The Cheltenham Festival brings in over 200,000 additional people into the town over the course of four days, with the vast majority flocking into the town’s bars & pubs.
What the general public doesn’t see is the huge amount of preparations that go into getting the local pubs ready for the huge influx of customers.
We spoke with Cian Murphy, one of the managers at (for this week only) one of the busiest pubs in the UK, The Moon Under Water on Bath Road.
“Coming up to race week it feels kinda different, nothing too drastic just a sense of what’s to come. Everyone is just mentally and physically preparing for the massive influx of work.
“But it’s not a completely negative thing, there is a lot of excitement and anticipation, it can become the hardest work you’ll do in the year, but at the same time it’s the best thing for bringing the pub together as a team,” Murphy explains.
Naturally, with the expected huge influx of customers, the pub has to stock up on more beverages than usual and it’s no surprise as to what gets stocked up the most! https://x.com/pintso_guinness/status/1899417244934799670?s=46
“Guinness, Guinness, and more Guinness. It is always the biggest seller for us. Prices at the races can be around £8 compared to ours being around £4, so by the time most people get to ours they go mental for the stuff,” he revealed.
In fact, racegoers go so mental for booze during the course of the week that he points out: “We have to change our staff room into a second alcohol porker, due to the amount of stock we need.”
With the week being much busier than your average week in Cheltenham, staff also have to take on more hours than usual.
“For this week I’m on ‘a 40 hour’, but that is probably not going to be the hours I finish on. For most of the bigger days it’s ‘can you start a little early?’ or ‘mind staying a little longer?’
“As a manager it’s something I have to ask all the time during the races, but unlike a lot of pubs I’ve worked at, Moon Under Water has the best staff community. We always help each other out and stuff like that – so at most you only pick up an extra 3-6 hours of work,” said Murphy.
This naturally brings up a few challenges for the pub, a few of which he explains:
“There is the sheer speed requirement of service, and the influx of customers also will lead to an over entry problem where we will have to close the front doors until a few people leave. These are not completely unique to race week, but during the races they have the biggest impact.
“I’d also be lying if I didn’t bring up the extra fights and problems. As with every celebration, there are always those that take it too far, but due to the extra bouncers we employ for the week as well as the extra police – it normally isn’t too bad to take away from the fun of the event,” he said.
So if you are heading out into town this week, please bare in mind how much work bar staff have to do and the sheer amount of prep they’ve done in the weeks prior.
So here’s one final piece of advice from someone who is a manager at one of the busiest pubs in the country this week…
“Have fun, drink responsibly and remember that moon under the water is the best spot to go!”
