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In this edition of Taproom Talks, we caught up with LOYA finalist Mike Dove, Licensee, The Three Horseshoes. Nestled on Witney’s High Street, The Three Horseshoes is more than just a pub, it’s a gathering place where warm welcomes meet hearty pints and good company. We sat down with Mike to explore how this beloved pub has built its character, rooted itself in the community and thrives by honouring tradition while embracing new ideas, we also found out how it felt to win BIII Licensee of the Year Award 2025. 

Could you start by telling us a little about The Three Horseshoes and its story so far?

We took over the pub in Febuary 2023 and opened in the March. It was the realisation of a dream that was built over 10 years. We had always said we wanted to own a pub together and spent years both, researching, learning and looking at various venues. When the Horseshoes came onto the market, we knew immediately this was the pub we desperately wanted. Admiral Taverns took a punt on us. We knew that highly experienced pub owners had put their names in the hat. Whilst we knew didn’t have the same experience or had never owned a pub, we were very confident in our business plan and more importantly our vision, which was to turn the Horseshoes into a hub for the community and redefine how a pub operates. To us a pub is all about community. It should be a hub where people can visit to socialise, make friends, feel safe, connect with people and really feel part of something that isn’t just about having a beer or some food. We know this helps with peoples mental health and creates a really positive environment. Affordability and value for money was another huge part of our business vision. Pubs and restaurants have become a luxury in recent years. This is primarily down to the cost of living crisis and the government offering no support to the hospitality sector in any way. We want to make sure we always give our customers a reason to spend their time and money with us and at the same time make it affordable. We work with a number of charities on a regular basis. We feel this is a very important thing to do and almost feel it is our duty to give back wherever we can. We have raised in the region of £50,000 for various charities in our 2 ½ years owning the Horseshoes. We like to do things very differently at the Horseshoes, we like to be very original and slightly quirky with what we offer to our guests. This varies from our drinks to our food, the live music we book, the events we hold and how we advertise our events with our social media videos. This has played a huge part in our business growth over the past 2 ½ years.

What did it mean for you, Tommy, and your team to win the BII Licensee of the Year Awards this year?

Honestly, it meant the world and more than anyone will ever know. We literally had zero expectation of making the final 6, let along winning. When we were nominated alongside thousands of pubs to even be in the process was very cool. To then be actually shortlisted and making it through the various rounds was very humbling. In May when we found out we had made the final 6, this was the win for us. We were blown away. We promised ourselves that on the final day of judging at Sky TV we would just enjoy it and be ourselves. That day was both surreal and intense. We learnt so much about our business during 8 hours of intense judging. At the BII’s summer event the next the day we were genuinely there for the experience and to embrace it and a few beers! In our minds we knew who we wanted to win and indeed who we thought would win. For us, being a finalist in a process as big and prestigious as this was a win. The moment we were announced as the winners is something we will never forget. We knew immediately that everything would change. For anyone amongst the 1000 guests, they will have seen from our acceptance speech that we were in total shock. We spoke from the heart about how much it meant and how much the industry means to us. We are so angry and sad how the Government are treating the industry. The ‘Great British Pub’ is within the very fabric of this country and currently they are doing all they can to kill the industry. Over 25% of pubs have closed and since the budget last autumn 1,100 pubs have gone, 89,000 jobs in the sector have gone and that is 53% of all UK job losses in that time. Everything we said up on that stage was born from anger, upset and passion for an industry that is crucial to the future of this country.

What do you see as the key factors that have driven The Three Horseshoes’ success in recent years?

Being ourselves plain and simple! We stick to what we believe in and our vision. This is not in an arrogant way at all, but we believe in what we do so strongly. We want to be different and original and we stand by that every day. Every single thing we do is with our customers and staff in mind. If that all works symbiotically then our commercial visions should hopefully all come together.

How do you balance being a welcoming community pub with delivering the standards expected of an award-winning business?

We think the two work hand in hand. Everything we do is focused around providing a safe, fun and welcoming atmosphere every day, that is both affordable and value for money with a real community vibe. To us these are most of the characteristics needed to run a successful and reputable pub. Behind that we are highly commercially focused and work every day on making the business better, always staying relevant, being aware of our competition, always having the correct processes in place and above all managing the cashflow in these tough times. This is clearly something that is crucial in any business, but at a time when there is no support from ‘The Suits’ in power it is more crucial than ever.

