THE owner of a pub is opening a new restaurant this summer after the business became a big hit since he took over last year.

Adam Lakey took charge at The New Courthouse, on King Street, Stanford-le-Hope last July and the pub “is busier than ever” as customers rush through the doors.

Now, he is hoping to make the pub stand out among the crowd by adding grilled food and pub classics, with work currently underway to create a restaurant area.

As part of the project, an old storage room attached to the pub is being ripped out and transformed to create space for a kitchen and Adam is confident it will be ready for the start of August.

The 25-year-old hopes the restaurant will take his pub to the next level.

He said: “I opened the pub last year because I wanted to offer something different to the area.

“Since opening, we’ve been getting more and more customers and now with the Euros kicking off, we are busier than ever.

“That’s why this is the perfect time to open a new restaurant, because I feel like that’s the one thing we were missing.

“We’ve been doing well and beating the competition, we just need a nice place for people to sit down and enjoy their meal, separate from the pub.”

Adam has also revealed that the pub will be conducting several taster sessions for customers to gauge their interest and for them to get an idea of what food they could be served.

“We had a sort of restaurant earlier in our function room but that was too small and it never really worked,” Adam added.

“The new space can fit almost double the amount of people and it will allow us to offer a new dimension to our services.

“I am so happy and excited to welcome people to the restaurant. We are ready to go and can’t wait for the opening.”