Firstly, apologies for this tardy newsletter but everyone seems a might thirsty of late and we’ve not had chance to bring you the latest tales from the riverbank and stay in touch with all you beautiful people (although this goes for all our family as well, so thanks to them for their patience).
Fun in the sun
With the deluge of the last few days, it seems hard to imagine that early May brought such fantastic weather, but we know it happened because you came in droves! It certainly showed that we made the right decision to refurbish the bar, and hopefully you saw some improvements in queuing times, which we’re still working on. Another change we are making to help us work better is to go to a shorter menu at busy times. Many of the house favourites such as the cheeseboards and burgers will still be available, and we may fine tune it as we go through the season, so don’t be too disappointed if something you had on a previous visit isn’t available - Ma has ensured that there will still be something to tempt you (and I’m not talking about her line of racy aprons...).
Of course, we will continue striving to improve things at Beeses, but there’s always room for the unexpected...like the toilets blocking at 6:00 p.m. on a glorious Sunday evening with at least 200 people in the place! We had to make a quick decision and so it was that we closed immediately. Our apologies if you were there while this happened, but we felt that in the interests of public health it was our only alternative. Luckily for us, the redoubtable Mike Pope (the creator of our fabulous ladies loos) was here and he cleared the problem for us by working it out with a stick (literally).
But we’ve had enough rain in the last few days to remind us that summer is truly here, and unfortunately Pa was in the middle of the river on the ferry when the heavens deposited most of the Atlantic on to his head. He later joked that he couldn’t have got wetter if he'd jumped in, although it was still something of a surprise when a couple of days later one of our short-stay guests decided to put this theory to the test by pushing Pa in when getting off the ferry. Oh how Pa laughed at the irony of it all...
News just in...
In other efforts to haul Beeses into the modern age, we’ve now got credit card facilities! Actually, we’ve had them for a while, we just forgot to mention it last time, although that was probably just as well as we had a few teething troubles with it (you can still see Pa’s bite marks in it).
Some of you may have seen that we’ve got a new boatman on the weekends. Sam Fisher has been messing about on boats for years with his Dad, the estimable Pete ‘The Hat’. So it was no surprise when he aced his RYA Powerboat Level 2 course earlier this month, and our congratulations go to Sam. So he knows what he’s doing, and just you remember that when he stops you performing that ‘hilarious’ jumping off the boat stunt after one too many Gems!
So what else have we got? Well, the Evening Post article that we mentioned in our last newsletter is now available online at http://www.crackerjack.co.uk/node/3046. That article seems to have served us pretty well, and your comments that you’re glad to see the place so busy mean a lot to us (even if you lament not having it to yourselves any more...although weekdays are still pretty relaxed, and the full menu is available...do you see where I’m going with this?).
River music
Our open mic nights continue to delight us. A couple of weeks ago we found ourselves listening to H Club, a male voice choir who sang fantastic arrangements of Hello, Mary Lou and It Must Be Love. They brought the house down (and it was another full night), and our MC John Blake immediately suggested that we waive the two song limit so they could do another one. They then did a Bach fugue that was just wonderful (they’re part of the fifty-strong Great Western Chorus), which helps make our open mic a pretty rare mixture - we’ve now had blues, classical, country, 50’s doowop, hip hop, poetry, jokes, Stanley Holloway monologues, folk and magic. Come and see what you’re missing!
The open mic has led to the formation of a group called Coalition Of The Willing. Put together by James Slater and featuring some of our open mic regulars, it’s a loose band of up to nine musicians performing a mix of originals and covers. People wander on and off stage to perform as required, but by the end everyone is up there giving it some, and you can see them play an afternoon gig on Sunday 15 June, starting at 3:00 p.m.
Straight Shooter blazed through Beeses a fortnight ago, and left a trail of rocked out bodies in their wake. To mark the classic rock occasion, Pa ensured that Yeovil Ales’ Star Gazer was available (anyone who doesn’t understand that probably won’t like this very much...). For those that did understand it and want more, Straight Shooter are back at Beeses on Friday 15 August. And for those that enjoyed the Star Gazer beer, that is also making a rapid return, along with British Summer Time, another one from Yeovil Ales.
And in your final piece of rocktastic news, a quick reminder that Andy Couzens is here with one guitar and 400 songs on Friday 20 June, and Rattlesnake Shake are here on Friday 4 July. The rest of the time, it’s gert quiet.
Lurve
Ma and Pa Beese
Beeses Bar & Tea Gardens
www.beeses.co.uk
www.myspace.com/beeses
Tel: 0117 977 7412