Just when you thought Jeremy Clarkson had finally waved goodbye to Diddly Squat Restaurant and his hospitality dreams, he’s back again with an ambitious new venture.
Writing in The Sunday Times, Clarkson revealed that he has purchased Cotswolds pub The Windmill - a 15th century barn near Burford in Oxfordshire - for ‘less than £1 million,' and plans to open it to the public in the future.
Clarkson said: ‘I decided last year that I’d like to buy a pub. So I called everyone I know who has one and they all said the same thing: the pub business is dying. They’re closing at the rate of more than a thousand a year. You would have to be mad to buy one. Insane. So I’ve bought a pub.’
Despite having to deal with a variety of initial problems - ‘a loft full of dead rats’ and ‘staffing issues’, to name a couple - Clarkson has agreed to host a wedding reception at the property in just a few weeks time.
So, what can we expect from Clarkson’s new pub when it opens to the public? ‘A place where I can go on a Sunday with my granddaughter for some gammon, egg and chips,’ he says in his Sunday Times piece. At the very least, the former Top Gear presenter promises ‘well-priced, British-grown food,’ with at least some of the produce likely coming from Diddly Squat Farm. He also plans to sell Hawkstone Beer - his own lager made in collaboration with Cotswold brewery Hawkstone, brewed using barley grown at Diddly Squat.
This isn’t Clarkson’s first go on the hospitality merry-go-round. Back in 2022 he opened Diddly Squat Restaurant in an old lambing barn on his farm, employing chef Pip Lacey to cook a seasonal British menu entirely from farm produce. Diddly Squat Restaurant was a short-lived success and shot to fame on Clarkson’s Amazon Prime show Clarkson’s Farm, but it was forced to close after a drawn-out battle with the local council.
In other restaurant news, read about the squatters that moved into San Lorenzo - famously the favourite restaurant of Princess Diana.