In May 1969, Bernie Inns had plans passed for change of use of the premises from retail to restaurant and bars with full publican licence.
By the 1980s, Grand Metropolitan were the owners of Berni Inns. In 1989, they applied to change it back to retail, it then became a building society. The enterprise thus lasted twenty years.
The Wolsey Tavern together with the Bernie Steak House, Belgrave Gate and the Fish & Quart in Church Gate made up the three Bernie Inns in Leicester.
They were all the rage in the 1960s-1970s: prawn cocktail starters, followed by rump steak, chips & peas, finish off with Black Forest Gateaux, and washed down with a pint or two of Watneys Red Barrel in a dimple glass tankard. Even then we weren’t that daft, as a few pints of Shippos or Marstons had set us up to anaesthetise us in readiness for the Watneys.
Worked there in 1981 for a few months.