A HEREFORDSHIRE pub has closed its car park to street food vendors on Sundays, after it realised it was missing out on profit.

The Oak Inn at Staplow said that it faced increased costs to put on its Sunday street food nights, where it allowed other businesses to serve food in its car park and would put on entertainment.

It said customers had been calling for food to be served in the Oak Inn rather than by vendors in the car park. The owners responded by deciding to serve pub grub on Sunday evenings instead.

This move, the pub says, has increased its profits on Sunday nights by 25 per cent.

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The owners told the Hereford Times: "We found that by having street food vendors, we also had to provide some form of entertainment, hence extra cost for live music performances. So we'd have a packed pub eating their street food and more front-of-house staff to work just to serve drinks and tidy up their rubbish.

"Now, every Sunday night after a busy service, we have our traditional pub grub menu and it's been an instant hit!

"We've seen a steady increase in the number of covers and now on average factoring in wages and overheads, we are far more profitable. 

"The other reason is that customers have more opportunities to eat elsewhere if they want street food and when they come here they want our fabulous cuisine. However, we have come up with the idea of street food vendors occasionally on Saturdays."