Something exciting is cooking at The Wheatsheaf

The Wheatsheaf in Oulton closed its doors over two years ago, but the village pub is being brought back into life in an unusual way.

Matt Wilcox from Stone runs an award-winning social enterprise called the Unity Foundation that provides opportunities for young people between 14 and 16 to achieve and develop into positive citizens, mainly through the arts, sport and cultural activities.

The Wheatsheaf’s kitchen is being used as a training base for students from the Unity School in Stoke-on-Trent, who are following a BTEC food science curriculum and learning to cook up a storm in the kitchen under the watchful eye of Niven Ziad.

The Unity plan for The Wheatsheaf is to operate as a teaching kitchen in the day, but then to open in the evenings as a community bar and restaurant. Matt Wilcox is looking for an operator who can work within the Unity ethos of community and ethical innovation to deliver the commercial aspect of the operation and to complete the vision for the pub.

A state-of-the-art professional kitchen has been installed, the first floor has been transformed into offices for Unity and the interior of the pub/restaurant itself is currently going through a major revamp and refurb ahead of reopening to the public. The outside has already been refreshed and a new entrance at the side of the building installed.

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For Matt, food and hospitality are a great way to engage young people. He said: “I’ve always been passionate about food and I’ve always thought that it’s a great way to teach young people so many important things. There are so many transferable skills that they can learn through learning to cook and learning to work in a professional kitchen.

“The young people we work with struggle with an academic, traditional education. I was the same when I was at school. I was suspended numerous times, I just wanted to work and make some money. I set Unity up in 2005 to help young people who are like I was as a kid to get a more vocational, bespoke education.”

The young people at The Wheatsheaf have already made an impact. In the run-up to Christmas they cooked and distributed hundreds of Indian meals to local businesses to raise money for a children’s charity. Cakes were made for the Oulton Christmas fair, too. Food they produce is used at the Unity School but Matt also wants any elderly or vulnerable people in the village who would benefit from a donation of food free of charge to get in touch with him (contact details at the bottom of this article).

“It’s so important that what we’re doing at The Wheatsheaf is at the heart of the community,” Matt said. “This is a really exciting project to reinvigorate a community pub in a totally different way.”

The final piece in the rebirth of The Wheatsheaf is to get it open in the evenings as a community bar and restaurant.

Matt said: “We’re looking for a reputable operator who believes in what we’re trying to do here at The Wheatsheaf. It’s a low-risk opportunity for the right person as there would be low rent and overheads and the opportunity to do something really special. The students would be involved in prep during the day for evening service, too, really boosting their learning experience and giving the operator a ‘workforce’ in the kitchen. The Wheatsheaf has a large car park and the refurb that’s going ahead at the moment is going to deliver a beautiful dining location.”

Anyone interested in getting involved with the exciting developments at The Wheatsheaf can email Matt at matt@unitystoke.co.uk or get in touch with us at jamie@alittlebitofstone.com

There are lots of great photos of the transformation of The Wheatsheaf on their excellent Instagram feed HERE