The Clarkson’s Farm star has shared the reality of running his Oxfordshire pub
Jeremy Clarkson has shared what happens behind the scenes of The Farmer’s Dog a year on since it opened.
The celebrity pub landlord, 65, said there has been “chaos on tap with faddy eaters, fights and customers’ filthy habits”. Even after showing the brutal reality of farming on his Prime Video series Clarkson’s Farm, he confessed running The Farmer’s Dog pub has been “harder than anything”.
Some of those chaotic moments, Clarkson said, are just “isolated incidents” like when a woman vomited in her cleavage or when two dads fought after one of the children stole a pinecone from the other. Others are not.
The Clarkson’s Farm series four finale captured some of the disorder happening behind the scenes of The Farmer’s Dog. Its opening weekend was hampered with many problems, including staff walkouts, water failing and the roof leaking.
Fast forward a year and the pub is still doing a roaring trade with The Farmer’s Dog employing 146 people. Many still queue to get in, from all over the world, even a year after opening.
With experience under his belt, the pub landlord has shone a light on the hard reality of running his Oxfordshire pub in his latest column with The Times.
Thinking of banning people with food intolerances
Clarkson claimed pub landlords have told him, “food intolerance fraud is now an epidemic”.
The former Top Gear host gave an example of a customer who claimed The Farmer’s Dog made her so ill she missed her holiday by giving her a beer with gluten in it instead of cider. Clarkson ruled he was “safe” because they had CCTV of the woman not drinking beer.
He confessed in The Times: “I’m seriously thinking of banning people with food intolerances. I know it would be commercial suicide but they are just so annoying.” Clarkson has joked about banning people from his pub before, including Keir Starmer and his friend James May.
Clarkson has put a lot of thought into food at The Farmer’s Dog as he offers a “proper English menu”. Thanks to Clarkson’s Farm, he has become a voice for British farmers and he only offers British produce at his pub, with the exception of G&T – this means no ketchup, Coca-Cola or avocados.
Filthy toilets
Pub toilets have never been glamorous, and Clarkson has shared a warning about how filthy the loos can get while running a pub.
In his column, he wrote: “Why so many people plainly do not know how to use them. It baffles me because if you are sitting down to do a poo, how do you then miss the bowl?”
The loos haven’t made it onto the Clarkson’s Farm series just yet — but there’s always series five or six, though.
Clarkson swindled out of £27k
Clarkson has spoken about losing money and theft at The Farmer’s Dog before. But not on this scale.
Pint glasses were one of the most stolen items from the pub last year.
Now Clarkson wrote in The Sun that The Farmer’s Dog was conned out of £27,000 last week after someone broke into the accounting system.
Jaguar Land Rover, M&S and the Co-op have all been targeted by computer hackers in recent months.
Good days
Being a pub landlord isn’t all bad news, though. Clarkson has said he loves spending time at The Farmer’s Dog.
He said he had found “absolute happiness” at seeing kids having fun and dogs lazing in the sun.
