Jeremy Clarkson has honestly delivered his verdict on whether buying his new pub in the Cotswolds has lived up to his expectations.
At the end of August, Clarkson opened the doors of The Farmer’s Dog – formerly The Windmill – to punters who’d travelled from all over the world to Asthall, near Burford in Oxfordshire.
From the get-go, Clarkson’s business venture has attracted vast crowds of fans, punters and even famous faces from Hollywood.
However, the project hasn’t come without its mishaps and controversies since it opened its doors, with Clarkson himself admitting he’s losing about £10 for every customer who enters the pub.
He’s also been honest about the bouts of theft that take place as fans try to pocket a keepsake while punters have taken issue with the establishment over its booking system over festive period and the price it charges for a steak.
But as The Farmer’s Dog enjoys its first Christmas period, Clarkson has opened up on what it’s been after a few months at the helm – and he’s claimed the whole thing’s been a “disaster”.
Jeremy Clarkson opened The Farmer’s Dog in August
PA
Writing in his latest column in the Sunday Times, Clarkson conceded he’d been rather naïve when he first purchased the pub.
He wrote how several people close to him had warned him against the idea due to the struggles to turn a profit, struggles to find staff, and struggles to stop people stealing from his establishment.
Clarkson admitted the warnings “had gone in one ear and out of the other” and in his column, he had three words to sum up the decision: “I was wrong.”
Delving into exactly why he’d come to that conclusion, his first example was regarding one of the members of staff phoning him hysterically after “she’d discovered that one of our customers had had a bit of an accident”.
The Farmer’s Dog is situated in Asthall just outside Burford in Oxfordshire
PA
Clarkson bemoaned the graphic and unsavoury scenes he was presented with before he moved on to another example of dismay – theft.
“The theft is extraordinary,” he penned. “People seem to have it in their heads that if they come in for a pint they are entitled to go home with the glass in which it was served.
“Last Sunday 104 went missing. And that cost must be added to the £100 a day we spend on fuel for the generator, the £400 a week it costs to provide warmth on the terrace and the £27,000 a month we must spend on parking and traffic marshals to keep the council off our back.
“And that’s before you get to the cost of employing people in Starmer’s Britain these days.”
Clarkson went on to compare the profit-making efforts at his farm as “galling”, before admitting that at the pub “it’s worse”.
And the festive season didn’t provide respite in the loss department either, with Clarkson revealing he’d bought 50 turkeys to sell at his pub’s accompanying butchers only to flog five in what he described as a “disaster”.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Then there’s the 50 Christmas trees he planted three years ago that he’s now complained are too big to actually sell to people in normal homes.
He summed up his latest analysis of the state of affairs at The Farmer’s Dog by saying: “Behind the scenes, then, everything is a total disaster.”
It hasn’t all been bad for Clarkson and the team at the Farmer’s Dog of late, however.
Earlier this month, the impact of Storm Darragh led to the farm shop nearby to be closed due to the damage. However, Clarkson and partner Lisa Hogan were applauded for their gestures and actions towards punters who’d braved the weather on the night.