A local pub in a popular Wigan town has been dividing opinion after putting out a job advert for a new chef to join its team.
With the hospitality industry currently experiencing high levels of staff shortages post-pandemic and amid the rising cost of living crisis, seeing job advertisements for new recruits in the window or on chalkboards outside establishments is a pretty common sight across Greater Manchester at the moment.
But a pub in Golborne has certainly grabbed attentions with calls to fill its latest vacancy.
The Queen Anne – which is a small family-run pub in the heart of the town on the border of Wigan and Warrington – took to Facebook last month to share that it was looking for a new chef to join its dedicated and “busy” kitchen team, and asked people to get in touch if they were interested.
The job advert was shared to Facebook alongside a photo of a chalkboard outside the venue.
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The pub says on its website that it “prides ourselves on serving good beer and great homemade food” and even claims to serve up “the best homemade food that Golborne has to offer”, so understandably, a chef is an important hire for the business, but one requirement the pub has for any potential applicants has got people talking – “no snowflakes”.
The advert reads: “Chef wanted. Please ask inside for details. No snowflakes please!!!”
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The pub elaborated in its call for the new staff member: “We are still looking for chefs to join our busy kitchen team, so if you want to be involved with serving and making the best homemade food that Golborne has to offer, are hardworking and not a snowflake, pop in and have a chat with us or drop us a message.”
The derogatory slang term ‘snowflake’ is generally defined as being an “overly sensitive or easily offended person”, or someone who believes they are “entitled to special treatment on account of their supposedly unique characteristics”.
Given the choice to include the term in the vacancy, The Queen Anne’s job advert seems to have split opinion online – with one person commenting on Facebook: “Snowflakes are taking over the world”, while another didn’t seem too keen on the recruitment tactics, and added: “I genuinely hope you find no one.”
Wigan pub divides opinion by asking for ‘no snowflakes’ in job advert for new chef / Credit: The Queen Anne
“Please define your snowflake,” another person questioned.
Another person also questioned whether or not the pub was “still looking” for applicants to fill the role “because they’re all snowflakes?”.
But offering some clarity on the situation and the decision to use the word snowflake in response to the criticism, Christopher Darnbrough – who is the landlord of The Queen Anne – told the M.E.N that they are simply looking for “a hard-worker”.
“Since the lockdown, we have had a lot of flaky people who don’t want to work and just breeze in and out and are constantly wanting time off,” he explained.
‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Benson Boone has announced a headline gig in Manchester – and it’s a big one
Danny Jones
American pop sensation and unrivalled king of unnecessary front flips, Benson Boone, has just announced his first-ever headline Manchester arena gig as part of a new arena tour.
The solo artist and acrobatic chart-topper has seen a meteoric rise in the US and, as is usually the case across the Atlantic, he’s become increasingly popular over here too.
Benson may have performed here in Manchester before as part of the 2024 MTV EMAs and for a small show at The Deaf Institute, but now big fans have the added Boone of getting to watch a standalone show at one of Europe’s leading indoor entertainment venues.
Announced on Friday, 30 May, the 22-year-old will be making his way across the pond from Washington for a limited run of UK concerts, with a date at Co-op Live arena being one of just five dates.
Extending his ‘American Heart Tour’ ahead of the release of his eponymous sophomore record, with this autumn leg, Co-op Live will mark his individual visit to 0161.
The Grammy-nominated artist has earned several nods of recognition already for his first album, Fireworks & Rollerblades, which was released just last spring.
He has been described as among the current trend of male singers who fit into the American Idol and ‘Voice audition pop’ genre (a term recently coined online), along with the likes of Teddy Swims, Shawn Mendes, Alex Warren and others.
Regardless of the slightly tongue-in-cheek term, he’s become a huge hit around the world and landing him is still a big coup for the venue that has already welcomed similarly massive pop contemporaries like Swims, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and more.
In case you’re wondering just how big a deal he is over in the States, even this early in his career, his domestic headline dates sold out in seconds, quite literally…
The last time he visited Co-op Live was to perform at the most recent MTV EMAs
Benson Boone is coming to Manchester on Monday, 27 October and will be playing just two other British venues: The O2 in London (two nights) and the Utilita Arena in Birmingham.
Safe to say you don’t want to miss this one if you like soaring vocals and lots of flipping.
General admission tickets go live at 10am on Thursday, 5 June, but Co-op Members can gain access via the arena’s official pre-sale window from the same time on Tuesday (3 Jun).
Emily Sergeant -
31st August 2022 
