Sammy Hardman
The Elephant Inn
It’s early. A cold Monday in January, but nice and warm inside. The first chores are done. Floors swept. Tables wiped. Deliveries checked off. The Elephant Inn is creaking and stretching like an old man rising from sleep.
Sammy is at his usual table. The one near the bar. Coffee in hand. Watching the door. He didn’t glance over. He didn’t have to.
“Figured you’d need one,” he said, handing me a black coffee without ceremony. His smile was quiet, confident, the kind a man wears when he knows he’s where he should be.
Six months in now, since he took the reins. The Elephant Inn, tucked into the quiet veins of North London. Not flashy. Not loud. But solid. Weathered brick and timber. The kind of place that breathes with the rhythm of its people. And Sammy, he’s learning the rhythm. Slow and steady.
He know the faces now. The way the regulars trickles in, always at the same time, always to the same seats. They greet each other with nods, mutters gripes about the government, the Americans, and shared praise for a bag of Japanese crackers like they were gold.
We talk about the old place - The Rising Sun, deep in the New Forest.“That place had charm,” he said. “But this… this is different. The city moves fast. Took some getting used to. But it’s feels right.”
“The best part,” he said, “is the people. Seeing the team grow. Pushing them forward. That’s the real joy. Like watching your own story repeat, only better.”
He’d started young. Fifteen, maybe. As a kitchen porter at his stepdad’s pub. “I loved it straight away. The heat. The movement. The madness. I did everything. Washed plates. Ran drinks. Asked questions. Always asking. I just wanted to be better.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned,” he said, “it’s to trust yourself. There’s a voice in there. Small, but strong. You’ve got to listen. Especially when it gets hard.”
Running a pub isn’t just taps and tills. It’s presence. It’s knowing when to lean in and when to step back. Reading the room. Feeling the weight of the moment. “There’s still a lot to do here,” he said. “The menu, the team, the bones of the place. I want to squeeze everything out of it before I move on to something bigger.”
He said “bigger” like a man already planning the next move. But he isn’t in a hurry. Builders don’t rush.
As the morning meanders toward lunch, talk naturally turns to food. Toi, the head chef, whom has been here longer than most can remember tells me to try Pad Thai and Tamarind Duck with her own sauce. I nod. Sammy sticks to his favourite Thai green curry with white rice, a warm and nourishing comfort against the January chill.
By then, coffee cups gives way to pints. Wine. The sound of chatter rises a notch. The pub began to stretch into its day. Sammy moves between tables like he belongs to each of them. One minute deep in talk, the next sharing a quiet joke. An old regular pulls me into a conversation about digital clutter. Phones, mostly. The nonsense we carry.
And just like that, morning gives way to afternoon. No fanfare. No rush. Just the steady beat of the place doing what it’s always done. Telling stories in the quiet way that good pubs do.
The Elephant isn’t flashy. It doesn’t need to be. It has roots. It has rhythm. And Sammy, with his steady hands and infectious smile, is right at the centre of it all.
