Northampton ale house reopens with beer-ordering app

St Giles Ale House reopened for business over the weekend, which has been described by the landlord as "very successful."

It comes as the pub launched a takeaway service in June which became a lifeline for the business after it was shut for ten weeks.

Landlord Terry Steers said his dad has helped to design a gateway system, which only allows one person to walk through the hallway to the garden.

He said: "On the whole our first weekend of opening for sit in drinks has been very successful and it was wonderful to see so many old faces again and lovely to meet some new ones.

"After our very successful takeaway service we had to totally rework how we do things. Being such a small venue created problem with anyone needing to use the toilet or get into the garden and still maintain social distancing.

"So I had my father, who is a retired electrical engineer, design a gate system that would stop anyone meeting in the hallway."

The way it works is the electromagnet gates are only released by a button if the other gates haven't been used for 12 seconds.

A doorbell has also been designed to allow access to someone wanting to use the toilet where an access gate is released by Terry who has a remote control behind the bar.

All customers have been told to sanitise their hands before entering the pub, a screen has been put up in front of the bar and a new bar app has been launched for ordering drinks.

The pub - which was was Terry’s life-long dream - opened in 2016 and has never played music but instead endorses the 'art of conversation'.

Currently the pub is still offering drinkers, who do not need to book a table to sit indoors, a cask ale and cider service where they can order 4 or 8 pint containers to takeaway.

This service is running alongside the opening hours of the pub from Thursday to Saturday, from 12 noon until 10pm.