Jeremy Clarkson admits he was ‘wrong’ about new business venture
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Jeremy Clarkson has admitted he was “wrong” about his new pub after being warned over how difficult it is to make money in the hospitality industry at the moment.
The former Top Gear and Grand Tour host opened The Farmer’s Dog in August, paying less than £1m for the property formerly known as The Windmill, in Asthall, near Burford in Oxfordshire.
The popular reception for the pub echoes the success of Clarkson’s Diddly Squat farm shop, which attracts tourists from across the country due to its prominence in his Amazon series Clarkson’s Farm.
However, in an article for The Times, the 64-year-old shared some of the honest experiences he has had just a few months after opening the venue.
Clarkson claims that despite being warned about the high number of pub closures in the UK, how hard it would be to make money by having only a British food menu and finding staff post-Brexit, he believed “it’d all be fine”.
“I was wrong,” he says before going on to describe in detail an accident that one of his customers had in the toilets.
“No amount of festival visits would prepare you for the horror of what had been produced at the Farmer’s Dog,” Clarkson writes. “It was everywhere and in such vast quantities that no ordinary plumbing or cleaning equipment would even scratch the surface.”
He then admits that he had to hire “chemically trained hazmat engineers” to deal with the problem.
Clarkson says it is “galling to see how much effort is required to make so little money on the farm”, adding: “It’s worse at the pub. The customers are coming. There’s no problem there. But turning their visits into a profit is nigh-on impossible.”
On top of this, Clarkson also expands on the problems he has had with the pub’s Christmas tree, beer, turkeys for the festive season and even the neon “Farmers’ Clubhouse” sign he has outside.
However, despite saying that “everything is a total disaster” he does end on a positive note, claiming that top chef Marco Pierre White “was bowled over by how good the food is”.
He concludes by saying: “And it’s warm and there’s a fire and the staff are friendly and young and happy. It’s a proper, traditional pub. By which I mean you’ll love it, and I’ll lose a fortune and develop a skin disease from the stress of running it”
When he first opened the pub Clarkson said it was the next best thing after he couldn’t open a restaurant on his farm.
“We wanted to have that restaurant on the farm last year and we couldn’t, and pubs, they are all for sale,” he said.
“So, we thought instead of building a restaurant we would buy a pub.”
Clarkson has faced backlash over the years from locals in West Oxfordshire when he has attempted to expand his Diddly Squat farm project.
Some residents were concerned that the pub’s existence would cause local traffic issues because it is located next to the busy A40. But Oxfordshire County Council has said it has been working closely with Clarkson and his team to reduce the likelihood of traffic issues ahead of the opening.
