River Garden Uxbridge - Making The Most Of Summer

Star Pubs takes a hands-on, community focused approach to supporting its licensees, providing practical advice and tailored guidance to help pubs thrive throughout the year.

Working closely with our licensees, we share the best practices aligned to key seasonal moments and events, ensuring pubs are well prepared and supported to maximise every opportunity. This includes everything from making the most of outdoor spaces during warmer months, to planning for major calendar occasions to enhance customer experience.

Recognising that every venue is unique, with different audience drivers, we offer tailored support to help partners maximise these opportunities and create great experiences year-round.

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For many operators, outdoor space can be powerful driver of footfall and overall experience factor. In our own case, it plays a vital role in the business, accounting for around 60 - 70% of our trade. That alone shows the scale of opportunity available. When used well, an outdoor area can become one of your strongest assets, encouraging longer visits and creating a more relaxed, inclusive atmosphere.

The opportunity can present itself in many ways, from a well-designed beer garden, a terrace or family focused area – even more seating areas gives the opportunity to maximise capacity and trade in a way that feels comfortable and accommodating to any occasion. It can also help futureproof your offer and set you up for other key trading moments across the year during warmer months, such as sport or family days out.

Our outdoor space today, accommodates around 700 guests, with 135 benches and features including a large double tipi. We’ve really leaned into being a family friendly venue, with dedicated play areas for children. All of this creates an environment where groups of all sizes can settle in and spend the whole day with us, from lunch right through to dinner, ultimately increasing dwell time and spend.

We’ve also developed designated outdoor areas for private hire, as this was an area we recognised was important to our guests, each hosting up to 150 guests. These spaces have been a great addition for parties and functions, giving people a semi-private experience while still enjoying the atmosphere of the wider venue.

When we first took over seven years ago, the space was essentially an open field with a few tables, no lighting, no play areas, no usable outdoor bar. Over time, we’ve continuously invested in improving it, focusing on making the space more comfortable, functional and appealing for guests. It’s all about the guest journey and thinking about what encourages people to stay longer and what comforts they need throughout their visit. Simple additions like festoon lighting, plenty of charging points and conformable seating all make a big difference, as do engaging play areas for families.

Food and drink have been key to making the outdoor space work operationally. We run a separate outdoor kitchen and menu designed specifically for the environment – being quick, high quality and easy to eat. We offer Greek gyros, salads and rotisserie chicken, with around

95% of dishes being grab-and-go and not requiring cutlery. Inside, we offer a more traditional gastro pub menu, but outside it’s all about speed and convenience.

Seasonal events have also played a huge role in driving footfall. Football tournaments in particular, like the Euros and World Cup have become major occasions for us. For big games, we bring in large screens, hosting up to 2,000 people in the garden. Last summer alone required significant planning, including additional security, ID scanning and fencing to ensure safety. These events have grown year on year and now we’re known locally as the go-to destination for them.

Key takeaways for operators, is to keep evolving. We look at ways to improve and refresh the space every year. At the same time, we’ve learned that simplicity is key, especially when it comes to food and drink. Trying to serve a full indoor menu outside just didn’t work - it slowed service and compromised quality. A streamlined, purpose-built outdoor offering is far more effective, particularly when you’re catering for around 500 people at once.

It always comes back to the customer journey. Walk through your space as a guest would and ask yourself, are they comfortable? Are there enough shaded areas or umbrellas? Is the layout intuitive? Small details can make a big impact.

And sometimes, less really is more. A slightly reduced and well executed menu, especially outdoors, can help you maintain control and speed up service.

Every venue is different – your approach should reflect your audience. This could mean BBQs, food trucks or family focused activities, it’s about tailoring your offering to your demographic. You won’t get everything right straight away, you will learn from mistakes along the way, as we did, but by learning and adapting, outdoor space can become a true asset.”

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At Star Pubs, our support extends across all aspects of the pub offer, from optimising menus and exploring drinks ranges with relevant suggestions that resonate with customers linked to key occasions. Where needed, licenses can also benefit from access to equipment discounts, alongside guidance on health and safety assessments to ensure venues run smoothly and compliantly.

In addition, we provide expertise in marketing and engagement, offering social media tips and promotional strategies to help our licensees amplify their presence, showcase their offering and drive footfall.

To find out more about how we are supporting our licensees this summer, check out the current MyStar magazine by clicking this link - https://mystar.pagetiger.com/mag2026Q2/