former pub
A possible threat to the re-opening of a pub as a family-friendly restaurant has been averted at the 11th hour.
The former Hungry Horse pub at the Brookhouse Farm in Middleleaze is being refurbished ahead of an anticipated opening as an American-themed barbecue restaurant called Hickory Smokehouse.
The chain's plans for the restaurant include such child and family-friendly facilities as a cinema room for children and a frozen custard machine.
Flash sale alert🌟 Dive deeper into the stories that shape Swindon with Swindon Advertiser Unlimited local news, an ad-free app, and a digital replica of our print edition—all with 80% fewer ads on our site Subscribe now for a faster news experience -
— Swindon Advertiser (@swindonadver) April 11, 2025
But its application for a premises licence to put on entertainments, to sell alcohol and provide 'late night refreshment' had drawn sufficient concern from both the councils trading standards team and nearby neighbours that a three-member panel of the authority's licensing committee was due to meet this week.
That meeting has now been cancelled and the Local Democracy Reporter understands that the trading standards officers at Euclid Street have dropped their objections.
The restaurant, which is owned by the brewery Greene King has applied to be able to show films and play live and recorded music and put on music and dance events as well as selling alcohol, including late at night.
Recommended reading
Hopes for pub to be asset of community value among latest applications
Brunel transformation at centre of town's redevelopment plans
How might the council's 'Heart of Swindon' town centre transformation work?
It wants to be able to put on such entertainment between 10am and 11pm and to sell alcohol up to 11pm most days with a later licence to midnight on Friday and Saturday nights and the ability to go later around public holidays.
The borough council's trading standards team had expressed concern about serving children being possibly served alcohol but added its objections would be dropped if the applicant would agree to put up an age-restricted notice and to train staff, and record such training, on age-restricted sales.
However, residents near to the pub in Middleleaze Drive in west Swindon were also unhappy.
Their objection says: 'We object to the above application based on noise and increase in traffic in a residential area late at night. The particular part in the application we object to is the selling of alcohol to midnight and playing of live music.'
In response Green King wrote, via the council's licensing team: 'The application for a new premises licence is to reflect the transition from a public house to a Hickory's family friendly restaurant. Whilst as a Hickory's restaurant it is not our intention to trade until midnight the hours applied for replicate the current permitted hours, there is no extension to the later hours applied for.
'There is a slight extension to the earlier trading hours; however, I do not believe this would impact the licensing objectives.'
That did not placate the residents, who maintained their objection according to the documents appended to the meeting agenda.
