Pictured above: Richard Fletcher

This week sees the launch of a new exciting newly built bar extension and website, for a rapidly expanding Worcestershire Hotel Restaurant.

The Granary Hotel and Restaurant, located at Shenstone near Kidderminster will this week celebrate the opening of its new bar extension, with an equally new website, just in time for the busy Christmas period. Owned by local restaurateur Richard Fletcher who bought the Hotel almost 10 years ago, and has been investing in its growth ever since has spent over £175,000 on the extension to keep up with demand from his customers. Richard commented "Since we took over the Granary we have undergone an extensive refurbishment to add a little love back into the building and bring it up to the needs of modern travellers, diners, and events guests. We really have been inundated with bookings in the past twelve months, and it was clear we needed to separate our bar and restaurant so that our regular diners could visit us, without losing themselves in an event, and vice versa, so we have invested in an extension, new bar and separate restaurant entrance. We are so pleased we have brought it together on budget, and in time for Christmas - our customers are delighted"

Richard continued "It's amazing how rapidly the business seems to be evolving. Our website seemed perfectly adequate until recent months have put increased demands on the business and requests from customers to be kept up to date, so we have again invested in a  new website which incorporates 'social media' including Twitter and Facebook - I must admit, these are not things I am up to speed with, but our marketing support agency, and website builders Midlands based Leisure Marketing LTD have been fantastic on training us up, setting up our accounts and even 'tweeting' for us to great effect - we already have a good number of followers, and are currently running a competition to win meals in our restaurant for followers. It really has been a strong learning curve and great fun" 

James Day, director of Shropshire based Leisure Marketing LTD added "We are finding that there is an ever increasing need for Social media support in our industry due to the fun and social aspects of eating out - as a dedicated marketing support company for hotels and restaurants, we focus a great deal of our time on advising on new media, especially when we build websites, so our customers can embrace it and update their own websites - quickly and easily - The Granary have been quick to embrace the training and are clearly very pleased with the results - We have a lot more developments planned, and by all accounts so does Richard - so all I can say is watch this space, or even better follow us www.twitter.com/granary_rest" 

For more information on Leisure Marketing visit www.leisuremarketingltd.co.uk