Jeremy Clarkson has announced a significant temporary closure at his Diddly Squat Farm Shop. The announcement was made on the shop's official website, alerting patrons that the business will shut its doors for January and February, with trading ceasing after December 29 until the break concludes.
A notice on the website's main page reads: "The original Farm Shop at Chadlington is closed for January and February. The pop up farm shop at The Farmer's Dog Pub is open Wednesday to Sundays, 10am - 4.30pm." The 'opening hours' section of the website adds: "We are open on the 27th, 28th and 29th December. We will be shut in January and February, reopening on 1st March." For the latest TV & Showbiz news, sign up to our newsletter.
However, Jeremy has not offered any reasons for this prolonged downtime. This development follows the recent closure of the Grand Tour tent at his pub, which was necessitated by damage from Storm Darragh. In the days leading up to the two-month closure announcement, Jeremy, who took over The Farmer's Dog in August, spoke to The Times about various hurdles he has faced with the establishment. He discussed the difficulty in making the inn profitable and described the appalling state of the pub toilets, saying: "No amount of festival visits would prepare you for the horror of what had been produced at the Farmer's Dog", reports Gloucestershire Live.
The presenter of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and former Top Gear host discussed the monumental challenges faced in keeping his gastropub running, which included dealing with a terrible plumbing issue that he joked necessitated calling in a specialist hazmat team. He said: "It was everywhere and in such vast quantities that no ordinary plumbing or cleaning equipment would even scratch the surface. So a whole team of chemically trained hazmat engineers had to be employed. That's a cost I'd never factored into any of my business plans."
Clarkson also added that patrons have been sneakily taking glassware from the establishment, further adding to unforeseen expenses. In his column for The Times, Jeremy outlined the financial burdens, stating: "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."
He said: "It's galling to see how much effort is required to make so little money on the farm. It's worse at the pub. The customers are coming. There's no problem there. But turning their visits into a profit is nigh-on impossible." In the midst of these financial struggles, however, the gastropub did receive some encouraging news with a visit from chef Marco Pierre White, who praised the pub's extensive menu. He said: "It's warm and there's a fire and the staff are friendly and young and happy. It's a proper, traditional pub. By which I mean you'll love it, and I'll lose a fortune and develop a skin disease from the stress of running it."
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