Jeremy Clarkson has opened up on the true cost of running his £1 million pub. And it's not a pretty sight.
The former Top Gear man has in recent years swapped fast cars for tractors and combine harvesters as he took on the day to day running of Diddly Squat Farm in the heart of England's Cotswolds.
Creating the wonderful documentary series Clarkson's Farm to take us along with him on the ride, it has been one of the best shows on TV in the last half a decade as Jezza shows a more human side to him away from the bravado that comes with supercars, test laps, and annoying James May.
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For the upcoming fourth season of Clarkson's Farm, which is set to be released in May 2025, the 64-year-old Yorkshireman invested in a local pub.
Spending almost £1,000,000 on buying the venue and then a whole lot more in sprucing the place up, just like Diddly Squat Farm Shop it has become a tourism hot spot in its own right for those holidaying in rural Oxfordshire.
But away from the cameras and widely covered opening weekend of the pub, there is a reality that The Farmer's Dog faces.
And it's eerily similar to other watering holes around the country regardless of Clarkson's financial backing.
In his latest column for The Sunday Times, Clarkson revealed the investment has been 'a total disaster' as he explains what it has really been like.
"I’d heard of course that two pubs a day are closing in the UK and that 10,000 have gone since we all met up in the year 2000," Clarkson wrote.
"And I’d been warned about the difficulty of making money if I stuck to a strict British-food-only policy.
"But all of this advice, along with stern warnings about theft and the difficulties of finding staff in a post-Brexit world, had gone in one ear and out of the other. It’d all be fine. I knew it."
Well, it hasn't. It's been bloody expensive.
In his recent piece, former The Grand Tour presenter Jeremy revealed he spends £100 every single day on fuel for the pub's generator.
As for the terraced area of the pub, which is needed to cope with footfall demand, you're looking at an extra £400 a week to keep punters warm.
On top of both of these, Clarkson reveals he spends '£27,000 a month we must spend on parking and traffic marshals to keep the council off our back'.
A bit of quick LADbible maths brings that out at an average annual cost of £381,300 just for those three factors alone, never mind other associated costs such as wages.
"It’s galling to see how much effort is required to make so little money on the farm. It’s worse at the pub," Clarkson says.
"The customers are coming. There’s no problem there. But turning their visits into a profit is nigh-on impossible."
Things are made worse through insanely unique incidents too, such as the customer toilets being left in need of 'chemically trained hazmat engineers' due to punters' unruly bowels.
As with agriculture, we're sure the next few seasons of Clarkson's Farm will show us all we need to know on the real issues of owning a pub.
Topics: Jeremy Clarkson, Pubs, Money, UK News, Celebrity, Entertainment, Clarkson's Farm, The Grand Tour, Business, Cost of Living
Tom Earnshaw