Our Story So Far

Pete Hardisty, owner of Hardisty Hospitality, has been in the hospitality industry for 20 years now. Initially Pete started off a glass washer at the Crown Inn at Great Ouseburn at the age of just 14!

 

At the age of 17 Pete left school and start working at the Crown Inn full time where he became an integral part of what became an award winning pub. He gained a huge amount of experience under two fantastic sets of owners but eventually the pub was bought by a pub group at which point Pete decided to move on, joining his old employer, Steve Balcombe, at the Victoria at Cattal.

 

Pete then joined his brother in Leeds who had setup an Estate Agency. After a period of 6 years at the Estate Agency, growing the business into multiple branches with his two brothers, their local village pub came up for sale in Aldwark, York. Having been born and raised in the village, the opportunity to get back in the hospitality industry and take on the village pub was just too good to resist.

 

In December 2013, the Hardisty Brothers bought the Aldwark Arms which had been closed for around 6 months. It was a huge task to take on a failed and closed business in a rural village and try to turn that around into what they had envisaged. Pretty quickly, the reputation started to grow quite naturally and the pub started to become one of the most popular in the area. Pete, at the helm of the business, was fully settled in within 12 months and not only was the reputation growing but so were the business levels…rapidly!

 

Over the next 7 years, Pete won numerous awards at the Aldwark Arms, received 5 star hygiene ratings on every EHO visit, grew year on year, managed a team of over 20 employees, ran hundreds of events including huge beer festivals and weddings, renovated the pub on several occasions and guided the pub through the COVID-19 pandemic. In the last year of business, Pete and his brothers decided it was time to sell the pub. With a baby on the way, the time had come to move on.