Conversations, dispatches and ideas from the Bush Theatre.
The first week of This Place We Know takes us back to our roots as we inhabit a room above a pub for Nancy Harris’ One Cold Dark Night at The Defector’s Weld! But what’s life like at this buzzy local pub? Tash from The Defector’s Weld talks us through the average Friday.
10am: The Defector’s Weld team arrives at work and starts to set up for the day.
12pm: Our doors open to the public. Our Friday lunchtimes are usually pretty busy! We tend to get groups of customers from local businesses and offices coming in and taking advantage of our great lunchtime sandwich meal, you can’t beat a sandwich and a pint for £8!
2pm: The lunchtime rush has quietened down at this point and we start to get ready for the rest of the day. We’re open until 2am on Fridays and this means we need to prep a lot of fruit, mint and make sure that the bar is fully stocked.
4pm: As it’s coming up to Christmas, we’re showing a few people around our private room – The Snug so we can help them plan their Christmas party. It feels a bit crazy to be talking about Christmas this early but it’s coming around sooner than we think!
5pm: On Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings we have DJs playing from 6pm onwards so at around 5pm we set up the DJ booth and make sure everything is working the way it should.
5.30pm: We start to get busy at around half 5 on Fridays, we tend to attract a crowd who enjoy cold beers after a long week at work! We sell a lot of Beavertown beers during Friday evenings as well as the beers that are on our guest line. At the moment we have Longhorn from Purity Brewing co on our guest line and it flies out of the pumps!
6pm: Our first DJ set begins now. We have two DJ sets on a Friday, one from 6-9pm and the second one is from 9-2am. Our DJs play from a extensive library of all genres which they change to suit the mood
7pm: We’re usually pretty busy with food service at this point, our beercan chicken is very popular at the moment as it’s a perfect sharing dish!
9pm: Our second DJ is about to start their set, they’ll be on until we shut at 2am
10pm: Food service stops at 10pm so at this point we take all the menus and sauces off the tables to make room for more drinks!
12am: Due to licencing laws, we can’t let anyone who isn’t already in the pub in after midnight, but if you’re already in, the party goes on til 2am.
2am: We officially shut our doors at 2am and this means it’s clearing up and closing down time. Fridays are great as they’re vibrant and filled with different types of people. We love all our customers, from our regulars to anyone who hasn’t been to our pub before.
3am: After closing down, it’s finally home time. We’ll be back at 10am tomorrow to do it all again!
All This Place We Know ticket-holders will receive a very generous 20% off their food and drink bill at The Defector’s Weld! One Cold Dark Night is on at The Snug in The Defector’s Weld until 1 October, you can find out more and book tickets by clicking here.
