Starting Up with Robin Bayley @ Joseph Perks & Co

We are eight weeks in and the tiredness, caffeine-loading and constant organisation and reorganisation, has given way to something that must resemble routine in an industry like this.

Joe Perks and Co is now standing on its own two feet, serving (real) happy customers and beginning to fulfil the vision we had for the place. It’s not been without its hiccups, but what worthwhile enterprise is plain-sailing?

Creating a venue where people want to spend their hard-earned money is not easy; in fact it’s really hard.

There is so much choice available in this city and what can you do to differentiate yourself from all the rest, to make that extra five-minute detour off the Cowley Road worthwhile?

This is the challenge and one that deserves as much effort as any other aspect of the business.

At Joe Perks and Co, we want to do things a little differently and continue doing things a little differently. We have recently started hosting our house blues super group Brotherhood Of Mack every other Thursday, as well as having our house DJs playing vintage rock ’n’ roll, funk and soul every weekend.

There’s a house piano and board games to accompany our awesome coffee, cocktails and craft beers.

We love hosting parties, meet-ups, societies and meetings (as long as you’re well-behaved!) and can even create special menus for groups who ask nicely.

When it comes to our food offer, we wondered how we could be different to other Oxford venues (initially there was to be no food).

The first no-brainer was to dispense with crisps and replace with flavoured popcorn... how does whisky and macchiato flavour or blue cheese and celery sound?

We then sought a hot food to serve the hungry punters and came across Big Apple Hotdogs in Shoreditch. After convincing them to supply us with their award-winning dogs, we wanted to go a step further and support local food suppliers too. The brainwave came at a street food festival run by Bitten Oxford (we have also been running a Joe Perks hotdog stand at outside events): why not collaborate with Oxford-based street food vendors to supply delicious toppings for our hotdogs?

We currently have The Shredded Meat Co supplying their sublime pulled pork and have our next two monthly collaborations lined up with The Wandering Kitchen and Chilli Boo Chan.

Last but not least are the drinks, and how do we make these different? We decided not to be radical and stick to what we do really well: keep them fresh and ever-changing. Our cocktail menu is about to have its first facelift (the plan is to refresh it every three months) and we have just launched our winter warmer hot drink list that includes Hot Buttered Rum, Chocolate Mint Toddy and a Great White Russian (plus the usual mulled wine and cider).

So that’s where we are after eight weeks, and reading this back, we might be pretty close to the bar we envisaged. The work won’t stop but that’s the way we like it.

TRY IT
Joseph Perks & Co, 76 St Clements Street, Oxford
joeperksandco.co.uk 01865 251431

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