Lancashire Pub of the Week: Hapton Inn in village of Hapton

This week’s pub features a sizeable beer garden with a stage setup, along with a mix of chargrilled steaks and an £80 food challenge.

Paul Wright runs the Hapton Inn and the experienced landlord has more than a decade’s experience in the trade, having previously run the Griffin’s Head in Huncoat.

Can you introduce yourself?

My name is Lee Wright and I took over the Hapton Inn in Hapton in January 2024.

How are you finding it?

We’re a free house, completely independent of any brewery, so we can serve any beer we like. It’s been really good, and very busy. We’ve had lots of local support and it’s a nice lovely, local pub. We do events for the local parish community, it’s no more than 10 minutes from everywhere in East Lancs practically so that’s good.

The 'ambient' lighting in the garden (Image: Hapton Inn)

What changes have you made?

Our beer garden is beautiful, we can get 122 people out there, so we’ve added a stage, barbeque, and mood lighting out there so we’re ready to host events. We’re going to have a big afternoon music day, and try and get new customers in to listen to live artists’ music, I’ve spent £20,000 on sound systems and lighting.

Plus, I’ve added sectioned dining, so we can separate the football fans from the diners.

What’s the food like?

It’s good, honest, homecooked food, we’re a bit of a steakhouse, we make it chargrilled, and ensure the seasoning is right, we do it really well. The steaks are absolutely beautiful, and we do the food a bit better than the likes of chain pubs.

The homemade pies on offer at the pub (Image: Hapton Inn)

We’ve also got all your staples so burgers, sausages and mash, fish and chips, pies, we do 100 pies a week all made on site, we do hunters chicken, Asian stir fry, lamb shanks, sandwiches like brisket and lamb on ciabatta bread, plus we do a bar menu with pizzas and small plates, a specials board with four or five mains, so we’ve got a good choice no matter the portions you want.

Another popular shout is our ‘Village Mega Burger’, which is a six ounce beef patty, five ounce chicken breast on top, pulled pork, cheese, and onion rings.

One of the inn's signature burgers (Image: Hapton Inn)

We’ve also got a food challenge I carried over from the Griffin, where you get a hearty selection of meat plus mushrooms, beans, and a pound of fries for £80, it’s free if you complete it, no-one has tried it yet here though.

Lee's previous 'Griffin challenge' (Image: Griffin's Head)

Are you pricey?

No, we try to be as cheap as possible, steaks are £20 or under, except for the fillet and the mixed grill, which is £29.95 with 10oz gammon steak. We source locally and I’m always on the look for the best deals, thanks to being a free house

What about drinks?

Our cask ale is quite popular, we’ve got Moorhouses Pride of Pendle and Joseph Holt’s Best bitter. We don’t do John Smiths or anything like that, as they are a bit poor, we do two guest ales, which are Theakstons and Cracking Shot at the moment.

Every pint is under £5

Lagers on draft:

Estrella Damn

Coors – cheapest at £3.95

Angelo Poretti – a smoother alternative to Peroni

Erdinger

Camden Easy - Lee said: “It’s got to be tried, we’re one of the first in the area to get this brand, the best IPA I’ve ever tasted.”

Strongbow Dark Fruits

Inch’s cider

Guinness

The food is sourced from local producers (Image: Hapton Inn)

How challenging has it been?

Up until I came here, running pubs was a massive challenge but it’s so different here - what a difference. In the five months here I've made three times what I made at the Griffin, which is down to the location and local support, but it’s still tough. I work seven days a week 15 hours a day, and we have high standards.

What’s the local area like?

Hapton is pretty much your local village, everybody knows everybody's business. We’ve got the Railway pub as well but we’re not in competition it’s all in good spirits. It’s what you expect from a local village mentality in a nice way.

I brought a lot of custom along with me from the previous pubs. We’re on the border of everywhere, so plenty of people come in not just from the village. We’re just off main roads so we have customers that come weekly from Machester without fail, just because they love our food.