"It’s a way of life, it’s not a career"

This week’s pub of the week is nestled in a picturesque village near Clitheroe.

The Calf's Head in Worston offers stunning views of Pendle Hill, locally sourced produce, and a wide variety of quality dishes and real ales.

Can you introduce yourself?

My name’s PJ, I’m one of three managers here.

How long have you been running the pub and how are you finding it?

I’ve been here six years myself, I absolutely love it.

It’s not what I trained in. I went to university and got a degree in broadcast media, and during Covid ended up furloughed and working a couple of days a week on the bar.

Now I’m an integral part of operations here and making sure everybody’s happy.

Can you tell me a little bit about the history of the pub?

It’s a privately owned hotel/restaurant. We’ve been here for 26 years.

The owners also own another restaurant in Burnley called The New Wagonners. We’re privately run, and family owned.

Pam and Chris, the two owners, have been in the business for all of their lives. Pam is in her 70s and Chris is in his 80s. Pam’s very hands-on and is still here every week.

The head chef has been here from the very beginning, for 26 years, and we’ve got a very solid team of chefs behind him that have been part of the business and the journey here dating back to the prior establishment that the current owners had, The Old Stone House, which was at what is now called Mitton Hall.

What makes the pub special?

The fact that we are one of the few restaurants in the Ribble Valley that is open on Monday and Tuesday, we find that works very well in our favour.

Quite a lot of places around here are not open seven days a week. In essence, we’re quite a small operation, we’ve not got big offices running it, we’ve not got a central headquarters, we manage everything from the site here and we do what we feel is right for the customers.

We know our customers quite well; we like to try and adapt and make decisions based on what is right.

Do you run any events?

We cater for all sorts of different parties and gatherings. We do funerals, weddings, coach parties, tables of two, 18, 20 - we do it all really.

Do you have a beer garden?

We have a very large beer garden and a very large bar area; we can probably seat inside and out at least 200 covers.

We’d like to say we’re one of the biggest features in the Ribble Valley, and we’re very lucky to be privately run and managed. We get a lot of weddings that get married in the picturesque garden here.

What food do you offer?

We pride ourselves on traditional pub classics, it’s all homemade, it’s all done in-house, traditional recipes that have been passed down for numbers of years now.

It's more traditional food: meat pie, fish and chips, steak pie, Lancashire hotpot. We have specials every day that change and the chefs put on various seasonal specials.

Throughout the year our main menu boasts about 25 main courses at least, and we have a ridiculously large dessert list- about 25/30 desserts.

What’s the draft beer line up?

We always have at least three local ales on all the time, usually between Moorhouses, Black Sheep Brewery, Thwaites Brewery and Marston's.

We also have a selection of lagers on draft including Carlsberg, San Miguel, Poretti and Guinness, as well as a huge wine list with wines from across the world. We’ve got a lot, something for everybody.

What’s the best/worst thing about running a pub?

I suppose your social life comes to a halt when you work in catering but that’s the same for everybody. It’s very rewarding and you meet a lot of people here.

A lot of the people you class as colleagues become friends; you become part of a family.

We have a really good, wide family here that has come together and it’s really nice to lead people in that direction. We are really lucky, really lucky.

It’s nice that you’re so passionate about the pub.

That’s what it’s all about, if there’s no passion there’s no point in doing it. It can be very rewarding. Tiring, and very demanding, but you’ve got to come to work and enjoy it.

No day’s the same. It’s not like sitting in an office; there’s something every day here and it’s what keeps us all going. It’s a way of life, it’s not a career.