About

Our History

In 2005 Ian Dickson’s daughter Georgina was married and at the Wedding Reception all the well laid plans for the Reception fell into place apart from one thing – The Bar was dreadful!  Rickety old wooden structure of a bar, 2 hours late to open with a poor choice of drinks, understaffed with 2 scruffy barmen resulting in long queues waiting to be served and by 9.00pm they ran out of beer!

Anyone who knows Ian will understand that this didn’t go down at all well and over the next few months it festered in his mind.  Thus Prestige Bars was founded by Ian in 2006 to offer a first class bar service, using custom made modular bar units designed and made by local craftsmen to look like a ‘proper’ traditional bar, offering a wide range of high quality products, dispensed by well trained, uniformed staff without undue queues or waiting to be served.

The service was an instant success and a reputation for a reliable, high quality bar services was quickly achieved.  Around this time David Rampling started work for the company and has been Ian’s right hand man since then.

In 2008 Prestige were asked if they could tag on some catering to their bar service for a couple who had been to a BBQ at Ian’s house the year before and had been let down by their wedding caterer. This was successful and quickly led to hog roast machines being purchased, followed by big-pan-paellas, professional BBQs, portable rotisserie machine, several catering ovens, and eventually a full catering service was offered with our two chefs Andy and Dean leading a team and pushing the menus forward with their ideas and years of experience in high quality hotels and the Army Officers Mess.

In 2012 Prestige put in their first permanent bar at a wedding venue near Beccles in Suffolk and the role of sole provider of bar services was followed in 2013 by them being appointed sole caterer for the venue, Suffolk Weddings at Marsh Farm.

As the business continued to grow year on year it was decided that the infrastructure of the business should be brought into line with the increased level of business and Prestige Bars and Catering was formed with Andy and David both becoming Directors with Ian as MD. Also, to ‘keep it in the family’ Ian’s two daughters – one of which also works in the hospitality business with Baytree Pizza – are also shareholders.

The bookings continue to be extremely healthy and growing year-on-year with more venues and contracts and business than ever whilst continuing to offer additional new services to an ever widening base of clients.

Those barmen at my daughter’s wedding have a lot to answer for!