“I do love being the centre of attention”

,Patrick Minhard is the owner of Three Sheets to the Wind, one of Rochester's more eclectic pubs. Steven met Patrick at the pub whilst they were setting up for Sweeps festival to talk about running an independent pub in this economy, supporting local music, and why he has multiple surnames.

What is your name?
Minhart is my surname, but it's spelt M-I-N-H-A-R-D.

Are you known by any other names? 
I'm known by Paddy Cleary. I'm known by Patrick Engelbert. I'm known by Pat Hat as well.

Where did Patrick Cleary come from?
My great granddad. He was Irish, and his name was Cleary. But I started using it when I first started in bands. It was just having that little bit of distance. When social media started, having that little bit of distance that people would look you up. I'm not saying I've ever been famous, but I did have a couple of people who got too close. It's nice to have that distance. 

What is your official occupation? 
Well, I own Three Sheets To The Wind. I've been in construction for 20 years. I'm a fully qualified refrigeration and air conditioning engineer. I've been in bands for 20 years and also a promoter, and I'm starting an entertainment company as well. And the music studio as well, Ranscombe. I'm director of a few companies within hospitality, and I suppose the creative industry.

If that's not enough, do you have any other roles? 
Not at the moment, but I did run for council once, and I got asked to run for council again.

Was that at Medway? 
It was on the peninsula. When Mark Reckless defected, Vince Maple called me up and said we need someone to fill in this gap, you're from High Halstow. He said to me from the outset, “You're not going to win, but we need something to run.” I've got pictures of me wearing a sash and stuff like that. It gave me a lovely insight into how local politics works.

We wanted a front room, but I wanted somewhere to do music

How did you come to own the Three Sheets?
My uncle, Matt Harrison, was always going on about a pub. Probably about eight years ago, he was going to take over What the DickInns, which is obviously shut now. Me and my wife, who I'm not with anymore, were going to run it, but then Brexit happened, and me and her actually moved to Berlin. When covid started, my uncle was doing up a flat, and we were working on that, and after that, he went, “We should do the pub thing,” and then we just started looking for it. We looked at a few other places. We didn't really want as big a pub as this is. We wanted a front room, but I wanted somewhere to do music. Then we walked in here, and this place is amazing and we went from there really. Five years later, and we're here. 

Why is there an Austrian theme to it? 
Because I'm half Austrian. We opened this as a family pub as well. 
My mum basically, in the early eighties, went over there as a rep to work for Crystal Holidays, like a ski rep. My dad's Austrian. I was born in Austria, I lived there til I was ten years old. I grew up speaking both languages. I also speak quite a Tyrolean dialect as well, which a lot of people don't understand.
My idea with that as well is that I personally think the lagers we have here, they're always European lagers. They get popular here, they get taken over, then they start getting made here, and they're not great. I think there's a lot of people who can say they would lean away from drinking lager, for me personally what I thought was Stiegl is. Honestly, everyone tastes Stiegl, and if you don't like lager, you will like it. It's the most popular beer in Austria. It's still run by an independent family-owned company in Salzburg, which is not in Tyrol, where I'm from. That was my main thing. I wanted to bring really good beers and have a different slant.

You are also known as is a venue for music and supporting local music. Was that always the intent with the place? 
Always. Even before we found this place, we were looking to have a place where we can put music on, whether it's going to be acoustic or not. Then we took this place on, and we've got a great garden. Then we'd done the first Sweeps without the stage out there, and then we built the stage. I've got Sam Mitchell, who's the manager. He's been fantastic with the bookings. He managed to get Paul Foot in.

There's a thriving scene here

You have impressive comedy bookings. 
Yes, we're not just music. I'll go back to the local stuff. My idea was always to have bands on here. That was a big focus of mine. Paying artists fairly. I've been in music for 20 years while I've been in bands, and it's hard because sometimes I would go “I want that money,” but now I go “I can't pay you that.” I'm on both sides. I want to be fair, but also, I've got to say, “I can't do that. This is what I can give you.” 
The main thing for me is what we've done at underage gigs here. During the day, there's a really good scene again now. You've got a lot of bands. I manage two bands. Spider Baby, Angered Kenneth, which is my sister's band. Spider Baby, they're all young. Oliver Allen, who plays with Singing Loins and plays with Billy [Childish] as well. They're really good. And there's Mitchell Lane. There's loads of other young bands, we're trying to support that. They're actually over 18, but a couple of years ago, I just wanted to give them a place to play, a place they can come. Sam organised an underage day during the half-term. We opened the doors at two, and they could all come in until my license expires for that. I'm trying to do that, and I'm looking at different other things I can try and do. I think I'm at a point, without sounding like a dick, I've been in music 20 years, I've been signed twice, both times it's gone wrong, whether that's my fault… But I want to advise these guys and help them, not make the same mistakes. The music industry is not what it was. There's a thriving scene here, and I want to work together with other local businesses, other venues and create our scene again.

To pick up on the comedy, you mentioned Paul Foot, you’ve also had Tony Law and Sam Campbell.
Sam Campbell was literally this time last year. We're trying to get him again. We've got Iain Lee planned in. Paul Foot is coming back this year.

Has it been a challenge getting them to come here? 
100% yeah. What we try and do with the comedians is treat it as their warmup, because they are all doing a warmup. You see all these venues in London, and you'll get a tiny pub, and they'll have Romesh Ranganathan because they're doing a warmup. Paul Foot comes here because he's going to Edinburgh. Then once you've got Paul Foot, people go okay. Because obviously they all talk, and we spoke to Paul, and we're like, “Look, is there anything you can say?” It's showing them that one, they're going to get good money, we're not going to mug them off. We've had people ask, “What cut do you want on the merch?” Just do your merch, it's fine. I'm happy to have good people down, get known as a venue that can put this stuff on, that people from Medway can come and see, because there's not enough venues like that here, and make sure the artists are paid basically. That's pretty much it.