Staff recruitment and retention is a challenge across the sector. How have you approached this at The Three Horseshoes?

We have around about an 80% staff retention since we opened the pub. We place a lot of importance on investing in our team through training courses, in-house training, team events, paying above the minimum wage and having a open doors policy whenever anyone needs help or support. This has resulted in many of our team staying with us and flourishing as both people and team members. We are taking on our first apprentice soon as well. This has been something we have been very keen to do for a long time.

Energy costs, staffing and supply chain issues continue to put pressure on operators. How have you navigated these challenges?

This is a constant and daily challenge. It is wearing and highly stressful. We will be totally honest, it does not have a good impact on our mental health. However, we have approached it head on  with positivity and strategic planning. We have spent months cross training staff members to save on staff costs, we continually work on bringing down our supplier costs, energy costs are horrendous and we work as hard as we can to secure the best prices but they are still extortionate. This is squarely down to the Government to do something about, along with business rates, NIC contributions, fairer taxes and in the short term a cut in VAT.

How do you approach serving food and building your drinks offer, particularly with your focus on traditional quality with a twist?

Our Head Chef Ryan Priddey always focusses on seasonal changes, regular menu changes to show variety, affordability whilst creating high quality and varied menus that appeal to all tastes and dietary requirements. We offer specials that are often created by our other chefs to encourage inclusivity. We regularly engage with our customers to gauge their views on specials we could run. Currently we are running a monthly initiative called ‘Shoes On Tour’. This involves selecting three countries around the world each month and running a poll for customers, who get to choose the country. We then have a night with cuisine from the winning country, accompanied by drinks and music that hail from that country.

We work very hard to offer a very varied drinks offering that are again affordable and appeal to all. This includes a huge range of Gins, Whiskeys, Vodkas and Rum. We are blessed to have a phenomenal wine supplier called FCP Wines, who only supply to us in the town. This gives us a great USP and a fantastic range of wines which are hugely popular. We work closely with our staff to come up with their own cocktails. This gives us an eclectic mix of cocktails that are very popular and very different to anything you would buy in other pubs. It also gives our team a real sense of pride that they are involved in the process and feel involved. We also distil our own Spiced Rum called 59 Horses. We sell this as our house rum and also by the bottle to customers. It has been a major hit since we launched it last year. We feel very proud of it and it’s another revenue stream for us and also something very different for a pub to have their own rum. We also sell our own Horseshoes branded house wine, which is supplied and labelled by FCP for us. It is incredibly popular with our guests.

What do you love about working in the pub industry and what opportunities do you see for the sector’s future?

As far as we are concerned it is the best industry in the world. It is bloody hard, but it’s our business and we are passionate about making it a massive success for many years to come and ultimately leaving a legacy for how we think pubs can be run. After all hospitality is meant to be fun, so we are here to do that and create positive life experiences for our staff and customers along the way! On a serious note, with regards what we see for the sectors future, right now it is pretty bleak, which is so sad to see, but that is sat firmly in our Governments lap. When will they see that a busy pub isn’t necessarily a profitable one? Pubs (including ours) are keeping costs to the customer low to ensure we are busy. This means we are not able to develop, grow or invest in our business. At the same time, supplier costs, business rates, NIC contributions, energy bills etc keep going up and up. The change that is needed is painfully simple but is seemingly the hardest bridge to hurdle right now, and that is the Government taking positive action, doing the right thing for once and seeing what is happening right in front of their noses before it’s too late. Tell us they don’t like to spend time in a lovely pub or restaurant, no chance! If they keep doing what they are doing, that will be the reality though!!

Finally, what is next for The Three Horseshoes and what projects or plans are you excited about?

We have tons of cool stuff planned for the next 12 months, much of which is in the early planning stages right now, but it involves more work with local charities including our wonderful local food bank, some very exciting music events, some dinners with famous sporting icons etc, including David Gower in November. The one thing we can reveal, right now is that we have agreed on a series of fundraising dinners with footballing icon Graeme Souness and the incredible charity he represents called DEBRA. They carry out absolutely mind-blowing work and we are very proud to be working with them for this series of events. All will be revealed on these very soon!!!

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