The Royal Oak Inn & Meerkat Retreat in the pretty village of Brockham, near Dorking, is believed to be the only pub in the UK where customers can visit for a drink and a snuggle with a meerkat. Landlord Chris Collier bought the pub when he suddenly found himself with seven rescue meerkats and was looking for a new business to run.
He said: “Meerkats became very popular in this country after becoming the mascot for Compare the Market and they have since been over-bred. I liked the idea of rescuing some meerkats and approached a few zoos in 2023. Then I suddenly got a call out of the blue a year later saying a man who had seven meerkats urgently needed them re-housed as he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.”
Chris saw online that The Royal Oak, which had a big pub garden, needed a new landlord and just two weeks later he moved in – with the seven meerkats.
“I really didn’t think it would happen, but everything fell into place. We had the Brockham Bonfire, which attracted crowds of punters on the first day, then the next day the meerkats arrived,” he said.
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