Clarkson’s Pub on High Alert: Mysterious Scammers Prompt Ban and a £50,000 Conspiracy

Ever dreamed of running your own pub, basking in the warm glow of twinkling lights while you trade witty banter and pour out the perfect pints? Well, Jeremy Clarkson’s here with a pint glass full of cold, hard reality—and it’s not all foam on top. If you thought a pub was a sanctuary of rural bliss, brace yourself for tales of pinecone heists, bathroom break(outs), and customers whose complaints sound more like episodes from a medical drama than a night at the local . Why do we romanticize the idea of ushering out tipsy punters when it’s just as likely you’ll be ushering out chaos (and possibly bodily fluids)? Clarkson has some choice words and even choicer warnings for celebrities tempted to turn landlord—and a sharp suggestion for anyone carrying a long list of food intolerances. Still want to buy that country tavern? Tempting . Until you count the cost and, apparently, the cleaning bills. Curious to see what running a pub is really like—straight from someone who tried and lived to rant about it? LEARN MORE.

Jeremy Clarkson has been warning his fellow famous people who plan on opening up their own pub about the trials and tribulations they can expect as he said he was considering banning some people to avoid the hassle.

Many people will have considered the dream of running a pub at some point in their lives, likely imagining it to be a jovial existence of joshing with the regulars, pulling perfect pints and ushering charmingly tipsy punters out of the door after they’ve sufficiently wet their whistles.

Obviously the reality is far less idyllic than that, as Clarkson detailed in a recent column for The Times in which he noted that the actor Rupert Everett was supporting a plan to help keep a local pub open and ran through some of the issues he’d had since opening The Farmer’s Dog.

Clarkson did say he had a moment of ‘rural perfection’ there recently as he had a pint and pizza while his punters enjoyed some evening music provided by a band, but there’s bad to take with the good.

It’s the sort of bad which makes one wonder why they’d ever do anything which requires a level of interaction with the public, as Clarkson wrote about the woman who was sick down herself and then tried to hand the vomit to The Farmer’s Dog employees.

Thinking of opening a pub? Be careful what you wish for (John Keeble/Getty Images)

The column covered two dads who got into a fight because one of their kids stole a pinecone from the other child, the toilet door that had to be crowbarred open because the occupant couldn’t unlock it and the individual who ‘pebbledashed the walls with a gallon of diarrhoea’.

If you are currently eating, I do apologise.

However, Clarkson’s column warned mostly of people with food intolerances, as the TV presenter turned farmer turned pub owner wrote that he got lots of customers ‘who will claim after they left that you poisoned them and that you must now give them 50,000 of your pounds’.

He wrote that Rupert Everett also ought to beware of ‘food intolerance frauds’, claiming that other landlords have told him the situation is now an ‘epidemic’.

Clarkson recounted one incident of a woman who claimed she’d become ill through gluten because she’d been given beer rather than cider, though he added that the pub CCTV showed she was actually not drinking beer despite her claims.

Even beyond those he says are trying to scam him there are other people with food intolerances who get Clarkson’s goat as he wrote that ‘faddy eaters’ had his kitchen staff ‘jumping through hoops’ to make sure the dishes didn’t dismay them before ordering an ice cream for their dessert.

Clarkson it would be ‘commercial suicide’ to ban people with food intolerances, but they were ‘just so annoying’ (John Keeble/Getty Images)

“I’m seriously thinking of banning people with food intolerances. I know it would be commercial suicide but they are just so annoying,” the Clarkson’s Farm star said.

He’s already explained that The Farmer’s Dog is already a rather costly endeavour as his plan to have British only ingredients means they’re losing about £10 on each person who eats there.

Pubs are getting more expensive to run anyway as the cost of doing business piles up and many establishments don’t have the famous face to draw in the punters.

As if his problems with punters weren’t enough already, Clarkson also recently revealed that The Farmer’s Dog has been hacked to the tune of £27,000.

Clarkson says his pub was hit by the ‘same hackers who blitzed Jaguar and M&S‘, so that’s added to his pile of pub-owning woes.

Here’s hoping there’s a few more moments of ‘rural perfection’ to balance out the headaches.