A HEREFORDSHIRE pub has closed its car park to street food vendors on Sundays, after it realised it was missing out on profit.

The Oak Inn at Staplow, near Ledbury, posted on Facebook recently: "Over three months ago we made one of our best decisions ever and introduced our traditional pub grub menu instead of street food vendors in our car park. Sadly we were just busy fools with other people making money rather than us."

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The pub said that customers had been calling for food to be served in the Oak Inn rather than by vendors in the car park. The owners responded by deciding to serve pub grub on Sunday evenings instead.

It continued in its post: "This menu has taken the pressure off our busy kitchen staff after a fully booked Sunday lunch service every week. We've increased our Sunday night profits by over 25 per cent!"

The owners told the Hereford Times: "We found that by having street food vendors, we also had to provide some form of entertainment, hence extra cost for live music performances. So we'd have a packed pub eating their street food and more front-of-house staff to work just to serve drinks and tidy up their rubbish.

"We went back over the 12-month period as we know every week we're fully booked for lunch. Takings are the same up until before Sunday night service. So now every Sunday night after a busy service we have our traditional pub grub menu and it's been an instant hit!

"We've seen a steady increase in the number of covers and now on average factoring in wages and overheads, we are far more profitable. 

"The other reason is that customers have more opportunities to eat elsewhere if they want street food and when they come here they want our fabulous cuisine. There are not many places open on Sunday nights. However, we have come up with the idea of street food vendors occasionally on Saturdays."