Two years ago today 24th September Jane and I bought Blackaddie. While it’s been a long two years and lots of things have happened in that time span, some good and inevitably some bad too, it has been worthwhile.
We’ve totally transformed the old place, and every day it looks better for it. While I had hoped to be further forward especially with the refurbishment (these things always take longer than one expects) I see that we have still achieved a lot when I look back.
We’ve increased business, we’ve won awards, we’ve got some great staff, we’ve completed some refurbishment, our food is going from strength to strength and thankfully so too is our service. The gardens are probably looking better than they’ve ever been.
To celebrate our birthday we are offering a two-day pre refurbishment break of Dinner Bed & Breakfast at only £72 per person per night, This is an incredible price for the value of food we offer and it’s even better than our 4 night rate!
To book call or email us and quote – Birthday Offer.
Offer ends 17th October 2009
Tags: autumn offer, Birthday, offer
At last the first phase of the refurbishment programme has been completed and it looks fantastic, even better than we had hoped for.
The restaurant has been completely re-vamped. Gone is the big tiled fireplace, and gone too is the useless cupboard in the corner replaced with an elegant arched alcove. We had the wood throughout the dining room and the hallway removed, that’s doors, door surrounds, skirting – everything, it all went off to be dipped then replaced and repaired where necessary. The years of paint that had built up had left no definition to the woodwork also all that paint had been applied to a varnished surface so just the slightest knock and it chipped. Now the wood looks fantastic, all its definition is back, the finish is stunning and the carpenters that did the work were better than we could have hoped for.
Everything was then redecorated, some new picture lights added, striking carpet and new curtains and the transformation was complete. While I would like to see the next phase, the rest of the ground floor, done before Christmas it may not be possible as I think we will have to close for a couple of weeks to do it and we do not have a clear two weeks between now and Christmas to fit it in.
The sooner the better though as now we’ve finished part one we just can’t wait for it all to be done.
The year is flying by it’s almost the middle of May already. Work started on the refurbishments on time and all is progressing nicely, sadly, as I’m sure is always the case; we will not quite be ready for the day we wanted to be. We had planned on the 14th being the big reopening but this has been put back slightly as we can now not get the carpet fitted until the following week, so it is now to be the 20th instead. It is going to look fantastic though.
Martin has started as assistant manager and is trying to get to grips with what we are doing and how we do everything.
The weather here has not been that good of late but it is due to get better I understand. The river is a perfect height and they do say that when the swallows arrive so do the sea trout, the swallows have been here for about a week now so with perfect water who knows, there may be trout about!
At last! Work is due to start on refurbishing some of the ground floor, Monday 4th May, we’re starting by redecorating the restaurant and hallway. While we really would like to do more at this stage it’s not possible. In order to refurbish the bar, library and conservatory we will need to close for a couple of weeks at least and the way bookings are at the moment this is not going to be possible until much near the end of the year. We’ve waited a long time so the 4th is going to be a special day for us, the 14th May however will be even more special as this is the day the works should be completed and our new restaurant will re-open for business. We already have new cutlery on the tables and a new wine list so once the new carpet is down and decorations are complete it will be like a completely different place.
There’s been a bit of a change around in staff too recently. Gordon in the kitchen when we took over here at Blackaddie has left us and gone to work in a small bistro in Sanquhar, Rebecca who came to us from the Linen Room in Dumfries back in February (our only serious competition food wise which sadly closed down in January) has also gone, she was missing her family too much and decided that she would move back home. In her place we have Martin who brings with him a wealth of experience and who will I’m sure help to take us to the next level and gain us even more awards. He starts like the builders on the 4th so the excitement of the 4th is even greater still.
Lately we’ve been getting some great press, we got a lovely write up in the Dumfries Standard a couple of weeks ago and we’re in there again today. Then there’s a great article in the Dumfries & Galloway Life about us too this month.
Many of our rooms now boast flat screen TV’s, the picture and television quality was never good and it’s something we’ve been wanting to improve for sometime and we got the chance of some new flat screen TV’s so jumped at it. Picture quality therefore is vastly improved and it also means we are ready for the digital switch over when it eventually comes to this area. Also many of the TV’s have built in DVD players, we have a small selection of DVD’s in our library for you to use next time you visit.
Although the river levels are extremely low at the moment, we’ve had no rain but beautiful weather for almost three weeks now, salmon have been seen and more importantly caught.
Spring has definitely sprung up here in our little corner of Scotland, daffodils and crocus’s everywhere and our gardener is beavering away in his greenhouse hardly coming up for air tending to his seedlings ready for another fantastic floral display later in the year. .
On the 1st March we were at the Scottish Hotel Awards dinner in Glasgow, a rare night off. Just as well we went to it though as we came away as winners of the Dinner Quality & Value Award and I was awarded a Gold Medal for Excellence!
The menu continues to evolve and the latest change is the breakfast menu. We have a new one, introduced just a couple of weeks ago it features alternative breakfasts such as:
- Marrbury Smokehouse of Newton Stewart Smoked Salmon with Scrambled Glenken’s Free Range Eggs
- Peat Smoked Fillet of Haddock Topped with a Poached Glenken’s Free Range Egg
- Scottish Rarebit of Loch Arthur Creamery’s Crannog & Dunsyre Blue with Grilled Plum Tomato
We also now have a new member of staff; Rebecca has recently started with us as Assistant Manager and has joined us from The Linen Room in Dumfries where she was Restaurant Manager. Sadly the Linen Room has now closed and as one of the very few good places to eat in the area we will all miss it.
We also have our cookery school about to start; we have set a dates of: 18th March, 21st April, 21st May, and 18th June for now but if you would like to come but can’t make any of these dates then let me know and I’ll see if we can fit another one in to suit. These classes are a demonstration followed by lunch of what’s just been shown. They are one day classes but you could stay over and enjoy dinner the night before or that day.
The river is now open for business as the fishing season opened on the 16th March. It is early yet but I have seen a lot of people out there with rods in their hands. While there probably aren’t that many salmon around there are plenty of trout and grayling to provide some sport.
